If you stay at Marriott hotels often, but not often enough to earn high level Elite status, you may be missing out on perks like free lounge access, room or suite upgrades, free breakfast, etc. You don’t necessarily need to stay more nights at Marriott hotels to get to high level status, though. In this guide you’ll find a number of shortcuts to achieve Platinum status or Titanium status more easily…
Background
One cool thing about Marriott Bonvoy, besides its delightful name, is that elite perks are pretty good for a hotel chain of its size. Unfortunately, Marriott doesn’t apply the same benefits uniformly across their brands, and even within brands some properties are allowed exceptions. Still, I find that Platinum or Titanium perks at Marriott hotels are often sometimes very good. You can find everything you need to know about Marriott Bonvoy in our complete guide.
Here’s a summary of Marriott’s elite perks:
| Elite Status Level | Requirements Per Year | Key Benefits |
|---|---|---|
| Silver Elite | 10 Nights | Late checkout, 10% point bonus |
| Gold Elite | 25 Nights | 2PM late checkout; 25% point bonus; welcome gift (points only); room upgrade; enhanced internet |
| Platinum Elite | 50 Nights | 4PM late checkout; 50% point bonus; welcome gift w/ breakfast option; room upgrade includes suites; lounge access; Choice benefit (such as 5 nightly upgrade awards) when you achieve 50 nights. |
| Titanium Elite | 75 Nights | All of the above, plus: 75% point bonus; United Silver Premier status; Air Canada Aeroplan 25K Status; Ritz-Carlton suite upgrades; Additional Choice Benefit (such as 40K free night certificate) when you achieve 75 nights. |
| Ambassador Elite | 100 Nights + $23K Spend | All of the above, plus: Ambassador Service (dedicated Marriott agent); Your24 (Choose the 24 hours of your stay. For example, choose to check in at 9am after an overnight flight). |
For many, the sweet-spot for Marriott elite status is Platinum Elite. This will get you most of the best benefits: 4pm late checkout (not guaranteed at resorts), 50% point bonus, free breakfast at most properties (see this guide for details), and lounge access at many properties. And, when you earn 50 elite nights you also get a Choice Benefit, such as 5 Nightly Upgrade Awards.
The next level of status, Titanium Elite, adds a 75% bonus on point earnings (vs. 50% bonus with Platinum status), United Premier Silver elite status, Air Canada Aeroplan 25K status, and the possibility of getting complementary Ritz-Carlton suite upgrades. In addition to earning Titanium status when you hit 75 elite nights, you also get to pick a second Choice Benefit such as a 40K free night certificate or 5 more nightly upgrade awards.
Of course, you might not have the opportunity to actually stay at Marriott properties 50 nights per year for Platinum status or 75 nights per year for Titanium. But all hope is not lost. There are quite a few shortcuts to Marriott Platinum and Titanium Elite status that you can pursue instead…
Two Distinct Paths for Marriott Elite Status Shortcuts: Elite Nights vs. Big Bang Shortcuts
There are two types of shortcuts to elite status. One type of shortcut offers a way to get elite nights more quickly or easily. Elite night shortcuts are stackable. That is, you can mix and match these shortcuts in order to earn whatever level of status you want. Big Bang shortcuts are not stackable. Each Big Bang shortcut offers a way to get to a specific level of status, but if you want to go for a higher level of status, these won’t help. For example, spending $75,000 on the Ritz-Carlton card will give you Platinum Elite status (big bang), but that won’t get you any closer to Titanium status, nor will you get any 50 night Choice Benefits.
Elite Night Shortcuts
The following shortcuts are stackable. You can earn elite nights from one or more of these options in order to add up to the 50 or 75 nights you need.
- Up to 40 elite nights by being a Bonvoy cardholder. This is by far the simplest option. Almost all Marriott and Ritz credit cards offer 15 elite nights per year simply by being a card member, and the Bonvoy Brilliant card offers 25 nights. You can find a complete list of cards here. Having more than one consumer Marriott card or more than one business card won’t give you more than 15 or 25 elite nights. That said, you can get up to 30 or 40 elite nights by holding both a personal Marriott card and a business Marriott card. Important: Marriott has complicated rules regarding whether you can be approved and/or earn a welcome bonus with a new credit card. See this post for details: Are you eligible for a new Marriott card? The simplest option is to get both the consumer Amex Bonvoy Brilliant card and the Marriott Bonvoy Business American Express Card.
