Amex Platinum – how long for hotel status to be processed?

[iamlost]

Someone who’s Hilton Silver booked a 10 night stay at the Conrad Maldives for mid-March. The Gold benefits are significant at this resort (breakfast, happy hour etc.), so I figured the simplest way for them to get it ahead of the trip is through Amex Plat. How long does it take from Amex application / account opening to the Gold status being live on the Honors account?

Any data points appreciated from your own Amex Plat experiences, thanks.

[Biki]

I applied last week and had the email on Sunday confirming new status, so less than a week.

[Rob]

To make it go quickly, you should join Hilton Honors first and give Amex that account number to upgrade. If you tell Amex to open a fresh account for you because you don’t have one, it takes longer and – more importantly – good luck getting Amex or Hilton to give you the log-in details and password for the account created for you.

Same rule for the other hotel schemes too.