My experience seems to be similar.
I had emails turned off for United so I never got this offer, but an advert for it came up in my Facebook feed last night. I signed in and got:
$3,000 for 59,000
$6,000 for 88,000
$15,000 for 146,000
I have had no status on UA since 2014, but was 1K/CO Plat since about 2008 before, and have just been burning miles since then....
I did have a paid flight in business to India on UA/LH in March this year, so I have YTD PQD of around $4k. It was on UA ticket but 3 segments were on LH. So it does look like the $ amount for the lowest level is around my current spend this year.
I may end up with another flight to India before the deadlaine, so will need to make sure I get more of it on UA Metal to see if I can get to the $3k, I also need to meet the 4 segment minimum to get what would be Gold with a 2nd trip.
So I ended up booking another trip to India, managed to get EWR-FRA on UA metal and on the way back had to do FRA-LHR(LH)-EWR(UA). It is all business booked in P, looking at the UA PQD that is only 1888 for the 2 UA segments (so $1113 shy of the first bonus). I also noticed that despite only having these 2 india trip and 1 LGA-ORD that once I hit 4 UA segments on the next trip I will get silver, and once I arrive in India Gold for the return. It actually looks like I am only about 5k PQM short from platinum as well. I assume if I change flights and it is a more expensive that will count as revenue fro the promo? Will change fees count?
I looked at buying miles / PQM, I actually have an OK offer on a later award flight, but my read is that would only get me Plat and miles, and no PQD.
The connections I have FRA-LHR-EWR are both tight, so a new routing may be an option, but fare difference seems pretty high now, if I call can they just change/upfare the FRA-EWR segment? when I look at change online it changes the fare class on all the segments on that leg, I call can they just change / reprice the FRA-EWR part?
Anyone have any smart ideas how to get over the line for both the promo and plat? Without additional trip before Nov 30.