The best upgrade we have received without asking is in LM at Kuala Lumpur and Prince Autograph in Tokyo. We got great upgrades after asking in JW Macau, the REN at Dusseldorf. The definition of a great upgrade is if we "wow" when we get into the room (a positive wow).

We have been Marriott members for like 11 years. The other upgrades are nice, mostly 1 category above what we booked which is totally by the book.

We travel out of our own pocket and we love to travel so a $200 night for us is not feasible (I don't think many regular households has leisure spending of $12k a year in hotels). Mr tried to work out if we should make LTT while we had a chance but it didn't seem so for our needs. I'm close to LTP anyway so let's hope I'm still alive until Mr gets his LTP.

UA S might be useful but it's so rare that we need it anyway since we are *A which is more useful on non-UA metal.

Lounge access is great but I have booked 2 hotels with lounge in Canada for my upcoming trip and both are still closed due to Covid (I think most restrictions have been lifted a while ago). There's a Delta in WA I'm thinking about booking and they basically throw you 750 pts and ripped the rest of the benefits off. Why would I stay there?

Then I am going to stay in another hotel in Istanbul on TK's dime and apparently that hotel doesn't even bother to give out benefits, and the Lurkers here are not exactly the most customer friendly people either. Their reply was cold and by the book. There seems to be no distinction between T and P except the published benefits and exception.

Personally I don't value lounge access much, it could be useful in places like Canada or Hong Kong where eating out is so expensive. I will never pay extra to buy the access though. I won't be going back to HK for a long time and I'm sure I can find some microwavable dishes in Canada as my dinners there.