In the final 6 months of 2004, I had roughly 50 nights in Marriott properties. I called to inquire about the rolling upgrades and they instructured me to submit a request for upgrade when I had 75 nights within a 12 month period. In February, I accumulated the necessary nights and sent an email to [email protected] requesting the promised upgrade. They immediately upgraded me to Platinum, effective through the end of 2006.

So, from direct experience I can tell you that they upgraded me based on rolling 12 month history, but I had to manually request the upgrade. I would suggest submitting a request via the email listed above as that is what worked for me. Good Luck and be sure to let us know the outcome.

Seriously? OK, here we go...

Every two weeks, they will do a systematic search for the last 12 months. On January 15th (to pick a date), they will count your total nights from 1/16/2005 to 1/15/2006. On January 29th, they will count your total nights from 1/30/2005 to 1/29/2006. On February 12th, they will count your nights from 2/13/2005 to 2/12/2206. Repeat ad nauseum. If you have 50 nights accumulated in that 1 year period, you will be granted status.

This is an "unofficial" change. I.e. , an unpublished benefit. Thus, the *official* policy is on a calendar year. So, on 1/1/2006, the *official* counters get reset to zero.

I will leave to Chris to (re-)confim his statement, but the logic behind it really doesn't seem that hard to me.

I apologize. I guess I'm wrong then.

I appreciate Chris' input but I do not take his participation as a substitute for MR CS. Would his interpretation trump a supervisor at MR? Do I tell a Front Desk Supervisor to check Chris' post on FT?

I'm "old school." If I have an issue or question, I'm gonna call or e-mail and get a direct, personal response. Much easier to track and apply. YMMV.

I guess if you can't trust an official Marriott rep here at FT, you can't trust anybody.
In my mind, if Chris says it, it's true. I'm also trying to figure out why this policy is sooo hard to grasp.

FWIW, I agree with CPRich's interpretation. One has to keep in mind two things:

1. If your stays are exactly at a 12 month interval and will only count up to the requisite 50 or 75 nights for a few days, then there is the chance that when the MR program looks back at the last 12 months, it may not catch your 50 or 75 nights. Make sure that you have 50 or 75 nights in the previous 12 months for more than a two week period and it should work fine.

2. This is an unofficial policy, and as such you can't complain to anybody and it could disappear at anytime for any reason. One reason could be that people start viewing unofficial policies as a sense of entitlement. If I were Chris and other MR Execs reading this thread I might well come to the conclusion that this trial/unofficial policy has opened up a whole can of worms that they don't want to deal with; and they may decide to get rid of it like they did the original rolling 12 month program back in the late 90s.

My advice is be grateful for both this unofficial policy and Chris's participation on this board, and don't cut the qualifying nights too short and the unofficial policy should work for you.

Thanks aaupgrade. Easy enough for everyone?

I do have an additional question about this, when does status earned this way expire (same question I have on HH and it's never really been answered over on the Hilton forum)? Does it expire 12 months from when you get the required number of nights in the rolling 12 months or does it expire in February of the year after getting the status?

When you achieve an elite level the status is good for the remainder of the calendar year, plus one more full year. For example, if you had 75 nights from 5/1/05 to 5/1/06, you would be a Platinum member for the remainder of 2006 and all of 2007.

Once the Platinum level has been achieved it must be renewed with 75 nights in the full calender year. Referring to the example, you would need to stay 75 nights in 2007 or your status would be Gold for 2008. Something to keep in mind, however, is that if you were downgraded to Gold in 2008 you would be eligible to achieve Platinum again on the rolling calender year, so the interruption in status could potentially be very brief.

Chris
__________________
Chris Janecek
Marriott Rewards
[email protected]

If someone were to receive status based on the rolling year early in 2006 (say January or February), would you in fact receive status for the remainder of 2006 and all of 2007 as stated? Wasn't sure if there was a cut-off date early in the year to receiving a membership card with a "February 2008" expiration.

