tarheelnj

Closing in on 600 nights and lifetime Plat. Wish the 5 Elite Night Credits counted toward lifetime, but alas...

Five Elite Night Credits

1. Upon an eligible Platinum Elite or Platinum Premier Elite Member selecting the Five Elite Night Credits as his/her Annual Choice Benefit, the Member will have his/her Member account credited with five (5) bonus Elite Nights which count toward earning Elite status only. These bonus Elite Nights do not count toward Lifetime status. Elite Nights and Elite Membership status are subject to the Program Rules in section 4.2.b.

JBord

This question may be answered somewhere, but didn't read through the whole thread. I'm at 53 nights now, but it's possible I won't make the 75 this year. Can someone please confirm this strategy will work?

Wait to choose my 50 night award. If, in early December, I'm going to make 70 but not 75, use the first award to take 5 elite nights which will get me to 75. At this point, I should be eligible for the next award and I select SNA's or whatever.

If I'm going to make 75 anyway, I can just select 10 SNA's instead of 5.

Am I misunderstanding anything about how this would work? Thanks.

itisme

kaizen7

You dont have to select your 50 night benefit straight away.
I believe you have time until certain date in January next year to select the benefit before Bonvoy automatically set these to 5 SNA.

So your plan for wait until December and select either 5 elite nights or 5 SNA based on you night count will definitely works.

cfischer

correct. Even if you select in 2020 you still get Elite night credit for 2019. Should work w/ no issues.

lainys

The waiting strategy worked for me last year (2018). I made my 70 night award choice of 5 elite nights after Thanksgiving once I realized I was done travelling for the year and didn't want to MR the remaining 5 nights to reach 75. You need to decide if a mattress run for 5 nights is worth 5 extra SNAs (or another elite choice benefit) to you.

JBord

Definitely. That's the question in my mind, and I doubt they are. And I'm not sure Titanium is worth that much more than Platinum either. Titanium with 5 SNA's is still greater than Platinum with 5 SNA's though if the cost is the same. I don't think Titanium with 10 SNA's has much of a monetary value to me. Most of my stays are for work, usually 1-2 nights at a time, don't spend much time in the room so they have no value for those stays. Vacations tend to be at Marriott only when it makes sense. I had 5 SNA's this year and have used 3 with no plans for the remaining 2, as our upcoming vacations are boutique hotels and Airbnb, and not the type of vacations where we'll be spending much time at the hotel anyway. I'll probably just apply them to a random year-end stay rather than lose them.

If I happen to hit 75 nights without applying the benefit, I suppose I'll take the 10 SNA's, although I may consider 2 different benefits.

margarita girl

Titanium gets you 75% elite bonus rather than the 50% bonus Plats get, so worth it IMO.

JBord

Yep, I'm not saying there aren't additional benefits, but we all assign a personal value to them. I typically hold about 500k points in my account. This year I've spent points on two vacations, am not staying at Marriotts for the one big remaining vacation we have planned, and have a little over 500k now. I don't feel a burning need to acquire more points. Most of my years were spent at the 50 night level (I'm LT Plat) so I understand the earn rate well at that level.

I'm certain you're correct, the additional points may be of much greater value to other people.

Of course, now that I've written this, next year we'll decide we want to stay in an overwater bungalow somewhere in the South Pacific.

Oxon Flyer

I have a colleague who is currently Platinum, on 70 nights this year. When she passed 50 nights, she got the email inviting her to choose the annual benefit (5 SNA's, 5 elite night credits etc), but hasn't selected anything yet.

She has a long paid stay coming up shortly which will earn a quite lot of points. She is asking, if she selects the 5 elite nights right now to bump her nights up to 75, will they credit immediately so that, for this next stay, 1) she will be Titanium and 2) she will earn elite Bonus points at the 75% rate instead of 50% ?

tomwhom

tomwhom

Intl359Widget

That is excellent news and makes me more inclined to choose the 5 Nights to get closer to Lifetime Silver...

ftrichard

What's the chances that this policy change is a result of how the IT was implemented and it was easier to rewrite the policy than change the IT?

I agree that this will increase the number of people choosing the five qualifying nights because it will get you to your next lifetime quicker over the years. Certainly swings it for me over SNAs which are largely useless in Asia because of the upgrades I get anyway. I'll still take the free night at 75 because it has tangible value.

margarita girl