World Traveller 73 
Selecting Your Marriott Bonvoy Lifetime Achievement Platinum Gift
After seventeen years of travel on the road, and approximately seven hundred and fifty four nights in Marriott affiliated hotels, I’m happy to report that I’ve finally achieved Marriott Bonvoy Lifetime Platinum status. Marriott Bonvoy Lifetime Platinum status offers a set amount of upgrades for the life of the program and the life of the participant. It’s been quite a journey to get to this point. This post is about the next steps after you achieve Marriott Bonvoy Lifetime Achievement Platinum status.
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Selecting your Marriott Bonvoy Lifetime Achievement Platinum Gift
The Marriott Bonvoy hotel loyalty program offers a lifetime elite program. As a member of the Marriott Bonvoy program with over 17 years of elite status, it’s always been a distant travel goal to get to achieve lifetime status with Marriott Bonvoy.
The Marriott Bonvoy Elite Program:
While this might be a re-cap for many, it’s worth just reviewing the levels of the Marriott Bonvoy Elite program.
The Marriott Bonvoy Elite Program is broken down into five tiers:
- Silver Elite – 10 nights
- Gold Elite – 25 nights
- Platinum Elite – 50 nights
- Titanium Elite – 75 nights
- Ambassador Elite – 100 nights + $23,000 USD spend per year
From my perspective, the value in the program starts at the Marriott Bonvoy Platinum Elite level, or higher. The Marriott Bonvoy Platinum Elite Level offers:
- 50% Bonus on Marriott Bonvoy Points Earning
- 4 PM Check out
- In Hotel Welcome Gift: Points, Breakfast Offering or Amenity
- Enhanced Room Upgrade, Based on Availability, Including Select Suites
- Lounge Access
- An Annual Choice Benefit after staying 50 and 75 nights
While I have usually qualified for Marriott Bonvoy Titanium status through my regular travel schedule, this has simply been gravy on top of already great benefits at the Marriott Bonvoy Platinum level.
The Marriott Bonvoy Lifetime Program:
The Marriott Bonvoy Lifetime Program has three separate levels. Each are achieved after a substantial amount of travel.
Marriott Bonvoy Lifetime Silver Elite
250 qualifying nights & 5 years as a Silver Elite or Higher
Marriott Bonvoy Lifetime Gold Elite
400 qualifying nights & 7 years as a Gold Elite or Higher
Marriott Bonvoy Lifetime Platinum Elite
600 qualifying nights & 10 year as a Platinum Elite or Higher
Marriott Bonvoy designed the lifetime program so that members had to achieve both “qualifying nights” and “elite years” over a period of time, in order to qualify for lifetime elite years.
There was also previously a Lifetime Titanium Elite level for members that had stayed in excess of 750 Lifetime Qualifying Nights after combination of your Starwood Preferred Guest and Marriott Rewards accounts. However, this level is no longer publicly available, with Marriott Bonvoy Lifetime Platinum being the highest published available level.
About My Marriott Bonvoy Lifetime Travel Journey:
I started seriously travelling for work about seventeen years ago. Initially, I was travelling and crediting into the Marriott Rewards program as a result of better hotel availability in my geographic area of the Pacific Northwest. Since Marriott Rewards was a pretty boring program, and there weren’t a lot of Marriott hotels in my area, I ended up switching over to Starwood Preferred Guest.
My years with Starwood Preferred Guest were outstanding. At almost every stay, I would get better and better benefits along with outstanding recognition. I can still remember the smiles on the front desk’s reception agents when I came to check in.
The points world was terrific for a number of years until Starwood Preferred Guest got absorbed by Marriott Rewards. The combined program was re-branded Marriott Bonvoy and provided recognition for achievements under both programs. While the newer program promised a great experience, it hasn’t achieved the same amount of cult following or customer centric approach that was achieved under the Starwood Preferred Guest program.
Tracking Elite Years:
Towards the end of each calendar year, the travel road warriors would track their annual year of elite credit. Each year of credit would allow for additional qualification into the Marriott Bonvoy Lifetime program.
When the two programs combined, I ended up with about four hundred and forty three eligible lifetime nights. This was enough to put me over the qualifying Marriott Bonvoy Lifetime Gold level with a minimum of four hundred Elite Qualifying Nights and seven years as a Gold Elite or Higher.
During the merger, there was a period of time when the data between the two programs did not accurately map. This resulted in many being shorted a year of elite lifetime credit. Fortunately after about a year and a half of back and forth, Marriott Bonvoy corrected the issue. As a result, all Marriott Bonvoy members should have the correct amount of Life Time years showing in their Marriott Bonvoy account.
Achieving Marriott Bonvoy Lifetime Elite Status:
After my Marriott Bonvoy Lifetime years successfully credited, I was sitting at nine elite qualifying years. Towards the end of the year, I had stayed the equivalent of 79 elite qualifying nights, so I had enough nights to re-qualify for Marriott Bonvoy Titanium and Lifetime Platinum status.
I always ended up with more Elite Qualifying Nights than Elite Years in the program. As a result, my barrier to entry into the Lifetime Elite Program was the number of Elite Years. It seems I have enough nights to be qualified into the Marriott Bonvoy Lifetime Titanium program; which sadly no longer is offered.
The Marriott Bonvoy program has about 122 million members. When the year ticked over into the New Year, I didn’t get an immediate notification. Given the volume of members, I figured they would eventually get around to me as they batch processed recipients.
On January 17, I happened to be snooping around the Marriott Bonvoy app iPhone for a future work trip. When I checked out the accounts section, I got a notice that I had achieved the Marriott Bonvoy Lifetime Platinum Level.
