Join Date: Aug 2007
Location: San Francisco, CA
Programs: Mucci (for services to Gin), VS Au, SPG Plat, Hilton Diamond, Avis Pref+, Hertz 5*
Posts: 980
You get a cookie that holds information about your status, that is why you get all the Plat benefits and promotion links even if you haven't logged in. It is the same mechanism that remembers your username. I would imagine that if you don't save your username on the login page, you won't get the cookie that contains your status but I haven't tested that theory.
If you went to SPG.com on a PC that had never visited the site before you would get the general number until you log in.