Getting Free Hotel Club Lounge Access

I’m doing the FAQ and slowly trying to do posts on each of those questions, but a while ago Elaine asked about getting lounge access. And since I like free food, I decided to do posts on this. This post is about getting lounge access and breakfast on hotel stays.

We’ll start with a chart giving the basics: Which hotel status do you need to get free breakfast/lounge access, can you get status via the credit card, and can you status match?

	Lounge	Breakfast	Credit Card	Status Match?
Marriott	Gold & Platinum	Gold & Platinum	Silver	Challenge
Hilton	Gold & Diamond	Gold & Diamond	Gold (spend to Diamond)	Match, or Challenge *
Hyatt	Diamond	Diamond	Platinum	Challenge (not right now?)
Starwood	Platinum	Platinum	n/a	Challenge *
Club Carlson	n/a	Concierge	Gold	No
IHG	n/a	n/a	Platinum	n/a (match to what?)

* Starwood and Hilton may offer challenges but do not give the benefits of the status until the challenge is completed.

Notice that none of the credit cards really give the status necessary for lounge access, except for Hilton. That isn’t to say that I haven’t, on very rare occasions, gotten lounge access as a Hyatt Platinum or Club Carlson Gold… it does happen, but it definitely is not a benefit. But I will mention a few ways a credit card could help towards elite status, and of course, status matching is easy.

In this chart I didn’t make note of the tier of status, in other words, this chart doesn’t say whether Hilton Gold is top tier or bottom tier. Because, why does it matter? Really? If you get more benefits with Hilton’s mid tier status than Club Carlson top tier status, I’d rather have Hilton’s mid tier. Or for example, IHG’s top tier “Platinum” status is absolutely worthless. You don’t get lounge access, breakfast, or much of anything. So status isn’t about the status, it’s about the perks. That’s the point of this chart.

Hilton is the best at something…

Hilton is really the best program for status via a credit card. Which, I would say is worthless for a program I’ll only use a couple nights a year, but there is a sweet spot with Hilton points. It’s the combination of possibly earning lots of points with the credit cards and using those points for free nights. Using the Surpass card at a grocery stores you can earn 6 points per dollar. Using points at a category 1, you can earn a free night in $833 of spend. But that’s not the point of this post.

It’s a little overarching to say that Hilton gives gold status with their credit card when they have 4 cards. But the Surpass and Reserve card do give HHonors Gold status simply for having the card.

This is Hilton’s mid tier status, and as hard as I am on Hilton (post devaluation), they are actually one of the most generous in terms of benefits. Really, Hilton Gold is one of the easiest status’ to get and yet they give breakfast and lounge access at every Hilton hotel we’ve been to (assuming there’s a lounge).

Ways to earn Hilton Gold Status:

• Citi Hilton Reserve Card
• American Express Hilton Surpass Card
• Citi Hilton HHonors Visa Signature (/w no annual fee) + 4 stays in the first 90 days
• American Express Hilton HHonors (/w no annual fee) + $20,000 in a calendar year

How to earn Hilton Diamond Status

Both the Hilton Reserve and Hilton Surpass card will give you Diamond status if you spend $40,000 in one Calendar year. Although how worth it is Diamond over Gold? Not a ton for me. Both tend to give lounge and breakfast, but the upgrades might be better as a Diamond.

Extra reading:

• Frequent Milers: How to Manufacture Hilton Diamond Status
• Complete Map of Hilton Category 1 & 2 hotels

 

Status Matching

One way of getting status, that has worked really well for us is status matching. I remember taking IHG Platinum Status (which is worthless but comes free with the credit card) and status matching to Hyatt and Marriott years ago. The thing is not just that IHG Platinum status is free, but that you’re using your worthless status to trade up to awesome top tier statuses, like top tier with Hyatt and Marriott.

Nowadays, both Hyatt and Marriott go in and out of offering a status match/challenge. But when they do, they give the status up front, kind of like a trial. Or as Marriott used to call it, “a taste of Platinum”. But for this reason, take free status when it’s there. Accor and Hilton recently had public signups to elite status. Take any chance to get “elite” status when it’s free.

Matching to Lounge access

Here’s my breakdown of matching to a status that gives lounge access:

