Oh, I forgot about the gold status, that'd be nice. But it's my understanding that there's a difference between SPG gold with a business card versus personal. You get access to Sheraton lounges (free breakfasts) only with the business. And if you have Gold SPG you'd automatically get Gold Marriott, which means free breakfasts at Marriott. So those could be considered add-on values. But all of this only makes sense if you find a property that you'd want to stay in. That's why I recommend perusing the list of Marriott hotels to see which one perks up your interest. Since you already have the SW CP, perhaps you'd be interested in one of the Caribbean hotels... Personally, I've been looking at Disney hotels (there are some nice cat 7 ones). I'm planning on taking the family to Disney on the Auto Train. It's an overnight train from Lorton, VA to Sanford, FL and you can transport your car as well. I've also been looking at Marriott hotels in Lisbon, Prague, Rio, Cayman Islands, Greece... we'll see where we'll ultimately decide to go. I have 2 of the Marriott 7-night certificates and I want to put them to good use. Finally, if you buy your GCs online at GCM through a cashback portal, you'll actually make a little bit of money MSing. Yazing pays you 2% back on GC purchases. So a $1,500 purchase will cost $17.85 in activation fees and Yazing will pay you $30.36 cash back. Not bad, eh? I'm happy to help a fellow Virginian. :)