Instant Ascott Platinum for Amex Platinum cardholders

Yesterday we spoke about the ludicrous buy points promotion from the Ascott group. Today I’d like to give an update on their membership tiers and status match programme.

Ascott has four membership tiers: Classic, Silver, Gold and Platinum. They offered instant Platinum upgrade last year to Amex Platinum cardholders, although the special sign-up link was actually open to everyone.

However, that promotion ended already. I tried my luck to signed up via that link anyway, and to no one’s surprise, my status turned out to be, err, Classic.

What if the Amex Platinum promotion is still running? I sent an email to [email protected] asking if they could still offer me an upgrade to Platinum status.

The initial response was for me to forward the invitation email as it was an “invitation-only” initiative. Well I saw this on the Internet so obviously I don’t have one. Then they asked me to send them pictures of my Amex Platinum card.

So I sent pictures of my (UK) card, with sensitive information masked of course. Within minutes, I got a reply saying that I was already upgraded to Platinum!

In theory, I believe you can also match to Gold if you hold Amex Gold card instead. These two tiers come with the following benefits:

Ascott Gold

  • 30% off birthday voucher
  • Welcome gift or drink
  • Early check-in & late check-out
  • Free airport transfer in the Middle East
  • Room upgrade in Europe (subject to availability)

Ascott Platinum

  • 40% off birthday voucher
  • Welcome gift or drink
  • Early check-in & late check-out
  • Free airport transfer in the Middle East
  • Free breakfast in Europe
  • Room upgrade worldwide (subject to availability)

Free airport transfer is a great deal and I believe Turkey is treated as Middle East here. Free breakfast is also great as long as you are in Europe. I’m not sure how room upgrade works in practice, although I suspect it might be similar to Best Western, i.e. much more “miss” than “hit”.

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2 Responses

  1. Maciek says:

    Awesome, thanks Kai!

  2. Maciek says:

    In other news – AS miles can be bought with up to 60% bonus until 29 June – highlight would be CX F between HKG and PEK for 27.5k and HKG-EU for 70k one way.