Thanks for your reply. I pretty much agree that most people on FT tend to have an emotional reaction when they see promotions being "given away" that make it easier for people to attain top-tier status. I've always felt that the reaction was emotional, but I don't have the numbers to back it up like you do, so I appreciate hearing your (and others) perspective.

The reason I always thought it was emotional is because those that attain their status via a promotion will either stay or fly enough to maintain that status, in which case, they would have attained it anyway, and the promotion was a way of getting them to try a competing program, or they don't stay enough to maintain their newly acquired status and have a negligible effect on benefits because of their limited use of the program.

Thanks,
David