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SPG Platinum status is legendary due to their room upgrade policy—you are upgraded to the best room available when you check-in, even to standard suites. You’ll also automatically get club access at SPG and Marriott hotels, and decent Marriott room upgrades.

One of the best ways to earn SPG & Marriott Platinum status is by booking a set of inexpensive meetings at Marriott hotels. With the Marriott “Rewarding Events” program, you’ll earn 10 elite night credits for each meeting you book, no matter how inexpensive the meeting is.

Just to be clear, Marriott won’t give you a bunch of points for booking an inexpensive meeting, but they will give you credit towards elite status.

With the new unified Marriott & SPG Program that is launching in August, we expect that this path towards easier elite status will remain available. Even better, you'll only need 50 nights, rather than 75 night, to get the juicy benefits, and starting in 209, you can get a 15-night bump from the SPG cards (and not just the Marriott cards).

You need 75 elite night credits to earn Marriott Platinum status, which will then be automatically matched to SPG Platinum. You could do this by booking 8 meetings, for $100-125 each, or even less. If you do this early in the calendar year, you’ll earn Platinum status with both programs for close to two years.

If you already have a need to host meetings and events, this is unbelievably fantastic. If not, it can still be the best way to earn Platinum status. Just book some meetings that you don’t really need to go to. Not everyone will get enough value from Platinum status to offset the $400-500 per year that this strategy requires, but many people will.

Tips

If you already have elite night credits from stays, or if you get the 15 elite night credits from the Marriott credit card, you will need to book fewer meetings. Just getting the credit card drops the number of meetings you need to six. Getting both the personal and business versions of the Marriott credit card, drops the number of required meetings to 5. However, both versions of the Marriott card are subject to Chase’s 5/24 rules.
If you earn your status early in a year, you can get over two years of Platinum benefits. Your status lasts until the end of February, after the end of the year following the year you earn it. If you earn Platinum status any time during 2018, you’ll keep it until February of 2020. If you earn it in January, you’ll get the benefits for more than two years.
If you don’t really need the room for a meeting, book a two-person meeting for only a single hourr You’ll get a rate that is half the daily rate or lower. You’ll want to turn down any extras like catering, or A/V equipment.
You usually don’t have to show up for the meeting. However, as a courtesy, some hotels will cancel your meeting room if you don’t show up. You won’t be charged for the meeting, but you won’t receive your credits, and you’ll have to try again. Nevertheless, the cheapest way to earn your status is to book meetings at the cheapest possible hotels you can find, anywhere in the world, without any plan of actually attending the meetings.
Many hotels don’t know about the elite night credit benefit, but don’t worry, you’ll get your credits. If you ask the hotel staff about the 10 elite night credits, they will often not know what you are talking about, or tell you that you aren’t going to get them. Don’t worry, they are really part of the program. Just make sure you are "registered to receive points" for your meeting, and you’ll get your elite night credits as well.
It can take some time for your credits to show up. Not every hotel is diligent about entering your meeting information into the Marriott system that credits your reward points and elite nights, and Marriott has a waiting period of a couple of additional weeks. It might take some time for your credits to show up, and you frequently have to call or email the hotel to remind them to credit your points. Just ask them whether they have entered your meeting into the Marriott tool, so that you can receive points for your meeting.
You don’t earn elite night credits for meetings at Residence Inn, TownePlace Suites, Marriott Executive Apartments, or Protea hotels. Your most likely targets are Springhill Suites, Courtyards, and Marriott hotels.

Finding cheap meeting rooms

The Rewarding Events webpage lets you search for meeting room availability.

The problem is that it will simply show a “Request Quote” button for most of hotels, instead of an actual meeting price. When it does show a meeting price, it will be for a full-day meeting room rental.

If you shorten the meeting to 4 hours or less, the price will drop exactly in half. So, the cheapest meeting at the Courtyard above is $125. If you don’t need the room, it is best to book just a one hour meeting, early or late in the day, so that the hotel can most easily resell the room for other meetings.
If you are willing to hunt around a bit, you can find quoted rates of as low as $150 per day, or $75 for a shorter meeting. The cheapest meetings in Canadian hotels are CAD 100, which works out about the same. Expect to pay around 20% in additional taxes and fees. It is possible to find meetings for only $100 per day, or $50 for a shorter meeting, but they are rare.
The best way to find cheap rates is to search an entire state at a time. The location box is oriented around searching for cities, but if you enter the name of a state, and scroll all the way down to the bottom of the suggestion list, you’ll find an option for searching the entire state. This way, you can quickly identify the cheapest meetings available in states like Texas, Ohio, and Florida, which have a lot of hotels in less expensive locations. This also works to search for entire countries like Canada. However, it won’t work for searching the entire United States, because the website can’t show that many results in the listings.
You might get a better rate if you request a quote, but you can’t tell until you try. When you press the request quote button, you can add up to 3 hotels. Put a low number in the budget box, and make sure to add a note, stating you only need the room for an hour. You can also try negotiating directly with a nearby hotel that is already on the cheaper end of the scale. There have been people online who have been able to negotiate rates as low as $50 per meeting, with a nearby hotel, to take care of all of their meetings.

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