After awhile, the overuse of color and special fonts gets me irritated.

To me, non-standard formatting is best used used sparingly and only for emphasis, effect and distinction. By definition, that is not everything one writes. Of course, YMMV.

Get used to it, it is my trademark, I used to use bold too! :D

It all depends on your stay pattern...some have trouble with nights. As with me it's points. The first 5 years in the program I mainly stayed inconsistently at Residence Inns due to my client situation. The past few years I've been staying 150 nights at a CY, with a very good corporate rate, so points have been tough to come by even with maximizing bonuses.

I think the nights requirement is the most strict. You have to either travel a lot for many years or live at a Marriott for 3-5 years in order to reach it. I have not called recently for my lifetime total, but I have earned a bit over a million points earned on about 327 nights (with 30 of those nights from the Premier card). I still have another 6.5 years to go before reaching 12 years with Marriott. Lifetime gold should happen for me based on expected travel for the next few years, but I will not get lifetime platinum in 2014 unless I keep traveling at my current rate for another 5-6 years.

As you wish. Many of us find it to be style over substance and color over content.

Are you sure you had at least 75 nights every year? I have seen many posts here in FT stating that Marriott kept them at Plat even though they didn't get their full 75 nights.

When Marriott merged all their various programs (Marquis, CY Club, FFI Club, etc) they did not pull through the nights stayed in the non-Marquis programs. I probably had a couple hundred nights in CYs and was a CY Club Gold member for a number of years, but none of those nights came through.

Its points for me.

1000 nights - credit card nights (15*12) = 820/12 =68 nights/year.

I'll reach that by year 12 at my pace but I'll be well below 3 million points. Too many nights at 75-80/night hotels I guess.

Even with a room average of 125 that would be (125*1000*10=1.25million. Getting 1.75 million in "bonus" points seem unlikely to me).

It might be possible to get close since you get 5 points for the credit card and another 3 for being platinum. That would be another 8 points per dollar spent at a FS Marriott for the room rate. You would also get 5 points per dollar charged for room tax. Your calculation assumes 1000 paid nights at $125/night. At that rate you would get another 1 million points, excluding the amount received from charging the room tax to your card.

Adding in promotions and extra points from the room tax (assuming the tax is 10 % of room rate, you would get 125 * 100 *5 or another 62,500 points) could get you the 750,000 needed to reach 3 million. If you take points at FS properties for the platinum gift, you could pick up another 100,000 points for 200 stays at a FS property.

My numbers are 10 years/600 nights/1,000,000 points. I did not get the early nights but there was not that many. I have been a plat since 2000 and had one year that I did not get 75 nights but was "waived" for the year. 2 years to get alot of points for me to get silver.

This sounds like planning for retirement :)

My numbers
 

Nights 830
Points 2,600,856

I suspect I will make it early 2009 or so. I wish they had counted the CYC as I know that is missing. Ce La Vie.

Color Me Dumb
 

Having joined OnePass back in '84 (back in the days when an upgrade was a $10 bill at the gate per segment), I didn't bother with any hotel program until 2003.

Starting with HHonors for the first year and then switching to MR in late '04.

So in approx 3 years I am only at >250 nights, Plat since mid '05, and right at 900,000 pts.

The stay pattern says points = No Problem, nights = No Problem, but 9 more years???, egads!:o