MGM Shifts to Status “Challenge”

We knew it wouldn’t be the same old matching at MGM come the end of July. When they originally said they’d end matching and even the matched status timeframe (for casino matches, not Hyatt matched) June 30th (later extended to July 31st), we didn’t know if there would be any matching at all come August. 

Well, they’ve jumped the gun a bit, launching the new iteration of the program effective yesterday (as at least one MilesTalker found out yesterday after leaving Ocean to collect their MGM match at Borgata and were almost matched – then denied by a manager stating the program had ended).

The new program began yesterday and it is initially scheduled to end on September 30th, 2023 – indicating they want to see how it goes (a two month timeframe is unusually short).

The challenge only gives you status for 90 days, and then requires a rather steep amount of tier credits to maintain it through January 2025. 

By steep I mean this:

To keep Gold status through January 2025, you have to earn 50,000 Tier Credits in 90 days. To earn it outright over a 12 month period, you need 75,000 Tier Credits. 

To keep Platinum status, you need to earn 150,000 Tier Credits in 90 days to keep it through January 2025. To earn it outright over a 12 month period, you need 200,000 Tier Credits. 

Now, this is just silly.

You have 1/4 of the year to earn 2/3 of the full year’s Tier Credits for Gold or 3/4 of the full year’s Tier Credits for Platinum.

And you’ll still need to earn the full 75,000 (Gold) or 200,000 (Platinum) TCs for any extra benefits like the $100 Gold dinner or any transportation benefits. 

For reference, the general rule of thumb on a status challenge is to match up the time you have to complete it with the corresponding fraction of the year you have. So with 1/4 of the year to complete this, they should have (in my opinion) made Gold 18,750 Tier Credits to keep it for the year and Platinum would be 50,000 Tier Credits. It’s not like that’s “easy” for a non-gambler and would be proportional to the full year expectation. Alas, I was not consulted by MGM 😉 

Of course you’ll want to know what matches to what. After all, perhaps a status challenge would be worth it to some to take the card within the 3 months to match elsewhere.

While the tier status challenge promotion page has a broken link for Paragraph 8, MilesTalk Facebook group member Mark F tracked it down. Here’s the list of what matches (challenges) to what.

It’s the same as for the matches – i.e. Caesars Diamond won’t even get you the Gold challenge, but Ocean Prime will.

HT: MilesTalk Facebook Group member Jake R.

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