I have just gotten one of these, so I'm not speaking from experience, but my research came down to basically, you create this "pool" of "flex EQM" and you can pull out of the pool what you need to make the next status level. They ONLY count to status, and not to your mileage balance, but you get "regular" miles with the purchases too, so that's pretty much a wash.

The bigger advantage over the UA offering IMHO is that there is no yearly window - spend $5000, get 1000 EQM, and it just keeps rolling, so you'll never get screwed out of whatever is in the bank at the end of the year.

Sounds like a helluva deal to me. Seems it would be pretty easy to spend $50,000, and 10,000 miles could make a huge difference in your status!

All that said, there is a huge question mark out there of what will happen in the next year or so. I asked the CS person when I called for status of my application (which was approved in one day) and she said "we wouldn't offer it if it was ending right away". Great - thanks for the help.

I would also assume this is a very effective way of selling President's Club memberships, though, so it very well might stick around.

No international use surcharge too.