You drop one elite level per year with American, but I do not believe that is the case with United.

As for the value in being 1K, I guess Elizabethh wants those SWUs and other goodies. At $3000, she would be "buying" top level status for another year, six SWUs, 2 HK49s, about 16 500-mile e-upgrades, and about 100,000 miles. Is that fair? I have no clue, but eBay would suggest a value of about $1250-$1500 for the SWUs alone. The HK49s would add another $200-$300. The 16 500 milers have a "published" price at UAL.com of more than $500, and finally those 100,000 miles would be valued at about $1500 minimum by most folks. So, assuming you are flying a lot next year and want to be upgraded, $3000 for 1K status and the other goodies is not bad ROI.

However, 47,000 flight miles is a heck of a lot of miles in FOUR weeks. A JFK-SIN round trip with a routing through HNL would only bring in about 22K and that trip takes about three full days, so you are looking at THREE separate round trips of some sort minimum.