I called marriot rewards. I have the marriot card and have silver elite. I told them I want them to match my spg gold status. It took 45 minutes convincing the guy over the phone but he finally agreed to give me gold elite. I can't tell you how much of a difference it makes when going to marriot hotels. Every time I go to a marriot I am getting major upgrades. I just went to the jw marriot in Palm Springs which is a 5 star resort. I booked using UR points (10,000) per night when it normally costs 35,000 marriot points. We went with two other families and used 30,000 total UR points per night and they gave us a 2 bed suite with living room and dining room and 2 connecting rooms per other family. That's 7 rooms for the price of 3! The bottom line is they really treat gold elite well. One of the families even complained about noise and got me 35,000 marriot points put back on account(only paid 20,000 UR total!). Worth looking into.
