I called up SPG to have them fix my room reservation, and I requested to receive Gold, and lo and behold, he told me he would take care of it after we hung up, since he was having some computer problems.
I checked today, and he must have upgraded both my wife and I.
This came 2 days after a diff rep told me through chat that it was impossible.
As always, YMMV
edit: now I'm unsure, my email summary says I'm gold, but my account is still showing preferred. Maybe I'll print out the email and see if that gets me anything