I had spent most of my dollars on my Starwood AMEX and some on a Centurion. Thanks to this board, I got the MERRILL+ card - mostly for the free Ritz nights. I reached the +2 ($20,000) category two weeks ago. I will seriously have to reconsider my plans after reading this thread.
My Starwood points can be used pretty much anywhere, anytime. To divert my business to MERRILL only to find out I have 4 Ritz certificates I can't use would be very distressing. My plan when I started was to use the 4 nights for NJ teachers convention (early November) in Naples.
That said, as I posted elsewhere, the 20,000 level apparently will get American Airlines to match my Gold status on a few airlines. We'll see what that's worth.