Nearly every hotel, airline, car rental company, and restaurant today has some sort of loyalty program. Those programs are used by companies to reward customers for giving them their business by providing some sort of extra perk. Whether it be free seat selection, waived fees, complementary upgraded room or seat or any number of other benefits.
Most loyalty programs have different levels to them to encourage you to stay more often. The first level of a hotel program may let you get late checkout and free internet. The next level up might add you to get an upgraded room if one is available at checking. A third level might improve the upgrade to allow you to get a suite if it’s available.
Example #1 – Getting Home vs. Sleeping in an Airport
In the mid-2000’s I traveled between the coasts fairly frequently for work. I did most of my travel on American Airlines as they had a fairly big presence between Boston and Silicon Valley at the time. Most of my flights were on American with a connection in Chicago or Dallas/Fort Worth and I ended up achieving Platinum status. For road warriors that’s not anything special but it’s the second level of status in their program.
During one of my trips I arrived in Chicago when it was snowing only to learn by connecting flight home was canceled. Instead of waiting in the long line to rebook, I called the special phone number reserved for Platinum members. At first I was told the next available flight to Boston was in 4 days(!!!), but after checking other options the agent was able to find me a route the same day through St Louis on standby. While I wasn’t guaranteed to be able to get on that flight, my status put me higher on the standby list than people with lower or no status. I was able to get the last standby seat on that flight out of Chicago to St. Louis where it wasn’t snowing. I likely would have been stranded in Chicago for days if I hadn’t been able to make that flight. While and extra leg was not ideal, it was significantly better than being stuck in Chicago.
Example #2 – Last Minute Hotel with Upgrade
In 2016 our family went on a trip to Maui. We had a fantastic trip overall, though one of our hotel stays did not work out as planned midway through it and we had to find an alternative hotel for the last 2 nights at the last minute… on the Fourth of July weekend.
Through one of our credit cards we had Gold Status with Marriott (second level of their status at the time) and some points. We had to find a place for the next two nights. We ended up staying at the Marriott Wailea Beach with points we had rather than paying the cash rate which north of $700 per night due to the holiday weekend. When checking in, our status made us eligible for a space available upgrade and we were offered an ocean front junior suite! The picture above is from the front patio of the room. It really made the last few days of our trip extra special and it only cost us a few dollars in taxes and fees (on top of the Marriott points of course).
Choosing a Program
There’s lots of different programs and you can’t get status in all of them. If you travel for work like we have, it’s best to choose an airline and/or hotel program that you can do a majority of your business with if possible. The programs are free and even if your company is paying for your stay (hopefully) you’re building up the number of stays or flights towards the next level of your status. With the help of the appropriate credit card(s) you can really jumpstart things.
While programs are designed to “suck you in” there are real benefits to the status as you climb the latter. And it’s ALWAYS a good idea to sign up for a loyalty program when one is offered. Even if you don’t think you’ll ever stay at the chain again or fly that airline again, you can never be sure and you never know when your status or customer history will put you in line for a benefit!
Earning Status
All loyalty programs define what it takes to reach each of their status levels and the benefits you get at each level. Staying more nights, taking more flights, renting more cars and ultimately spending more money gives you better status.
There are also shortcuts to some loyalty programs which reduce or eliminate the number of stays/flights/rentals. Some premium credit cards, the ones with higher annual fees, give you free status or a fast track to status for one or more programs. This can be a great way to really enhance your vacations for free. It really makes a difference when you feel and get treated like a VIP.
Some hotel and car rental programs allow you to do a status match or a status challenge. If you have status in one program, you can sometimes match an equivalent level in a competing program. For a status challenge, a program may offer you a fast track to a higher status level.
For example my wife did a status challenge with Marriott at the beginning of this year. At the time she had Gold status with them and the challenge was to stay at a Marriott chain property 9 times in 3 months to get Platinum status. She was traveling for business at the time and had the freedom to choose where she stayed and was able to meet the requirements and got Platinum status within a couple months.
Alternatives to Status
Status is great if you can get it, but even with the help of credit cards to accelerate gaining status, useful status levels may be out of reach. The simple alternative to getting an upgrading room is of course to just pay more and book the upgraded room, but what fun is that?
Many premium travel credit cards offer deals with certain hotels that give you many of the benefits you would get if you had status, but without having to require status.
For example earlier this year we were considering a trip to San Diego and we wanted to spend a couple nights in the iconic Coronado Hotel. We ended up not going on that trip, but during the research we found the hotel was sold out if trying to book directly through the hotel website. I then checked the Luxury Hotel & Resort Collection hotels associated with my Chase Sapphire Reserve card. There, I did find availability during those sold out dates for a room rate that included breakfast for two, a $100 spa credit, late checkout, and a space available room upgrade for the same price as adjacent dates on the hotel was offering on their site, and those rates didn’t include the benefits.
Many of the major credit card companies have similar types of deal and be a great way to get many of the perks of having status without actually having it.
The Road to Value Luxury
When you have status , you have access to many of the little things that make your trip that much more smooth, relaxing, and luxurious. It’s important to understand how to get access to those perks. Make the system work for you!
Tomatico Travels 
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