Also depends upon how much you spend. For me the 1000FEQM/$5000 is work more than the one time 10000 bonus at $25k. I didn't travel that much last year and this will help me get back into elite faster--and until I was booted out today I had 100% upgrade on CO success as Silver out of/back to EWR this year (but 0% on UA).

Also depends upon the airport--EWR isn't all that bad, but if you get stuck in ORD or god forbid in Guam, you would pay anything to get in. Granted there are day passes, but if you have to only buy 1 instead of 3 that could make a difference.