- 1 Elite Night Per $3K Spend. Two legacy Marriott cards offer 1 elite night per $3K spend (you can find a complete list of cards here, along with a chart showing which cards offer elite nights for spend). Of the two legacy cards that have this feature, readers are most likely to have the Chase Bonvoy Premier Credit Card, but only if they turned down upgrade offers to the Plus version of this card. Unfortunately both cards that offer this feature only give cardholders 1 point per dollar spent (except in certain categories of spend), whereas most other Marriott cards offer a minimum of 2 points per dollar. This means that this spend is costly in that you lose the ability to earn more points for your spend. It’s especially costly if you consider that you can earn far more than the value of 2X Marriott points for that same spend with other cards. See: Best Rewards for Everyday Spend.
- 1 Elite Night Per $5K Spend. The Marriott Bonvoy Boundless Card from Chase earns 1 elite night with each $5K spend. While that’s not as good as the ability to earn 1 elite night per $3K spend available on old no-longer-available cards, this card has the advantage of earning a minimum of 2x points on all spend and so your spend towards elite status is a bit less of a waste. See this post for Nick’s analysis: Marriott Boundless card changes – 3x categories and elite nights from spend.
- Book award nights. Award nights count just as much as paid nights towards elite status.
- Use free night certificates. If you have free night certificates (which you can get from simply having certain Marriott credit cards or from completing various Marriott promotions), you’ll earn elite night credit when you use those certificates.
- Book 5th night free awards (even if staying 4 nights). For example, you can book a 10K per night hotel for 5 nights for 40,000 points. Note that you do have to check into the hotel to get credit. If you don’t plan to stay all 5 nights, I recommend that you discuss your plan with the hotel manager since they may check you out early if they see that you’re not there.
- Choice Benefit: 5 Elite Night Credits (useful for getting to 75 nights). This is a weird one. You won’t have access to this Choice Benefit until you’ve earned 50 elite nights, and the 5 elite nights can only be applied to the same calendar year in which you earned the Choice Benefit selection. Therefore, the only good uses for this option are to help you get to Titanium Elite or Ambassador Elite status, or to increase your lifetime elite night count. Learn more about Choice Benefits here.
- Double Elite Night Promo. Every now and then Marriott offers a promotion where you can earn double elite nights for qualifying stays. You’ll find details of a previous double-elite night promo here: Marriott’s Surprisingly Good New Promo: Earn 1k Bonus Points Per Night + Double Elite Nights.
Once you earn elite status this year, your status will be good for the rest of this year, all of the next, and through February of the year after that.
Advantages to elite night shortcuts (as opposed to Big Bang shortcuts below):
- You’ll earn Choice Benefits when you reach 50 elite nights in a calendar year, and again at 75 nights.
- Elite nights earned with these shortcuts count towards lifetime status elite nights as well.
Big Bang Shortcuts
The following shortcuts will get you to a specific elite level, but you can’t stack them with elite nights to get higher status.
- Credit card Gold status. The Bonvoy Bountiful, Bonvoy Bevy, and Ritz-Carlton Card (available only as an upgrade from a consumer Chase Marriott card) offer automatic Marriott Gold status. Similarly Amex Platinum cards offer free Gold status (you must enroll). This all-in-one status does not get you closer to earning a higher tier of status.
- Credit card Platinum status. The Marriott Bonvoy Brilliant Card offers automatic Marriott Platinum status. This all-in-one status does not get you closer to earning a higher tier of status.
- Spend $75K for Platinum. The Ritz-Carlton Card (available only as an upgrade from a consumer Chase Marriott card) offers Platinum Elite status with $75K spend within a calendar year. This all-in-one status does not get you closer to earning a higher tier of status.
- Status Match / Challenge. Every now and then Marriott offers to match status from a competing hotel chain for 90 days. Usually it works like this: After enrolling, if you complete 16 paid nights during those 90 days, you can retain status for the rest of the current year and through February of the next. Marriott doesn’t usually publish status match details, but you can find recent reports at StatusMatcher. Ultimately, the best option is to call Marriott and ask if they’ll match your from a competing chain where you have elite status.
- Timeshare Ownership: Marriott Vacation Club and Vistana are timeshare ownership programs affiliated with Marriott, and each offers elite status under certain conditions.
- United MileagePlus Premier Gold or higher status: Via RewardsPlus, United elites with Gold status or higher get Marriott Gold.
Disadvantages to all-at-once shortcuts:
- Earning one level of status doesn’t help you get to the next. For example, if your Amex Platinum credit card gives you Gold status, you’re just as far from earning Platinum status as someone with no status at all.
- You won’t earn Choice Benefits.
- You won’t make progress towards lifetime status elite nights (but you will add lifetime elite years).
Marriott Elite Status Shortcut Graveyard
The following shortcuts are no longer available:
- Host a meeting in order to earn 10 elite nights [DEAD]
- Birthday Elite Night Credit [PAUSED: Let’s hope this comes back!]
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Greg, can a person product-change into the legacy $3k ENC cards?
