Which hotel chains offer lifetime status?

Lifetime status is a popular perk among the hotel chains.

In general, lifetime status usually requires such a high threshold that you would wonder why such a person would ever want to set foot in another hotel ever again if they did not have to.

Despite that, I thought it was worth running through the various options. I have, without really planning it, hit Lifetime Gold (woo!) with Marriott Bonvoy so it can creep up on you. I may even hit Lifetime Platinum by 2028.

At present, only Hyatt, Marriott and Hilton offer lifetime status.  Accor Live Limitless, Radisson Rewards and IHG One Rewards do not.

How do you get lifetime status with Hilton Honors?

Hilton Honors launched Lifetime Diamond (top tier) status in 2015.  You can find the – sparse – details in the Hilton Honors rules here – search for the word ‘lifetime’ in your browser.  You need to have been a Diamond member for 10 years, not necessarily consecutive, whilst earning:

• two million Hilton Honors base points, representing $200,000 of spending OR
• a whopping 1,000 nights in Hilton properties

Even tougher, the 10 years of Diamond status must be full calendar years. If you earn Diamond status in April 2025, after a very busy first six months of the year, you have the status for the rest of 2025 and all of 2026.  However, only 2026 is a full year and so counts towards the 10 years you require.

How do you get lifetime status with World of Hyatt?

World of Hyatt offers Lifetime Globalist (top tier) status to anyone who has earned 1 million base points.  This would require $200,000 of spending.  Details are here.

There is a good additional perk for Lifetime Globalist members.  Every year, you will receive four Suite Upgrade Awards, a Category 1-7 Free Night Award and, to share with your friends, five Guest of Honor Awards which give the holder Globalist status for a single stay. There is real value here.

How do you get lifetime status with Marriott Bonvoy?

Marriott Bonvoy has three levels of lifetime status:

• Lifetime Silver Elite – 250 nights plus five years of Silver elite status or higher

• Lifetime Gold Elite – 400 nights  plus seven years of Gold elite status or higher

• Lifetime Platinum Elite – 600 nights plus 10 years of Platinum elite status or higher

There is no longer a base points requirement, as there was under the old Marriott Rewards lifetime status criteria.

Interestingly, the 15 free elite night credits you receive each year with the Marriott Bonvoy American Express card cound towards lifetime status. This makes Marriott Bonvoy lifetime status easily the most achievable of the three options here.

Further details can be found on the Marriott Bonvoy site here.

Or just get yourself the right payment card ….

The rationale for pushing for lifetime status is undermined by the fact that both Marriott and Hilton give out status via UK payment cards.

As you can obtain year-by-year Gold Elite status with Marriott Bonvoy for free with American Express Platinum – for as long as you keep your Platinum card – Lifetime Silver Elite and Lifetime Gold Elite are less valuable than they could be.

You can also achieve Gold Elite status by spending £15,000 per year on the Marriott Bonvoy American Express card.

Similarly, American Express Platinum also comes with Hilton Honors Gold status.  This is not as good as Lifetime Hilton Diamond, of course, but you still get the free breakfast benefit and potentially an upgrade.

You also get free MeliaRewards Gold and Radisson Rewards Premium status with American Express Platinum.  We wrote about the hotel status benefits of the card here.

An even cheaper way to get Hilton Honors Gold status is the new Hilton Honors Plus debit card. Pay just £150 per year for the card and you will get automatic Hilton Honors Gold status – plus a sign-up bonus of 10,000 Hilton Honors points and a debit card with 0% FX fees which earns points on top.

Whose lifetime are we talking about anyway?

To be honest, lifetime status with airline or hotel chains has never appealed to me.  I was happy to accept Marriott Bonvoy Lifetime Gold as a by-product of stays I was doing anyway but I would not have chased it.

That said, Lifetime Platinum is more interesting due to the improved benefits (lounge access, breakfast, guaranteed 4pm check-out) and because I can’t get Platinum via a credit card. If I can hit this in 2028 then I should still have a few years to make use of it!

Ask the former ‘Lifetime Gold’ members of bmi Diamond Club if it was worth spending money chasing that status, which British Airways promptly scrapped after the takeover of British Midland.

There are also a lot of very unhappy ‘nearly’ Lifetime Gold members of British Airways Executive Club. The new target (£550,000 of lifetime NET spend, so nearer to £1 million of headline ticket spend) is unreachable for most. Someone who was halfway to the target and thought they could make it in, say, 10 years will be having a change of heart now that the remaining half of the target is set at £275,000 of net spend (possibly £500,000 of gross spend). British Airways will also be increasing the target on a regular basis.

Even when the company which gave you lifetime status survives, your benefits can be downgraded.  American Airlines added a new status level, Platinum Pro, from 2017.  This pushed Lifetime Platinum status holders down the pecking order for upgrades. My only potential interest in Marriott Bonvoy Lifetime Platinum is the guaranteed benefits and these could be removed at any point, given that Titanium and Ambassador tiers exist above Platinum.

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Hotel offers update – March 2025:

Want to earn more hotel points?  Click here to see our complete list of promotions from the major hotel chains or use the ‘Hotel Offers’ link in the menu bar at the top of the page.

Want to buy hotel points?

• Hilton Honors is offering an 80%-100% bonus when you buy points – no closing date is given. Click here to buy.

• Marriott Bonvoy is offering a 45% bonus when you buy points by 30th March 2025. Click here to buy.

• World of Hyatt is offering a 25% discount (equivalent to a 33% bonus) when you buy points by 14th April 2025. Click here to buy.