Free Upgrade to Marriott Rewards Gold Status

This morning I woke up to a very interesting email form Marriott. The subject read “You’ve been Upgraded”. I have no current reservations with the Marriot so I knew there was no way I was getting a notification that a room I had booked was being upgraded to a suite. Ready to delete the email without giving it any thought, I decided to open the email instead, thinking to myself that it was just another announcement of a change to their program or a promotion they were running. I was wrong!

The email was not a promotion, but instead it was to inform me that I had been upgraded to Marriott Gold Elite! But wait, I hadn’t stayed 50 nights this year at the Marriott, in fact I had only stayed 38 nights, 12 nights below the threshold of Gold! The Email read

Dear Rocky,

We’re excited to tell you that you’ve been upgraded to Gold Elite status through December 31, 2012. And, keeping your new status is easy: Stay* with us 6 times between October 1 and December 31, 2012, and you’ll maintain Gold status through February 2014.

Your new, exclusive Gold benefits include:

•	Room upgrade
•	Free high-speed Internet
•	Guaranteed lounge access at JW Marriott®, Autograph Collection®, Renaissance® and Marriott® hotels (excluding resorts)
•	25% bonus on Marriott Rewards® points

Book a stay at any of our participating 3,600+ hotels worldwide, and start enjoying your Gold benefits today. Every stay gets you closer to keeping Gold status through February 2014. After enjoying your new benefits, we’re sure you’ll find that nothing feels as good as gold.

Sincerely,

Ed French

Senior Vice President
Marriott Rewards

The email continued and on the bottom, it did define the term stay as consecutive nights spent at the same hotel, regardless of check-in/check out activity. So since it’s not nights, it does make it slightly harder to achieve Gold and retain Gold by the end of the year. However, the good news is, I have more work trips coming up this October, and the Marriott seems to be the hotel of choice for my work. So I’ll probably meet the requirmetns of Gold Status by reaching the 50 night stay minimum. However, until then, I’m going to enjoy my extra perks as a Gold Elite member when I’m actually still a Silver!

Thank You Marriott!