Lifetime Status & Potential Hyatt Merger
 

Right now I’m just 100 nights short of Lifetime Platinum. The rumored Hyatt merger scares me as Hyatt’s lifetime requirement is 200k in Spending. How much notice do you think Starwood would give before changing Lifetime Platinum

Do you think Lifetime Platinum is valuable enough to just find some cheap Starwood hotel and book a bunch of nights to get over the hump this year?

One advantage might be no more Amex and a Chase Hyatt/SPG card!

Is there any guarantee that Lifetime Plat with *wood would receive recognition and benefits after the merger?

I wouldn't count on it ;)

I came to this forum wondering something along the same lines :) I've had the night requirement met for a while, but only have 7 years under my belt rather than 10. I will be so disappointed if this goes away with the acquisition!

I remember after Bmi was taken over by BA and the Lifetime Gold benefit was washed away with it!

A timely reminder that Lifetime doesn't necessarily mean your own... but that of the program! :cool:

You're asking us to make uninformed guesses about the future of any hotel loyalty program. The one thing that I'll say is that Hyatt seems to put a decent amount of value in their hotel loyalty program.

Since the combined company would be competing with Marriott and Hilton, my uninformed guess is that there will be a lifetime program in place after the merger if it happens. Beyond that, it's unknown what levels will exist, what the qualifications will be, and what level one will be grandfathered into the surviving/new loyalty program.

We can speculate. I'll give you best and worst case.
Best case: SPG lifetime plats will be given lifetime top status in the combined program.
Worst case: SPG lifetime golds/plats will not be recognized under the combined program.

You have zero control over what happens and it doesn't do you any good to worry about it. I plan on doing nothing different than I'm currently doing ... 2015 will be my 6th year as SPG Plat and I'll also make Hyatt Diamond (although I'll likely never hit 1 million base points). I will continue to work on getting SPG Plat for 10 years since these merger talks can fall apart and the two companies go their separate ways.
You might as well spend your time worrying about something else you have no control over - zombies, global thermonuclear war, rising ocean levels, a balanced budget, your kid not getting a tattoo.

These types of post are so premature. :td:

Of course this is premature for a decision, and I am certainly not losing sleep over it. But I was simply wondering if there was a precedent set by other chains that have merged.

What other "chains" are you referring to?

If I knew that, I could answer my own question. I've only been traveling for less than a decade so thought I would turn to FlyerTalk in order to find someone with more experience.

AA had lifetime status.. How was that merger handled?

The surviving brand keeps its program.

SPG is a far more well known and popular program than Gold Passport is. Most people I know (non frequent traveler) have a SPG account and the SPG Amex, but not Gold Passport or Chase Hyatt CC.

Similar to US Airways...even though the smaller brand is in charge (a la AA), but the more famous and popular program should survive. IMO, that would be SPG.

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If Hyatt completes the purchase and decides to merge SPG program with Gold Passport it would calculate your total lifetime spend between both programs in order to determine if it adds up to $200,000 or more. If it does you have earned lifetime Diamond status with Hyatt. The question is does the SPG program keep track of it's members lifetime spend?

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You make a good point. They could merge Gold Passport with SPG program or add features of both programs to a new program called as someone mentioned in another post "Hyatt Preferred" I am willing to bet 8 dollars the Hyatt Gold Passport will be the surviving program.

anyone who acquires could kill whatever they want

this seems odd considering hyatt is half the size of starwood

It is either your own or the program whichever terminates first.;)