If you were active in points and miles in the 2010s, SPG cards were not optional. Not having one put you at a structural disadvantage.

That was because SPG was never really a hotel program in the modern sense. It functioned as an airline currency with a hotel wrapper. Points transferred cleanly to airlines, with a predictable bonus of 5,000 miles for every 20,000 points moved. For anyone playing seriously, SPG points were earned, held, and then transferred when an airline redemption appeared. Using them for hotel nights often felt like giving up airline value.

The behaviour followed naturally. Heavy SPG users accumulated airline balances, not hotel-night totals. Even elites frequently paid cash for hotels and transferred points out. Status was often earned through stays rather than nights, there was no rollover, and award nights did not play a central role. Twenty-five one-night stays could produce Platinum, but that effort rarely translated into a large lifetime night balance.

The 2018 merger with Marriott altered those incentives.

First, the role of airline transfers changed. The familiar SPG transfer block did not disappear, but it was rescaled: the same 25,000 airline miles now required 60,000 Marriott points. While the arithmetic mapped cleanly, the decision context did not. Larger point balances, more competitive hotel redemptions, and the rise of other transferable currencies meant airline transfers stopped being the default use of the points.

Second, the measurement system changed. SPG had rewarded both stays and nights. Marriott removed stays entirely and measured only nights. Past activity was preserved, but one of the fastest paths to earning status under SPG simply stopped being relevant going forward.

At the same time, credit cards became structural to elite progression.

The behavioral implications of that shift are explored elsewhere, but the lifetime math alone is sufficient to show what changed.

The SPG Luxury card launched in 2018 with automatic Platinum status. When it became the Marriott Bonvoy Brilliant, that benefit stayed. Elite night credits followed. Fifteen at first, later twenty-five from the Brilliant alone, with business cards stacking on top. Free Night Certificates earned elite nights when redeemed. Award nights counted fully. Progress became something that accrued with tenure, not just behaviour.

Then came 2021, a year that impacted lifetime math.

In February, Marriott made a COVID accommodation: elite night credits equal to 50 percent of the prior year’s status requirement. For Platinum members, that meant 25 nights deposited automatically. Those nights counted toward lifetime totals.

The cumulative effect of this becomes clear when you put it on a timeline.

Assumptions

A reasonable baseline for a fairly typical miles-and-points enthusiast who picked up the SPG Luxury card (now Brilliant) in 2018:

& in this baseline case:

* 2021 includes a one-time COVID elite night grant equal to 50 percent of the prior year’s Platinum requirement.

This table already tells us several things:

At that point (in 2027) the only remaining requirement for Lifetime Platinum is the 600-night total.

And that gap is smaller than it appears once you account for how Bonvoy has actually operated in the 2020s.

This table isolates additional lifetime nights attributable to paid stays only, assuming paid nights are timed around Marriott’s recurring double elite night credit promotions.

Assumptions

Each cell shows:

elite nights earned that year from paid stays (cumulative incremental nights from paid stays)

20 paid nights per year since 2018

End-2026: 331 (baseline) + 280 (paid) = 611 lifetime nights

Lifetime Platinum is achieved as soon as the 10-year Platinum requirement is met.

10 paid nights per year since 2018

End-2026: 331 + 140 = 471 lifetime nights

Lifetime Gold is already secured. Platinum is within reach.

Zero paid nights

End-2028: 417 lifetime nights

Lifetime Gold is achieved by waiting alone.

Based on the baseline trajectory in Table 1, a zero-paid-night member from the original 2018 cohort reaches 374 lifetime nights by the end of 2027, at which point the 10-year Platinum requirement is already satisfied. 

From there, the remaining gap to 600 lifetime nights is 226 nights.

Spread across the member’s tenure from 2018 through 2027, that equates to 13–15 paid nights per year on average, depending on whether Marriott’s double elite night promotions continue beyond 2026. 

This framing is conservative. It excludes additional award stays beyond annual Free Night Certificates, which most real members accumulate over time. 

Lifetime Platinum is no longer the result of decades of heavy hotel use. It is the natural outcome of early entry, continuous cardholding, and modest, ongoing travel.

Under SPG, lifetime progress required concentrated hotel behaviour under a stay-based system, with limited card acceleration and strong incentives to convert points into airline miles.

Under Bonvoy, especially after 2020, lifetime status has become a function of:

For this cohort, Lifetime Platinum is no longer an aspirational outlier. It is the default trajectory for anyone who stayed enrolled and travelled occasionally.

A large cohort is now on pace to cross the lifetime threshold within a narrow window over the next one to three years.

That outcome follows directly from how the program has been structured since the merger.