Hilton Honors status match: Instant Gold, fast-track to Diamond

Hilton has been running a status match programme for many years now, which allows anyone with elite status from a competing chain to match it to the Hilton Honors programme, bypassing the regular qualification requirements.

Applicants will get instant Hilton Gold for a 90-day period, which provides you with free breakfast, and a better shot at room upgrades or late check-out, all of which could be very useful on an upcoming trip.

It’s been a few years since I last wrote about this, and some of the criteria has since changed, so let’s get into the details once more.

Hilton Honors status match

Register

To apply for a status match, you’ll need to provide your Hilton Honors account number and:

• proof of status with a competing chain
• proof of at least one stay in the past 24 months with the competing chain (this used to be 12 months, so they’ve broadened the criteria)

Once you submit your registration, Hilton will evaluate it and provide a decision within 7-12 business days.

If your status match is approved, you’ll get instant Hilton Gold status for a 90-day period. During this 90-day period:

• Staying 8 nights will extend your Hilton Gold status till 31 March 2025
• Staying 14 nights will upgrade you to Hilton Diamond status till 31 March 2025

The night requirement has fluctuated over the years; in 2019 it was 10/18 nights for Gold/Diamond, which was then cut to 5/9 nights in 2021 no doubt due to COVID. In that sense, the current requirement is not as high as the pre-COVID days, but not an all-time-low either.

To apply for a match, you must be a current Hilton Base or Silver member. Existing Hilton Gold or Diamond members are not eligible.

Which programs will be matched?

According to the T&Cs, Hilton will match “only elite statuses from another hotel loyalty program that are listed in the status dropdown menu”.

In other words:

• Marriott Bonvoy Gold, Platinum, Titanium or Ambassador
• IHG Rewards Club Gold, Platinum, Diamond (the form still uses the old name “Spire”)
• World of Hyatt Explorist, Globalist, Lifetime Globalist
• Best Western Rewards Diamond, Diamond Select
• Choice Privileges Diamond

It’s good that Hilton will match tiers as low as IHG Rewards Gold (20 nights) or Marriott Bonvoy Gold (25 nights), and given how threadbare the benefits are at those levels, I’m sure these members would be happy to make the jump to Hilton Gold. 

Do note the absence of programmes like Accor Live Limitless, GHA DISCOVERY, Radisson Rewards, Shangri-La Circle, and Wyndham Rewards. And yet, when you go to the actual status match form there’s an option to select “Other” and manually enter the name of the program you wish to match.

I have no idea why that’s the case, and I guess it can’t hurt to try your luck- the worst they can say is no. 

There is a potential workaround through Best Western, who have a very liberal “status match, no catch” programme. This doesn’t require you to submit any proof of stay, and from what I hear will match pretty much everyone.

Assuming they match you to at least the Diamond tier, you could then apply for a Hilton status match- though this doesn’t override the stay requirement, so you’ll still need to do at least one stay with a Best Western hotel.

Other points to note

• Award stays do not count towards achieving the status match requirements
• Members can only request a match once throughout the lifetime of their account. If you already used this programme in previous years, you’ll need to create a new account if you want another match
• You can’t count stays completed before your status match was approved, so be sure to submit your request well in advance of an upcoming stay.

Conclusion

Hilton Honors has a long-running status match programme that grants instant Hilton Gold for 90 days, with the option to retain it by completing eight nights during that period, or upgrading it to Diamond by completing 14 nights.

Hilton Gold is arguably the sweet spot for hotel status, since it gives you complimentary breakfast for two adults (except in the USA, where they’re doing that annoying F&B credit instead) that can save you a lot of money at expensive resorts.

Officially, they won’t match status from programmes like GHA DISCOVERY or Shangri-La Circle, but it doesn’t hurt to try.