For what it's worth, Google makes it far easier to search threads here than the on site search. If you do a Google search, adding (in this case) "spg site:flyertalk.com", you will get much better, more usable results than using "Search Forum" here. For example, I got the following result from the Marriott forum using the Google search "marriott spg status match site:flyertalk.com", with a pretty clear explanation of the process:

http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/marri...tus-match.html


Trying to search the forum here with the same string got me a bunch of irrelevant threads.