Originally Posted by
margarita girl
Exactly. The free night more than offsets the $150, and now you get 25% more elite bonus.
And let's not forget that if you have a category 1 hotel in your area, you can spend 30k points for 5 nights, and if you find an off-peak cat 1, you could do it for 20k. Trading cat 3-4 points for a cat 5 hotel is a good idea too.
One other benefit is the soft landing - if you hit Titanium and lose travel next year, you would still get Platinum for the following year.