Cincinnati, OH to Sevierville, TN, according to GoogleMaps, is approximately 4 hours, 12 minutes drive, Cincinnati, OH to Gatlinburg, TN is approximately 4 hours, 35 minutes, while Cincinnati, OH to Charleston, WV is approximately 3 hours, 29 minutes drive. There are FOURTEEN Cat. 1-4 hotels in Charleston or the rest of West Virginia, and ALMOST all of them are less than a four hour drive from Cincinnati. Similar results are probably true for every state immediately adjacent to Ohio, the place of OP's residence, or wihin a 4 hour drive of OP's residence. Yes, I still agree that Cat. 1-4 hotels are often not legendarily great hotels, but they are also NOT BAD, and there are CLEARLY many, many, many choices, all over the place. I used West Virginia purely as an example of choices available to OP.

It is the OP's choice whether to get $59/night value for those certs, or to get $159/night value for those certs* by choosing another location for a higher quality experience with "the wife." If the OP wants a more limited choice, the OP can choose only hotels within a limited driving distance, but if the OP wants a broader choice, for an AWARD stay, then there are literally hundreds of choices, whether OP wishes to drive, or to fly for $$, or fly for award miles, or whatever would make the OP happy and satisfy the OP's wife. There is NO doubt there are many choices, and it is hard to see how the OP is having difficulty with even 5 minutes of research on marriott.com.

*Not a literal range of prices, just used to illustrate the point about prices from low to high as a value received for the certs in question.