Which hotel loyalty programmes will rollover your ‘excess’ elite nights on 31st December?

Whilst it is too early in the calendar year to be worrying about this, by the time autumn arrives you should have a view of whether you will be able to do enough elite nights with your preferred hotel loyalty programme to earn or retain status for 2026.

If you have requalification in the bag, you need to make a decision – should you keep pushing stays towards your preferred programme or should you try to earn / retain status elsewhere?

One factor in your thinking should be whether your preferred hotel scheme lets you rollover ‘extra’ elite nights.

Let’s use my Marriott Bonvoy account as an example.

I have a few stays planned during the current ‘double elite nights’ offer and get 15 free elite nights from my Marriott Bonvoy American Express card. Adding in other planned stays, I am likely to hit 50 nights to retain Platinum Elite by September. I have no chance of hitting 75 nights for Titanium Elite.

If the opportunity to do further nights between September and December comes along, should I take it? After all, I could push the extra nights to another brand which has better quality or better located hotels in the places I need to be.

What would swing it towards Marriott would be if I could rollover those extra nights (above 50 per year) into 2026. Marriott Bonvoy does not allow this, but other programmes do.

Which hotel schemes let you rollover elite nights?

As it turns out …. only two of the ‘big six’ programmes do.

Accor Live Limitless

Accor Live Limitless does not rollover ‘extra’ elite nights.

Hilton Honors

Yes, Hilton Honors will rollover your excess nights.

This ONLY applies to ‘nights’. It does not apply to ‘stays’ or ‘base points’ which are the alternative routes to earning Hilton Honors status.

If you earn status by nights, the levels are:

• Silver – 10 nights
• Gold – 40 nights
• Diamond – 60 nights

Excess nights earned in excess of your tier are carried over on 1st January. A Gold member who completes 45 nights this year would start 2026 with five elite nights, for example.

Rollover nights can only rollover once. This means that, in the example above, if a Gold member rolls over five nights from 2025 into 2026 and ends up with 47 nights at the end of 2026, only two nights will roll into 2027. This is because Hilton only counts actual nights stayed in that year.

Rollover nights do not count towards milestone rewards. Hilton’s 10,000 point milestone rewards start at 40 nights and offer 10,000 bonus points for every additional 10 nights stayed, with an extra bonus at 60 nights. This means that someone who has five nights rolled over into 2024 and stays an additional 35 nights will NOT unlock the 40 nights 10,000 point milestone reward, even though they would have 40 qualifying nights for the purposes of renewing Gold Elite status.

Rollover nights do not count towards elite status gifting. Someone who achieves 60 nights in a year can gift Gold status to a friend. A member who completes 100 nights can gift Diamond status. Someone who had five nights rolled over into 2025 and stays an additional 55 nights will NOT unlock the 60 nights ‘free Gold card for a friend’ award, even though they would have 60 qualifying nights for the purposes of renewing Diamond status.

The Hilton Honors terms and conditions on rollover nights are here – click on ‘elite rollover nights’.

IHG One Rewards

Yes, IHG One Rewards will rollover your excess nights.

This ONLY applies to ‘nights’. It does not apply to ‘base points’ which is the alternative route to earning IHG One Rewards status.

If you earn status by nights, the levels are:

• Silver Elite – 10 nights
• Gold Elite – 20 nights
• Platinum Elite – 40 nights
• Diamond Elite – 70 nights

Importantly, rollover nights do NOT apply to Silver Elite status.

If you have Gold Elite, Platinum Elite or Diamond Elite status, nights earned in excess of your tier requirement are carried over on 1st January. A Gold Elite member who completes 25 nights in 2025 would start 2026 with five nights, for example.

Rollover nights can only rollover once. This means that, in the example above, if a Gold Elite member rolls over five nights from 2025, stays 42 nights and ends up with 47 nights at the end of 2026, only two nights will roll into 2027. This is because IHG only counts actual nights stayed in that year.

Rollover nights do not count towards milestone rewards. IHG’s milestone rewards, such as a suite night award for staying 20 nights in a year, are explained here. This means that someone who had five nights rolled over into 2025 and stays an additional 15 nights will NOT unlock the 20 night milestone reward, even though they would have 20 qualifying nights for the purposes of renewing Gold Elite status.

Nights earned from bonus promotions do not roll. If, for example, you achieved 45 nights in a year but 10 were from a ‘double elite nights’ offer, your five additional nights would not carry forward.

Rollover nights are often not posted to IHG One Rewards accounts until March. Do not expect them to show on 1st January.

The (very few) words in the IHG One Rewards terms and conditions on rollover nights are in Clause 25 here.

Marriott Bonvoy

Marriott Bonvoy does not rollover ‘extra’ elite nights. It does offer lifetime status based on nights stayed, however, which is one reason to continue staying even when you have secured requalification.

Radisson Rewards

Radisson Rewards does not rollover ‘extra’ elite nights.

World of Hyatt

World of Hyatt does not rollover ‘extra’ elite nights.

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