Last Days To Upgrade With Marriott

If you have recently been downgraded in your status with Marriott (platinum to gold or gold to silver), as of April 1st, the number of points necessary to get back to your original status is going UP!
CHECK YOUR STATUS WITH MARRIOTT if you expect to see gold or platinum showing up.
With SPG, while they'll match your status, one is unable to upgrade SPG status if lost by using points.
Before April 2017, if you had platinum status and are now dropped to gold, you can get back to platinum for 40K Marriott (13.33K SPG or around 27K AMEX points--first convert to SPG, then to Marriott).  After March 31st, it will cost you 60K Marriott points!  With platinum, you get more points for stays, an option of a snack or points for any stay (lame), United Silver status which allows you one free checked-in luggage on any Star Alliance flight (including of course, Air Canada) on top of whatever allowance you already may have.  I find this useful with short haul flights or even any flight within North America, including Puerto Rico, which allows for NO checked-in luggage AT ALL without paying for it.
Most importantly, it gives you free upgrades that tend not to be guaranteed until the day of check in, but gold status offers this as well.
For those who've lost your gold status, it will cost you 25K to get it back before April--but 35K Marriott points after March.
Lock in now (unless you have a credit card that offers SPG Gold status and you don't care about the extra perks of platinum)!