Not sure we often we'll use it. But at least it is available:
What card was that from? SPG Gold isn't anywhere near as good as Marriott Gold Elite (which is fantastic!), which you should have for at least the first year since you got the Ritz-Carlton card (congrats again). Linking your Marriott and SPG accounts will automatically give you reciprocal status, and allow you to transfer points at will 1:3 or 3:1 in 1000 point increments. I just wish some form of gold+gold+gold would give me Platinum Elite status since I could never do it on stays, but I already have two cards giving me the gold status. Marriott Gold Elite is great because it gives you guaranteed 4 PM checkout, free breakfast (for entire family or a guest), free enhanced WiFi (which seems to average $20-30 a day), and lounge access (only gold members with the business SPG card get that with Starwood). That alone was enough to more than offset my Amex Platinum AF this year!
It's convoluted but not too confusing. Essentially, the programs and the hotels are still completely separated, but they do status matching. It just happens that SPG Gold is actually closer to Marriott Silver than Gold Elite, so getting Marriott Gold Elite is a fantastic perk for those than get it through SPG. The other interesting byproduct of course is that the Starwood cards (and in some case Amex Platinum) are better Marriott cards than Chase's own actual Marriott cards due to their higher effective earning completely across the board after the 3:1 conversion.
Explore their brands! They don't really dabble in the budget market (not sure how far my elite status would go at an equivalent of Motel 6 or Days Inn), but they have every other kind of property under the sun.