First, welcome to FT.

But the answer your question is, unfortunately, yes. A lot of the beach resort properties have several different room categories based on views, balconies, etc. If the hotel still had their base rooms available for rewards redemption, then you would have seen a reservation option without any "extra" charges. What this probably means is that they only have "upgraded" room available for rewards redemption.

You can check with the hotel and see if they will allow you to use reward points to upgrade. If so, these are usually 5K per upgrade level per night. So a 7 night stay would require another 35K points if your room is considered a one-category upgrade, 70K if a two-category upgrade, etc.

Also, you can always make the reservation now and keep checking to see if they release any "base" level rooms. Assuming the reservation allows you to cancel with no penalty, you can then make the new reservation and then cancel this first one. You will want to check the reservation cancellation policy because at resorts, they may be more restrictive than the normal 6:00pm day of arrival.

Another option is when you check-in, you can mention that you are a Gold member and see if they will waive the extra fee. But don't bet on that happening since your reservation states that you agreed to pay that extra fee. (What is interesting is that there may be other Gold/Plats who have already made reservations for the base level room and will ask for a comp upgrade and possibly get it when they check in. But of course, they didn't made their reservations earlier and got the cheaper room.)

I guess you can always try to contact the general manager of the hotel and see if s/he will do anything for you. It can't hurt to ask.