Absolutely correct. A hotel can certainly go above and beyond what they offer their guests. The bare minimum is stated in the Terms and Conditions. Why shouldn't a hotel reward a guest who is highly valued by that hotel? One year our office racked up 100+ nights at a single hotel. Most of our employees were Silver or Gold. Did the hotel treat us nicely? You bet they did, and we returned in kind by giving them all of our stays for that city. Similar we hosted a convention at a hotel. Figure at least 150 rooms sold for the convention for multiple days + the use of the convention & dining facilities. Did they treat our lowly Silver employees like royalty? Absolutely.

It also helps to not badger the front desk. I'll stand firm on 4pm checkout for Titanium/Platinum if I absolutely need it, but everything else is gravy at this point. Nice to have, but don't expect it every time. Especially for lower-level statuses.

If you've ever seen the guests who wander in with Lifetime Platinum, Lifetime Titanium, or even regular Platinum/Titanium, I can assure you that most of them probably aren't young, may have been attractive many years ago, and aren't driving around in Bentleys. Sure, there will be a few, but they definitely don't make up the majority of the class.