Earlier this week, Marriott revealed the details of the newly combined award chart of all the hotels under the Starwood, Marriott and Ritz Carlton brands. Effective August 2018, 6500+ Marriott hotels will be under one award chart. Once the new program kicks in, SPG, Marriott Rewards and all the other programs under the Marriott banner will be sunsetted and merged into the new program.

But here is one last chance to get your hands on SPG elite status. Today, June 30, 2018, is the last day to register for SPG Status Challenge and fast track to SPG Gold and SPG Platinum status. Once achieved, your status will be valid through 2020 in the combined program as well. Times are in Eastern Time, so you technically have till tomorrow morning to register.

Once you sign up for this challenge, you have to complete one-third the number of nights usually required for qualification, in a continuous 3-month period. For instance, currently 25 nights are required in a calendar year to achieve Gold status, but through this challenge, you only need to complete nine nights in 3 months. Similarly, to earn SPG Platinum, you will have to gain 18 nights against the usual requirement of 50 nights.

SPG Members can register for this Status Challenge by calling the SPG Customer Service Line. To be eligible, you cannot challenge a status level that you have earned in the last five years. For example, if you were Gold in 2013 then you can only register for the Platinum challenge. Additionally, you won’t be eligible for the Status Challenge if you gained your SPG Gold or Platinum status by linking your Starwood Preferred Guest and Marriott Rewards accounts.

Registration is a must for the Status Challenge, and you can register for the challenge by calling up the SPG customer service line. Keep in mind, that earlier you could choose a consecutive three-month period, however, if you register now in June, you will only have one month to complete the challenge. Irrespective of when you register, the challenge period will end in July. Therefore, your default challenge period becomes May through July 2018.

Only paid nights will qualify for the Status Challenge. Here are all the terms and conditions you need to know about this offer.

If you take this challenge now new elite status will be valid through February 2020 and will be matched into the new program. One way to speed up this challenge is by gaining credits for multiple nights in the same stay.  Starwood Preferred Guest members can earn elite qualifying stays and nights for up to three rooms. The only condition being that the SPG member has to stay in one of the rooms. So, you can complete your Platinum challenge by just booking three rooms for a period of 6 nights. This is something that you can only do this year before both programs fully merge. Once you get your new status, you can match your SPG Gold/Platinum to Marriott Rewards Gold/Platinum status.

Bottomline

If you have a reasonable number of paid stays coming up this year, then earning an elite status is worth a shot. With the Marriott merger and interoperability of benefits, it’s worth fast-tracking to Starwood Platinum status and then matching it to Marriott Platinum.