Status change to Platinum - Any valuable offers before March 2002?
 

My status was changed to Platinum on November 3rd. Would I receive an updated packet before next March? If so, would it have offers that expire end of the year?

Thanks.

Maybe.... you are right at the tail end. I Qualified for gold in october and got the packet, but hit Plat in early december, but never got anything until march with the new year packet. They have a 3rd party that does their membership fullfillment requests and after a certain date, it's nada. Plus there isnt anything except your card, 2 luggage tags and alaska airlines upgrade certs. So don't sweat it....

They must be making more cutbacks...I made Gold last month and only received 1 luggage tag (plus the other stuff). Received 2 when I made Silver. Not a big deal to me, though.

I don't know if NW will mail anything (my status also changed from Gold to Platinum this month) - but I am going to investigate if I can qualify for free elite status at Hyatt. Their literature seems to suggest that it is possible for Platinums.

PG - Call Hyatt at 1-800-30 HYATT and reference code NWPE2, this is for plat members to get the upgrade to Hyatt Plat status.

Thanks for the info. I don't have any upcoming Hyatt stays and would like to defer the comp until I have a stay. Does Hyatt give a comp for a calendar year or is it for 12 months? Also would NW offer this perk next year also?

Last year Northwest/Hyatt had an offer for NW Platinums that gave Diamond status at Hyatt. Unfortunately it turned out to be only for the remainder of the calendar year.

As for next year, who knows? I'm VERY curious what changes the airlines and hotels are going to do for next year.

PG - It's for the calander year, but I have been comped 2 years in a row due to my status on NW, so unless Hyatt leaves the NW program, I don't see any problem with getting comped next year either.

Thanks for the information.

On another note, does NW publish statistics on # of elite passengers in a geographic location? The reason I am asking this question is that I have both UA 1K and NW Platinum for 2002 and I am not sure whether I will be doing 175K miles next year. Since I am based in SFO and fly to middle of the country quite often, both NW and UA are equal since it is most likely a 1 stop service. Given the # of 1K's in SF, some times upgrade does not come through where as I have had 100% upgrade thus far with NW, hence interested in understanding the probability of upgrades and statistics is one way of looking at this.

Thanks.

As a gold and previously silver I have always (100%) been upgraded to/from sfo on domestic flights. The exception being redeyes where the number is about 50% upgrades.

As a Silver flying out of SFO, I have gotten about 80% upgrades since I got my status in July. Curiously, it has gotten harder since 9/11. Before then, I was batting 100%, but after, it was only around 50%, and the planes have been MUCH fuller. Fortunately, I make Gold next week and Platinum in December.

BTW, anyone have any thoughts on upgrades over Thanksgiving? I would guess a lower percentage of ff vs general public, but is there something I missed?

Brad