Should I use custom post types?

Hey guys,

This question has two parts so I wasn’t sure which thread to post it under. My apologies if it’s in the wrong place…

My client has 2 membership levels for his directory… Media Members (8 total) and Gold Members (20+) and he wants them both displayed on the home page of the site using the “popular post view” widget.

I’m trying to figure out if I should create a custom post type for each membership level. The categories within each post types will be identical so I don’t know if this will pose a problem.

Is there a benefit to using custom post types for this or should I just enter everything under the default “places” post type (categories the same as well) and use the “popular post view” widget to separate them on the home page?

Part 2… is there a way to exclude a category from displaying when using the “popular post view” widget. I don’t see an “exclude category” where I can enter the category ID that I want to prevent from showing up.

The reason is because if I don’t create custom post types but only use the “popular post view” widget It will display “All” categories (including the media members) in the Gold Members section and vice versa for the Media members. Does that make sense?

Let me know if I need to clarify more or if you need access to see the site.

Thanks in advance for the help!