New Mlife Earning Year, Is The Hyatt Status Match Merry Go Round Over?
This past weekend Shawn covered the news that Mlife was extending status status for members because of the Covid-19 outbreak. They are also suspending the expiration of rewards credits. Both of these are good moves but one thing that was kind of overlooked was that there will be a new Mlife earning year. That is important because we have been able to take advantage of the Mlife to Hyatt status merry go round. A few readers reached out and wonder if Mlife changing the earning year would make any difference for this great travel hack.
What Is Changing?
The MGM Mlife program used to have a very strange earning year. Usually programs use the calendar year as their earning year but not Mlife. Their earning year has historically been from October 1st – September 30th.
Mlife looked at this free status extension as a time to correct that. Going forward there will be a new Mlife earning year that follows the calendar year. It will now run from January 1st till December 31st. This is a change that makes a lot of sense but many readers have wondered if this kills the Hyatt to Mlife status match merry go round?
Good News – The Mlife to Hyatt Status Match Will Continue To Work
There is no need to fear the beloved Mlife to Hyatt status match will continue to work. That is because Hyatt’s status always lasts until the end of February of the following year. So you will have 2 months of overlap where you can match from Hyatt back to Mlife each year when your casino status drops off. You can then rematch that back to Hyatt status starting on March 1st. Just be sure to get it started during the months of January or February each year.
Also remember playing the status match game is not a good idea if you have any plans to go to Atlantic City. Because holding off can be way more lucrative until you make that trip. It is possible to even get a free weekend trip out of the whole thing!
Final Thoughts
I like the new Mlife earning year, it is much easier to follow when it is based on calendar year. It is also awesome news that it will not change the Hyatt to Mlife status match game (and vice versa). Thanks to the generous status dates from Hyatt we should be able to still play along in the future.
That is good to hear. For some reason whenever I match my Mlife Gold status to Hyatt I get Explorist status for two years. When I matched in March 2018 Hyatt gave me Explorist status to the end of February 2020. When I matched again in March of this year my Explorist status was extended to the end of February 2022.
I think this year it is because they extended all status till 2022 with the pandemic. I am not sure why it worked out that way previously.