My instinct would be that they would not round up for Early Qualification because it's a bonus and the full year is the program itself. There's no guarantee of a EQ sweep in late October or November, although here has been one in the past. But in the past 35K was *G and it's *S now. Times change. I wouldn't bank on it and if you just stand pat, and it comes, you can enjoy it as an unexpected surprise.
Because there is a set of benefits now if you do EQ and then another round of benefits in March, I'd certainly be looking to see if there was a fun trip I could take for Thanksgiving or something. Particularly since the 35K benefits are so limited, and if you take the MLL WW card as a benefit, you can only select it when you get the status, and then the card takes five freaking weeks to come, so you can't get into the *G lounges until mid April. If you are taking that benefit and you EQ, your card will be valid until the next benefit year. (Although now that I think about it, I am not completely clear if it would remain valid in that interim between March 1 and card arrival. I worked a little hard at justifying enough travel in time for EQ for 50K.)