I will always travel a lot for work, but it is unlikely that 2013 will be the same as 2012 where I made it to gold by April without the help of a Marriott credit card.

My impression is that with the ability to rollover nights, Marriott status is the easiest to keep even if your stay frequency varies greatly.

I'm at 85 nights now and will most likely be over 120 by year end, so that puts me on a good footing for making Platinum into 2015 right?

Not quite sure what you are asking. Marriott has published that rollover nights will be in place from 2012 to 2013. They have not said anything going past those years.

A couple of other points.

1. Rollover nights do not rollover themselves. Only actual stays, CC, and promo nights do.
2. If you rolled over 100 nights this year, you instantly had Platinum. However to rollover any to next year (at plat level), you need 175 nights. 100 rollover plus 75 other nights.

I don't know how you can predict Plat until 2015. If you didn't rollover any this year, you will rollover 45 into 2013. (120-75) You will need 30 nights next year to maintain plat. into 2014 and 120 nights to begin rolling over to 2014-if they continue rollover.

I am sure that can be explained better! Its a little confusing.

Also, don't forget about MR's soft landings. So missing Plat will only drop you to Gold. There are many posts where people are not seeing a big difference between Plat and Gold (bonus points aside).

While the benefit of rollover nights is helpful, I would say Marriott has one of the most difficult elite status' to maintain compared to other hotel chains. Staying 75 nights per year is a hell of a lot of time in a hotel room.

I didn't count my rollover nights in my total. I will continue to travel often for work, I just don't expect it to be at the level I've been doing this year. That 45 days of rollover will do nicely towards platinum into Feb 2015 even if my total night in 2013 drops in half to 60 nights

If your nights drop to 60 in 2013 you will end up Gold for 2014 and have to get 75 nights to be Platinum in 2014.

well that's what I was kind of getting at with rollover nights. If one year I'm at 120 nights and the next year I'm at 60 nights I can still maintain my platinum status into the next year after that.

50% of my travel is structured and planned. The other 50% of my travel is what I would call "emergency" based, last minute travel that I can't predict or plan on. The beginning of 2012 had one really huge emergency in my department that required me spending 6 work weeks straight in hotels and going home on weekends.... on top of my planned travel for the time which was still required.

If my stays in 2013 drop to 60, but I have 45 rollover from 2012, I don't get to keep platinum?

Nope.

Let's give an example...

2012 -- 175 nights (stay + credit card, no rollover) = Platinum for 2013 and 100 rollover nights

2013 -- 60 nights + 100 rollover = Gold for 2014 + 10 rollover nights (? later I am not quite sure but I think that is the case)

2014 -- Gold + 10 rollover nights already towards Platinum for 2015.

What I am basically saying is that if you know you won't hit past 75 nights there is really no much sense to stay past 75 minus previous year rollover nights at Marriott (short of life time status count).

I.e. if you say had 50 rollover nights and you know you will not stay 75 nights there is no difference in status for next year after 25 nights as you already reach qualification for Platinum for net year and until you have 75 nights (stay + CC) nothing will roll over.

if you have 60 nights in 2013 + 100 rollover nights from 2012, wouldn't you qualify for plat in 2014, or am I missing something??

That is my understanding as well. So basically, using iztok's example:

2013 - Achieves Plat (due to staying 60 nights within the calendar year, but still achieves Plat due to the additional 100 rollover nights.)

2014 - No rollover nights as only had 60 nights the previous year.

Note that we actually don't know if Marriott will even continue rollover nights past this year, as it is a benefit they seem to be extending on a year to year basis.

I have a note from Marriott saying my Platinum status is good until Feb 2014. Aren't the nights I'm collecting now going towards renewing that status after that point?

Correct. The nights you aquire this year are for your elite status next year (and of course for a achieving a higher status this year.)

The CC certainly helps and any rollover nights help too. If it is your first year with the program (i.e. you have no status) and get the card, spend say 10K then your at 18 nights without staying one night in an actual hotel. Stay 25 nights and you are a silver at 43 nights... 33 rollover. Do the same, 25 nights (~2 nights per month), 18 CC nights next year and you make Plat.

That said, once plat you will only rollover 1 night. Keeping plat is going to be much harder.

I dunno, I guess my point is if you know how the system works you should be able to get plat only staying 25 nights. Also, if you can yearly get Gold then the CC can get you pretty much the rest of the way to Plat.