Success: Preferred Hotels Titanium status match

When I was complaining about Choice’s latest devaluation not long ago, I mentioned some of the remaining sweet spots in the programme, including Preferred Hotels & Resorts redemptions.

With the devaluation seemingly getting worse by the day, and more than 50,000 Choice points still sitting in my account from the old Daily Getaways sale, I decided it was time to burn them and booked two nights at The Thief in Norway.

The redemption process was completely painless. Then I realised I had another problem.

I originally obtained I Prefer Titanium status through a Mastercard promotion in 2024, but unfortunately it was finally downgraded to Gold recently. Even if I opened a brand-new account now, I’d still need to complete a stay before being upgraded back to Titanium. And of course, I still had more than 30,000 points sitting in my existing account.

Luckily, I Prefer itself offers a status match programme. According to the data points on StatusMatcher, I sent an email to [email protected] with a screenshot of my Hilton Diamond status. I was slightly nervous about whether my previous Titanium status might somehow affect the application, but apparently it wasn’t an issue at all.

Just one hour later, the match was approved!

I replied to the same email asking them to link my Choice reservation as well, and that was processed almost immediately too.

Titanium status successfully revived. That said, I Prefer’s elite benefits are not exactly the most reliable. They mention things like room upgrades, late checkout and welcome amenities, but none of these are particularly guaranteed. My previous stays with the programme weren’t exactly stellar either.

So, let’s see how The Thief in Oslo performs this time around!