Platinum status used to mean that at certain hotels (which you had to research* ahead of time to find) you'd get free internet and/or free breakfast (of some sort) that was not available to non-elites.

But now that in 2014 free internet at all brands worldwide within IHG will be available just for being an IHG Rewards member (not dependent on status), it seems to me that Platinum status may be less important to pursue at (high to you) cost, because now it only means free breakfast at certain* hotels and sometimes maybe an upgrade of some sort, who knows.

*Finding out which hotels give you what Platinum benefits is not easy. The hotels themselves don't advertise it. So you have to rely on reports from people who've stayed at the exact same hotel with the same status recently enough (because the policies can change over time). (Or have your own recent enough experience in the same hotel, if you stayed there before.) If you can't limit your stays to either hotels where you can verify this ahead of time and/or hotels where it doesn't matter (like Express in the US/Canada, where there's not much to upgrade to usually and breakfast is free to everyone anyway), Platinum benefits can be very hit & miss.