An airplane is not a hotel with wings. Different programs have different rules. However, not so long ago it was more common for hotel programs not to give elite night/stay credit for award stays (although they may have been more likely than now to give credit for third party (OLTA etc.) bookings. IIRC SPG started counting award stays when the four tiers of Plat were introduced (and Ambassador became an official published tier and LTP was introduced) while Hyatt started counting award stays when HGP changed to WOH.