There is a Marriott Bonvoy Lifetime Achievement website that is located behind a secure password protected site. I never got a congratulations email inviting me into the Marriott Bonvoy Lifetime Platinum community. Instead, I located the site through Google and Reddit.
After getting the Lifetime Achievement notice, I tried to access the Lifetime Achievement Site on the same day. However, I got stopped by the security system which apparently hadn’t caught up to the lifetime status updates.
When the weekend rolled around about three days later on January 20th, I tried again. This time, I was successful at signing in.
Inside the Marriott Bonvoy Lifetime Achievement Website:
The Marriott Bonvoy Lifetime Achievement Website is broken down into five categories: Congratulations, Complimentary Gift, Your Highlights, Lifetime Community, and Redemption & Benefits.
Congratulations:
Immediately after signing in, the landing page offered a video from Mr Tony Capuno, CEO of Marriott International. This was an easily viewable one minute and eight second video that offered a theme of continued exploration, and highlighted some of the benefits that Lifetime status featured. These included marketing that Marriott Bonvoy points that don’t expire, and benefits that last for life.
There was also a montage of staff members in various countries around the world, which was a nice touch since they are typically the point of contact we have as travellers.
In an interesting theme, the video appeared to me to be more oriented towards the continued earning and redeeming of points. The word “loyalty” isn’t mentioned at all until almost the end of the video at the 48 second mark.
Complimentary Gift:
Scrolling down past the video, the Marriott Bonvoy Lifetime Achievement Program offers a complimentary gift. Marriott Bonvoy has elected to provide a set of two Marriott Bonvoy Lifetime Luggage tags as a way of recognizing their lifetime members.
There is no alternative gift offered (such as a discount on a redemption, or additional points) that we’ve previously seen under the Starwood Elite Re-Qualification program. The Marriott Bonvoy Lifetime Achievement gift is a take it or leave it scenario.
On selecting the gift, you’re asked to confirm your mailing address and that you consent for the release of the information. After confirming the luggage tags, you’ll receive a confirmation screen and subsequent email indicating that your luggage tags will be delivered within 12 weeks.
Interestingly enough, Marriott Bonvoy only provides for ninety days for the selection of the luggage tag gift. This seems like an awfully short window for people that are likely on the road quite a bit and I am surprised that it’s not open for a longer or indefinite period of time. It seems that for something that takes at least ten years to earn, that the selection of a gift should be a standing item available whenever.
Your highlights:
The next part of the Marriott Bonvoy Lifetime Achievement website is that Your highlights section. This section contains a “pull” of much of the data belonging to your profile over the course of your relationship with Marriott and Starwood Preferred Guest.
In my case, it showed data earning from 2006 all the way up to 2024. While it showed the amount of lifetime points earned, it also showed the overall amount of redeemed points. It’s worth mentioning that these amounts didn’t exactly balance to the remaining points available in my account for redemption. Accordingly, it’s more like “general information” than anything scientific.
I was interested to see my most frequent hotel brands stayed in, (Westin, Sheraton and Marriott), along with my most frequently visited cities.
While there was nothing out of the ordinary within this information. it was worth a few minutes to look back at your own travel journey over the past decades.
Lifetime Community:
The next portion of the website revealed some information on the most popular Marriott Bonvoy redemptions. This area was separated by region mostly centered around a continent. Showing where the world is headed these days, Greater China had it’s own section on the map.
The website allowed you to see where the top twenty most popular redemption where for each region. This portion of the website didn’t feature any personalized content, but rather an aggregate of the overall communities’ stay patterns.
Flipping through the lists, there were no major surprises amongst the lists. It wasn’t mind blowing to know that the New York Marriott Marquis was the number one hotel for point redemption in North America. However, the list did provide some insight as to the destinations and properties that Marriott Bonvoy elite members redeem points. If anything, it demonstrated the properties to avoid if you were seeking an upgrade since they’re likely to be flooded with Marriott Elite members.
Redemption and Benefits:
The last portion of the Marriott Bonvoy Lifetime Achievement site was a Redemption and Benefits section. The redemption and benefits section highlighted the different ways to stay engaged with the program; by redeeming points for all inclusive resorts, Marriott Homes and Villas and Ritz Carlton Reserve.
There wasn’t much in this section of the website that a ten year elite member wouldn’t already know if they have been following along with the program. As a result, I ended up skipping over this section of the website for the most part.
How I Feel About Achieving Marriott Bonvoy Lifetime Status:
It’s fair to say that after seventeen years of travel on the road, it’s nice to be finally recognized and not have the pressure to achieve an elite level in a hotel program. It has been many nights away from home in Marriott and Starwood hotels on work travels, along with a few great personal holidays in there for good measure.
It’s a lot harder for us in Canada to achieve Marriott Bonvoy elite status. The most elite nights you can get from a credit cards such as the American Express Marriott Bonvoy Credit Card is fifteen elite nights, which aren’t stackable with any other card. This means that you have to spend at least 35 nights in hotels on the road, just to earn Marriott Bonvoy Platinum status. The largest relief is not having to worry about being away from home.
In Closing: Achieving Marriott Bonvoy Lifetime Platinum Elite Status
I have finally earned Marriott Bonvoy Lifetime Platinum elite status.
It only took about seventeen years and about seven hundred and fifty four nights in Marriott properties to achieve this. While the Marriott Bonvoy program isn’t as exciting at the Starwood Preferred Guest program, it’s nice to be guaranteed some form of breakfast, a minor upgrade or lounge access where it is provided.
I’ll be looking forward to my next Marriott stay as a Marriott Bonvoy Lifetime Platinum member.
World Traveller 73 
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