Also...it appears that a Plat is downgraded one-notch to Gold the following year even if he or she does not hit 50 nights...is that correct?

The answer to the first question seems to be yes. Chris said nothing about a cutoff date.

Marriott does seem to reduce people only one notch per year, so a Plat would go down to Gold even if they didn't meet the 50-night requirement. But that's just a practice, not a published rule. It may not apply in every case.

Bruce

Some good points from all in here. I have not really thought about tipping the housekeeping staff, but a few bucks seems to go a long way.

OK, I always thought after first qualification with Marriott a calendar year was a year was a year, and was suprised by your post, which I think says moving to the next tier is continues to be on a rolling year basis. Perhaps I misread your post, but it does not seem to reflect what is happening with my MR account. There are several similar threads running on this board, and I don't think I'm the only confused person. Let me describe what is happening with my account and solicit you comment in hopes it helps us all understand.

I didn't get back to gold in 2004 (or even that close). After a measly night or two in January 2005, my gold card self-destructed and I was black to flashing silver at the end of February. Almost immediately I received a quick requalify offer that soon got me back to gold. Heaven smiled and to my suprise I got back over 50 nights for 2005, thanks to a couple of very unexpected, last-minute trips.

27 nights have already posted in 2006 with a few more in the mill. By my math on a rolling year basis I'm 75+ since 3-1-2005, but nothing is changing in regard to being annointed platinum (or nights quoted online as needed to get there). I'm not asking for special favors or wanting to burn a once-in-a-lifetime comp here, but should I being expecting a computer sweep to burp up a platinum card soon? Do the night or two in January 2005 ruin the rolling year thing, or do the nights I used on the quick requalify not count towards 75? (or am I just not patient, or is it really a calendar year (period) once you are with the program)?

Deleted. The fingers are faster than the mind.

First of all, my apologies as I am not Chris. And while Chris is the only one who can really speak for Marriott, perhaps I may be able to shed some light on how this works as I understand it.

Second of all, perhaps tonight will be the charm. From the various posts here on FT I seem to recall that someone posted that the program that checks for rolling tier qualification runs every other Saturday. If that is the case, then if it runs tonight your account should reflect Platinum status on Monday maybe. However, if the Saturday on which it runs is next weekend, then you would need to have 75 nights for the previous year relative to Saturday, March 4. So if you have 76 nights from March 1 2005 to now, and 3 of those nights are on March 1-3, 2005 then you would not have the requisite 75 nights to qualify for Platinum if the rolling qualification were run on Saturday March 4. The downside to this process is that while one can attain 75 nights within a year's period, one needs to maintain that 75 nights for as much as 3 weeks in order to guarantee that it will be caught by the rolling tier qualification program that runs every 2 weeks. The extra week accounts for normal posting delays for stays.

OK, that is my guess based on the information provided by Chris that MR accounts are checked every 2 weeks. While this is a very nice gesture on the part of Marriott, it is NOT OFFICIAL POLICY, also as stated by Chris. As such it can disappear as quickly as it appeared, and there is no definitive documentation as to the details of how it works. Also since it is not an official policy, there is no one with whom you can speak to ask questions. So we end up with best guesses. I hope this was at least a little helpful. Good luck.

This is very interesting...in effect it means renewal is also almost on a rolling calendar basis...say take my case as an example, I have ~15 nights Jan-Feb 2005, 50 nights Apr-Dec 2005, and now already 25 nights this year up till last week in Jan-Feb 2006...so, I am expecting to get downgraded to Gold on Mar 1, 2006...but then when the next bi-weekly system search happens after Mar 1 after I become Gold, I will be upgraded back to Platinum with my 50 nights (Apr-Dec 2005) + 25 nights (Jan-Feb 2006)...yes, there might be a short interruption in my status, but this is at most 2 weeks only...

am I understanding this right ? thanks.