I was pretty loyal to SPG and Platinum for several years. I then became somewhat annoyed with the program because I never seemed to get any suite upgrades and all I kept reading about was all the great stuff others got.

I decided to give Hilton a try and also sign up for the HH AMEX card. Basically I let SPG fall down to Gold and then also achieved HH Gold via the credit card spend the first year. This really worked for me over the last two years and I have to say I really didn't miss the SPG Plat. benefits (because I didn't feell I got too many of them). HH Gold worked well and like others have posted I like the free lounge or free breakfast upgrade and I even got a couple of suites (at Hamptons of all places) and a couple of really nice upgraded rooms at several Hilton hotels. I ended up racking up a nice chunk of HH points due to stays and also via the credit card especially due to the 3 points per $ you used to get for restaurant purchases. Basically I still put all of my charges on the SPG AMEX with the exception of those that I could earn bonus points on by charging them to the HH AMEX. Sadly the HH AMEX restaurant earning options changed this year so I put that spend back on my SPG AMEX. The new HH Surpass card wasn't of interest to me since I didn't see the huge increase in benefits from HH Gold to Diamond (search the HH forum for discussions on this!).

As stated, I was pretty happy with this until SPG began offering the "Stay 2 get 1 Free" option this year which pushed me back to Starwood for most of my stays. I am on track to make SPG Plat. again soon and I will see if I actually feel that I get some benefits out of it this time around. If not...its back to what I described above once the status expires. HH Gold is safe for a while due to credit card spend. For me the two programs and the credit card options offered work really well and I would suggest looking into it. It also helps that Hilton has properties where I sometimes need to be and Starwood doesn't.