<font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2">Originally posted by aceflyer2:
Interestingly, one of the legitimate benefits of gold status ,as stated by STARWOOD, is upgrade to a nicer room (e.g. with view, larger room), if available. [This message has been edited by aceflyer2 (edited 10-17-2002).]</font>
The problem is that this is very difficult to detect a "non-compliance" let alone enforce it. As long as they have not given you the worst room in the hotel available in the class you booked, they have satisfied the Gold benefit statement because that worst room was your room in theory. The fact that you think that the room you got is not nice enough or is not the nicest room in the hotel is irrelevant
It is entirely left to the Hotel as to how nicer a room to give you. All the Gold card does is to predispose the hotel to be nice to you regardless of what you paid for the room and some hotels are more generous than others.
As long as SPG marketing does not overstate this benefit or people do not get fooled into thinking there is more, that is fine.