Hi Everyone,

I'm coming over to Marriott from Starwood due to a project site without Starwood properties, and had some questions about qualification.

I will be giving 120+ nights to Marriott so I will obviously qualify for Platinum, but I want to make sure I qualify as early as possible.

I saw visa has a card which will give me 15 elite nights, but since I am starting now with ZERO Marriott stays, I was planning on waiting until January to apply for this card. However, after reading the forum, several posts have lead me to believe there is rolling qualification but I could not find any all encompassing posts on the topic. Will the 15 nights + the ~20 nights I earn this year carry to 2010 if I go ahead and apply for the card now?

Basically I want to make sure I'm not screwing myself by applying for this CC too early.

Also, I am going to pursue a status match/challenge from Starwood, but want to have as many elite nights as possible in case that doesn't come though, or I don't meet the challenge this year due to holidays coming up.

Thanks!

Marriott does have rolling qualification that is checked, to my knowledge, at least weekly. It is technically unpublished and not provided on the Marriott website, but as you can find on Flyertalk, pretty standard and repeatable. I myself got Platinum once because of it.

As for when to get the credit card, I don't think it matters too much if you are going to be staying regularly. Just be aware the 15 nights will pop every year at that time. I would just get it right away because the 5x points you get per $ would out weigh this in my opinion. You would be giving up a lot of points depending on how long you wait.

Cheers.

No, you won't have any issues with getting the CC now. Marriott does use a rolling 12-month calendar for achieving a higher elite status.

Also you might want to check which Megabonus promo offer you have. I do believe there is one version that has double nights. If you have that one, you can rack up even more nights this year (and they will count for 12 months after you had the stay.) Marriott does have a "Roll-over nights" promo going on. This means that any nights beyond the elite level you achieve this year will count toward your elite status for all of next year (rather than for just 12 months beyond when you achieve them.) But considering that we are in the last quarter of the year and you want to achieve Plat quickly, I don't think the Roll-over nights promo will help you.

thanks for the input!

As a Marriott nothing with 0 lifetime stays, my megabonus offer is 2500 pts/stay.

"Promo"?

I was under the impression that this was now a permament feature of Marriott Rewards.

The rolling elite qualification window is ongoing, albeit unannounced. The rollover nights promotion where elite qualification nights earned above your elite threshold roll over to the next qualifying year is just that: a promotion that was limited in duration.

I have 65 nights so far and they are all since March. So if I stay additional 10 nights in Jan, will I get Platinum (until Feb 11)?

Yes, assuming you are not already Platinum elite.