We are strictly leisure these days and have returned to Gold status for this year. Just have a big family with lots of weddings and graduations and be amenable to flying to places like DCA to drive to Cleveland!
This year we won't re-qualify for Gold until the last day of the year. We typically hop on a plane about every five weeks and enjoy the challenge of trying to hit the bogey and score some UGs in the process.
The bonus for us is the excuse to head to Hawaii twice a year.
To make Gold we have had to do strictly mileage runs to IAH last year and BOS this year....not easy to justify the expense but we brought along some decent reading material and tried to ignore the idiocy of flying somewhere just for the excuse of banging out some miles.
Biggest bennies for the status are no change fees, 2X mileage credit, no baggage fees, UGs and the speedier line at the airport.