Thanks to your encouragement I decided to call Marriott again this afternoon, since it's been 7 days.

The first rep had no idea what I was talking about and insisted that I had to wait until 12/31, which is the last day of the challenge, to call back. I realized there's no hope here and ended the call quickly.

Then I called again, and this time it was answered by a much better rep. After I explained my situation, she checked my stay history and immediately upgraded my account to Platinum Elite. The entire call took 15 minutes, waiting included. Although she said the new status should be seen online within 10 minutes, it took about 8 hours for my account to be updated. Needless to say I was anxiously logging in and out during these 8 hours, but this is already the most pleasant experience I've had with Marriott in 2018.

A note to other people calling Marriott with platinum challenge issues: reps have extremely inconsistent knowledge of the promotion. If the one you got has no clue about anything, don't even try to push for supervisor or a ticket (which will never be dealt with). Every time I asked for a supervisor, the rep just puts me on hold and go talk to whoever's in charge, which results in frustratingly long calls. HUCA immediately and you'll eventually get a good one.

I was Gold already when I started the challenge and today I was upgraded to Platinum Elite. Unless their T&Cs changed since September, having status (Silver or Gold) shouldn't be an issue.

So I have two quick questions.

1. Can I start the challenge in January, before my status drops to gold, on Mar 1?
2. Does the status year count towards LT status?

Thanks

After completing my 16 nights, I was automatically upgraded to Platinum!

if one booked 2 room for 1 night, does it count as 2 nights or 1 night? thanks

Should be only 1 night. I think SPG used to allow elite nights on all rooms (up to three maybe), then Marriott changed it to just one. You can still get points on other rooms, but not stay/night.

If you still will be in that situation, please let me know if it will have been counted towards the status.

And the other way around: has anyone encountered having an overlapping stay on the start of the challenge. I.e. Thinking of starting the challenge beginning next year, but having a stay from dec 29th to jan 4th, I wonder if all the nights would count, as I'll be checking out after the challenge start?

Challenge is back on Jan 4th 2019
 

Spoke to a rep who did some digging and looks like the challenge is back tomorrow Jan 4th. She said a note was sent around about some sort of delay in the challenge but that starting 4th of Jan 2019 they will start enrolling again and any challenge completed would bestow status through 2020. However award nights are not included.

This 6 nights + 10 nights wih meeting is not meeting 16 nights for platinum. There's been on forums before, to do like that.

Should it show somewhere in my profile that I am on the Platinum challenge? I am new to all of this status stuff (but trying to learn quickly), but when I sent in the email originally I got a response saying to call a number and enroll. I did that, but for some reason the rep on the phone said that it would not allow her to enroll me that day that it would be done automatically for me the next day. I'm not sure what the problem is but the next day I called in and it was pretty clear that I wasn't even in the challenge, and so I enrolled again. I asked to get an email confirmation based on what I've read here and was told I would get one. I have not.

Now in this couple of days time, I have stayed one night at the Marriott. That stay is not showing up on my profile nor are the points (Stay: 1/3-1/4, it is 1/7 now). I have the print out receipt from the hotel that has my member number on it so I'm just curious if I am doing something incorrectly?

No, it will not show anywhere that your challenge is active. And there are no email confirmations either. The only way to confirm is to call again, and figure out if you can trust that agent.

As long as your registration, if a rep said that he/she successfully enrolled you, then you should probably be fine. My experience with Marriott CSR is that anything that "will be taken care of at a future time" is pure nonsense, but when they say something's already processed over the phone it usually is.

Your stay could be just a delay. I'd wait a few more days before calling the hotel to track it down. Doesn't sound like you're doing anything incorrectly.

Thanks. As I woke up this morning and checked, there it was - my stay and points. I am keeping all my receipts and reservation emails just in case.

One more quick question, if I may -- when I started this challenge I was a Gold Elite member, and the challenge was for 16 stays in the next 90 days to get to Platinum, but now I'm hearing that that's the reward for any member regardless of starting status level (?).

Thanks again for your help.

On December 20th was automatically upgraded to Platinum after 16 stays.

Is it okay if I'm booking rooms directly on Marriott.com using publicly available discount counts like the one for AAA, if I have a valid AAA card? I wasn't able to find too much information on whether or not it had to be a "full fee" room or not and don't wanna get to the 15th night to find out I messed it up.

Thanks,

AAA rates, and if I'm not mistaken, other valid discounted rates are all qualifying nights.

For the most part, it seems that is correct. Any member will qualify for Platinum challenge. Thought note that from the start of this thread, there were many conflicts in the terms of this challenge, so a few people may have been told different.