The Starwood Amex card gets you SPG gold for one year only, but after that, you can pay $25 or 1700 points to buy gold status for another year if you don't have 10 stays or 25 nights. Now here is the interesting part (I learned about this from a SPG agent a month ago and it is something new to me): Obviously, you can stop paying $25/1700 points if you have enough stays/nights to qualify for gold status. However, if you stop paying, and if you don't have enough stays/nights in a future year, you CANNOT switch back to paying $25/1700 points. Can anyone verify this?