Curious as well. In theory it should be allowed right? If Chase lets you switch to the RC I don’t see why we can’t switch to the Premier card. To get Platinum with the legacy Premier card, you’d have to spend $105k in a year, and it would net you ~100k points in the process. On the other hand, the exact same spend on the Boundless would leave you at Gold status and an additional 105k points (for a total of 210k points). Personally, I think I’d be okay with 100k fewer points while still getting Platinum.
We are Platinum via Brilliant and planning to PC to Ritz next AF for a 2nd 85K FNC.
Platinum is definitely a mixed bag – for net $350
We have 3 AMEX biz plats (35K) a Bonvoy (35K) and Brilliant (85K) – We had two Biz plats going back to SPG.
$95 AF for a 35K is a deal you can’t book very many hotels with taxes for $35 (we used one an Airport stay at CDG) that said i have typically been able to use on properties that ran $300-400.
We only book a handful of cash stays at
We will have 17 Bonvoy nights on the books for 2024: Asia, EU and US. Westins, Sheraton, Marriotts, Renaissance, Luxury Collection, Ritz and Residence Inns (We like the kitchens and free hot breakfast).
Mixed bag of upgrades so far best was a Jr. Suite in Brussels, but several larger, corner rooms (with great views). Executive lounges in Asia/EU have been decent. Free Breakfast (Pt) was excellent again in Asia/EU – but we regularly see Residence Inn’s that we can use our 35K FNC on Free hot breakfast for all- (bulk SySco Buffet food quality).
We travel primarily during the shoulder season and rarely in summer (other than weddings) so I guess we will see how much value I can get out of the 85K certs (have often seen properties at 51K/101K – which is annoying when the make it that obvious they are blocking FNC).
The Brilliant $650 – ($300 global dining credit ($25/mo) 85K cert – should offset the $350.
If not I figure $350/17 nights in 2024 we paid $20 extra a night for lounge/breakfast/upgrades (no 85K 1st year).
I orginally thought Plat would be great for the 35K FNC (but its harder to find Westin/Marriott/Renaissance/Luxury/Autograph properties for 35-50K) Many of the lower end properties include Free hot breakfast.
Also Hilton Diamonds and Radisson ViP (non-US) with 18, and 14 nights respectively this year upgrades with both have been much more generous mutiple suites and amazing upgrades with both included free breakfast (or food credit in US) at all properties.
The Aspire $550 AF versus benefits definitely much better ROI (have consistently booked properties with FNC that exceed $550 – but the Airfare credits and Resort credits make the Aspire probably the best value for an Ultra Premium card..
Also IHG Plats (CC) $99 40k FNC – only have 6 nights with IHG in 2024 (Kimpton, HIE) no free breakfast- but space avail early/late check and upgrades.
One thing I do like but haven’t used – Bonvoy elite guarantees (walks, bonus guarantees, etc).
I’ve had really bad experience with Hilton Diamond from the Aspire card this year (as first year). Had 5 cash stays (4 in US , 1 in South America), 0 upgrades of any kind. Had much better experience with IHG Diamond last year. Def will be cancelling the card next year and maybe try the Amex Brilliant next year once I’ve hit 24 months wait. Also, Hilton vs Marriott at same category just seems so outdated and old fashioned (in the US).
I will say that over the past 10 years I have only two very unpleasant stays across all brands (one of which I ended up escalating to the GM – only time in past 10 years) but both were Hilton properties.
That said we got food poisoning 3X this year from on property restaurants (also all were Hilton properties) none were free breakfast, executive lounge all were ordering from menu. All in different countries and parts of the world. Out of 100s of stays the past 10 years this was definitely an outlier.
That said we have gotten amazing value (despite some hiccups this year) from Aspire and opened two Surpass cards since the card refresh in Oct 2023.
We don’t always get upgrades (but have also gotten upgrades at places that don’t typically upgrade diamonds).
Personally we get a ton of value vs AF from all our Hotel/Airline cards – we travel a ton (almost 9 weeks PTO) and empty nesters.
But truly YMMV. People with kids in school and can only travel during school holidays/summer may have a different experience.
But we spent three nights at Paris Opera Hilton last month- but they were also almost 100% occupancy because of the Paris Auto Show. Not a big deal as we mainly only sleeping on our room everyday.
I was trying for Titanium again this year because I’ve seen a huge upgrade (ha!) in the number of upgrades I’ve gotten this year, which was my first time reaching titanium, over the platinum I’ve been for ages. I think it is because you can get platinum more easily (both lower nights required and automatically with a credit card) so the number of platinums is a lot higher. I think I am going to miss it by a few nights, alas. As my grandpa would say- close only counts in horseshoes and hand grenades!
