Generally, if you just call up the Golden circle hotline, the responses are exactly by the guidebook. However, I've found they're not as strict on the need to have stays at multiple hotels in order to be executive or elite. For example, if you stay reguarly at one particular shangri-la, speak with the people at that hotel and ask them to push Golden Circle in HK to give you the relevant status even though you may only have stayed in that one single shangri-la all year. I managed elite status after clocking up 25 stays at one single shangri-la. In fact, from staying so often at that one hotel, I was treated better and given more benefits than the published elite levels!