With regard to paying for a bank card to chase status, the Amex Platinum card in at least some non-US markets includes Hilton Gold status. And Hilton Gold may be golden enough that Diamond status doesn’t matter all that much. Even with that option, I would say it’s generally a bad time to chase status whenever the person has not crunched the numbers to determine if the actual value to be gotten from the status being chased exceeds the cost — inclusive of opportunity costs — of chasing the status and its benefits that follow from the status use.