I was gold for many years with Starwood, and got upgrades fairly often. The upgrades were usually to a better room in the same category I booked, and sometimes to a higher category room. The better rooms were usually ones with a great view - like overlooking the Arno in Florence, overlooking the Opera in Vienna, a oceanfront room in Hawaii, Eiffel Tower views in Paris, Epcot fireworks views at Disney, etc. That didn’t happen all the time, but was frequent enough, and really great. It wasn’t until I made Platinum after the merger that I got a suite upgrade.