Marriott is quite simply a hodgepodge grouping of diverse hotels that provide no consistency of service , facilities or member benefits . This renders Bonvoy totally disingenuous. I have abandoned this hospitality operation after 22 years of appalling member benefit anomalies and lacklustre customer support. Obviously Marriott / Bonvoy views its huge footprint of inconsistent properties as untouchable by its supporters and are able to continue to operate without questioning by its members. Pity in this case size seems to matters !
Recently stayed at the AC hotel in St. Petersburg, FL and only got a $10 F&B credit per night, per room. We were two folks, still only $10 bucks. NO free breakfast. They didn’t care I was a Platinum Elite. So, I am not very interested in keeping that level of status in the future.
You could have demanded the $50 elite benefit guarantee since they didn’t fulfil their required Platinum welcome gift which explicitly states $10 for you plus 1 guest. Here’s more info about elite guarantees: https://frequentmiler.com/marriott-spg-elite-benefits-guarantee/
Hi I have Amex business and personal card both and I pay annual fee on both. I was told by Marriott that in order to get bonus nights 40 nights. I have to have co branded card one Amex and one chase . Can you clarify. Thanks
Nope, that’s not true. To get 40 nights you need to have the Bonvoy Brilliant card and either an Amex or a Chase business Bonvoy card.
If you have the old Bonvoy card (rather than the Bonvoy Brilliant) then you should have a total of 30 elite nights each year (15 from that card and 15 from your business card)
This article would have been better or more detailed if you included the benefits for specific locations at various brands. There is a chart that explains it. Also, if you went with the first strategy of getting 40 nights based on 2 credit cards then you only need 5-10 nights left depending if there is a double night promotion.
Marriott benefits????? What a joke? free breakfast “AT MOST PROPERTIES” …….then 4pm checkout “BUT NOT GUARANTEED AT RESORTS”………..and wait for it………drumroll please………..NO STICK IN THE EYE AT RITZ CARLTON………..well really just nothing at all at Ritz Carlton……………….what a joke of a program…………I’d rather just have have one wife and stay with Hyatt…………
GM. I always enjoy reading!
If have Amex Brilliant and Business card ND earned 40 elite nights and stayed more and more and reached 65 nights as of now. I am not getting 50 nights perks yet. Wait? Or I should not get it?
Just wait a bit. The page for selecting your benefit says that it is coming soon for this year. https://choice-benefit.marriott.com/en-us/marriott-bonvoy/benefits
I just signed in today (7th Nov) and it finally asked what I want for my elite night benefit! So it may be up for some folks.
Hello Greg,
You mentioned Timeshare owners, how do I go about finding out how to add elite nights with my Marriott account. I am currently Welk timeshare owner which Marriott bought last year. Thanks Greg!!!
I don’t know how to get it set up. Have you tried calling?
I use Interval International to book Getaways with cash at Marriott properties. Palm Desert in the summer can be had at a great price.
This is great. Now someone can achieve the denial of benefits far, far easier than before.
LOL, you’re not wrong
You can also get platinum elite status gifted from somebody with ambassador status.
Is that a fixed benefit or an occasional promo for Ambassadors?
No clue. All I know is that it was gifted to me by an ambassador
I’ve got the founders card free membership from last year and they have a platinum elite challenge – stay 15 paid nights in 3 months.
They also are offering IHG Gold and it looks to me like this is available for those doing the free trial.
I forgot about that one. Thanks!
I did this one before but don’t remember if you can only do this once
Does it confer Platinum status DURING the challenge period?
Greg, thanks also for this superb update and cogent explanation of options. (In my case, to get from Gold, via B Brilliant card, up to Platinum.) Yet like Frank’s post below, I too am wondering about the one issue you don’t cover — just how soon would an additional 15 elite nights from opening a new card (business in my case) take to post? Would it happen soon after opening the card, after meeting spending threshold, at end of calendar year, or (least helpful of all) not until end of first cc year? (I’ve searched for this via your other Marriott cc guides — yet not seeing this q answered. Sorry if I missed it)
It should happen soon after opening the card.
Thanks Greg for the reply (and appreciate too I received an email notice of it) Will be sure to use your link when I make the application, in belated thanks for your many posts on this and related issues.)
Thank you for the explanation and tips! So I have the Marriott and Hilton Gold status thanks to the Amex Plat. I am wondering to upgrade from Gold to Platinum of these programmes respectively… Do we still need to stay at least 50+ to get the upgrade or just 25+ nights because of the Gold status. Thank you very much!!
Unfortunately, having Gold status from a credit card doesn’t help you get to Platinum status
Do they still have a way to earn Elite night credits for x dollars spent on their credit card? Eg, spend $1000 & that counts as 1 night. I’m pretty sure that’s how it used to be years ago, but maybe they took that away?
Yes, if you still have that legacy card, you can get an elite night with each $3K spend. See the list item in the post titled “1 Elite Night Per $3K Spend. “