• Marriott Gold/Diamond – Marriott has been hit miss lately, but I know people have been successful in getting challenges to Gold… which is all I need.
• Hilton Gold/Platinum – In the past we’ve had success in status matching to Gold and getting a challenge for Diamond. It seems to be dependent on the weather and what program you’re matching from. In general, they seem really quick to give out a challenge, but that’s because the challenge doesn’t do anything until you complete it. But a lot of people matched to Gold and got the Diamond challenge.
• Hyatt Diamond – Apparently Hyatt just stopped doing their Hyatt Diamond “Challenge”, but hopefully it will be back soon. You have to complete 12 nights in 60 days, but the beautiful thing is that you get the status benefits during the challenge. We did this before our stay at the Grand Hyatt Kuala Lumpur, and the lounge is… wow. Great food and a view of the Petronas twin-towers.
• Starwood (SPG) Platinum – I have had luck in getting SPG to give me a challenge, but unfortunately you don’t get status benefits during the challenge. Even with a week mistake fare at a Sheraton ($18/night), I didn’t come close to the 18 nights required.
• Club Carlson Concierge – I have asked on a couple of occasions if Club Carlson will match to Concierge status, but the answer is always no. However, see the section below on getting upgrades with Club Carlson.
• IHG has no status that gives lounge access or breakfast. Try another program if that’s your main concern. But if you want to learn about free nights, read: The Complete Guide to IHG Rewards.

I’m not always completely up to date with matching for all programs, but check out statusmatcher.com for more specific and up to date info.

 

Premium Room awards for lounge

Hyatt Club Upgrades

At the Grand Hyatt Santiago we chose to pay 2,000 extra points to get lounge access. At the time premium awards were a little cheaper and we paid 10,000 points instead of 8,000 points for a standard room. Totally worth it, given that the lounge had awesome sushi brought up from the sushi restaurant. Still, the awards are some pretty good premium award options. At category 1 hotels, the difference is only 2,000 points.

And, if you have a few extra people you can check to see what the standard suite is and check out suite awards. For only 1,000 more points than club rooms on category 1 and 2 hotels, you can get a suite. Generally suites can come with breakfast and lounge access. Can’t hurt to check.

Starwood

Room upgrades are only 1,000 to 2,750 more points per night. However, upgrades are determined by room category type. Which is kind of goofy because a hotel can arbitrarily name rooms however they want. Standard, Deluxe, Executive… you could end up going up a named category and really get nothing. So either research the room types of a hotel or call SPG. However, suite upgrades are pretty straight forward… but often the price of a room. So I don’t get the appeal.

Check out upgrade prices here.

Marriott is basically the same as SPG in that they will upgrade rooms for 5,000 points, but it’s really per room type.

 

Club Carlson Standby Upgrades

While Club Carlson doesn’t officially give breakfast or lounge access, my luck has been really good at hotels that have lounges. When we stayed at the Radisson Blue Vienna Styles, they had rooms available that gave breakfast, and they would upgrade us to those rooms but not give us breakfast. But when hotels do have a lounge, I often get upgrades to the club lounge rooms, plus all the benefits of club lounge rooms… even breakfast.

But what’s more interesting is how aggressive Club Carlson is about automatic upgrades.

When you make a booking with Club Carlson, you may get an email offering to sell you upgrades, or you may get it on the confirmation page of booking. I noticed something when booking the room on my account vs Carrie’s account.

My Club Carlson account has lowly “Silver” status. However, Carrie has the less lowly “Gold” status. We’re looking at staying at the Radisson in NYC. Normally, I can just add her number on any reservation upon checkin, and for whatever reason I booked on my account.

Upon booking, I got this screen.

So I clicked through to see my upgrade offer. $58 for a club room.

This is something I’m seeing a number of hotels do. When picking the room they will sell you a club room for $75 more than a standard room, but you choose the basic room. Then, they offer to sell it to you for less, but upon availability. Basically, if you agree now, you can get it at a discount, in this case the Club room for $59 a night more. But unlike booking the room, this is a request. If they still have the room, they’ll sell it to you for the price agreed.

However, curiosity hit me. So I logged out and back into Carrie’s account where I would make the same booking.

Carrie (who is a Gold member) got this screen:

Obviously I’m going to click that.

$0 for the same room! Basically, I can go ahead and guarantee now what my upgrade would be upon availability. Much to my surprise, Club Carlson is automating the upgrade process as part of the “standby upgrade” process. Also, this standby upgrade is on an award night!

I’ve gotten upgrades better than or on top of the standby, but it’s pretty cool that I can possibly check multiple hotels to see possible upgrades.

Club Carlson also has premium awards, but in general they’re a rip off. They are often an extra 50% of an award price. Usually the room is very similar and often it includes breakfast. I would not trade 1 room night for 2 days of breakfast… personally. But the option is there.

 

Conclusion

There are a ton of ways to get lounge access, and I take all the freebies I can. But I only focus on getting status if I know I have a ton of stays coming up. Back in the day you could trade for Royal Ambassador status, and boy that woulda been helpful because I’m spending more and more time in IHG hotels.

The next priority (in terms of hotels I stay in the most) would be Club Carlson, but they don’t offer matches. So, my 1 & 2 programs are decided completely by game-ability and free nights, not eliteness.

Next would be Hilton, and I may accidentally spend my way to Diamond. Either way, I already have Gold status and have enjoyed many upgrades that include lounge and breakfast. So decide what programs you care about, then figure out how to get the most out of it via status.

Cheers,
Drew