We've now stayed away from Marriott/Ritz properties for a number of years because the cards that offer gold status still only have free nights as bonuses instead of points (and only nights in certain categories). It's amazing that this one fact has caused us to go to other destinations in the world and focus on other brands. We used to plan trips to the Virgin Islands based on Marriott/Ritz. This is the longest we've gone without touching this brand... years. I had almost forgotten about their resorts until we recently saw our few points about to expire.