I don't love the shilling, and while I don't have a ton of points right now, I'm going to have SE for next year, and LIKELY the year after that. Beyond that I doubt it, so I'm going to try and make sure to burn my points during that window.

Collecting these points with no status at all doesn't REALLY make much sense and I think that's where people go wrong. You're probably better off collecting Amex/RBC points or whatever that are directly related to the dollar value of the flights, or just taking a cash back card and funneling that money into a travel/vacation fund.

When my flying stops, so will my interest in the AP points likely. Sure 50,000 points for YVR-MDE is great, but if it's going to be $200 as an SE with IKK, tack on YQ and it doesn't look so good, though there's always UA/CM combos to try and get on. At the end of the day I just don't like the idea that anyone starts/continues collecting these points while not knowing what they're getting into.