Had a one-night stay checkout on 1/24, the bonus night just posted, and with that, officially Globalist (lite) with 30 elite nights in 2021 (10 credit card sign-up, 2 from meeting $5k spend on the card, 18 from 9 nights). Still have 4 pending from the card (about to hit $15k) as well as 4 from another stay in February. Will easily get to 40 ... now wondering if I should do a couple of cat 1 local stays to try to get to 50 or 60 earlier.
The Cat 4 for hitting 30 nights interestingly expires in 6 months (8/2021) despite my 2020 awards expiring 12/31/2021 after the extension.