Given the $$ requirements I've read for getting GS, I will take this as very, VERY dry humor

For me, I was definitely going to make 1K this year based on the amount of flying I had planned out. My wife was going to be Platinum, but the way some of her work travel panned out, it left her ~3k PQM and $1.1k PQD away. Given we'll probably be doing enough international travel to use all the GPUs, I said what the heck...so we're spending Christmas in Chicago; she will be flying full-fare F on a 3-class 763 there, and discount F on the way back - will just put her over the hump on both PQM and PQD measures.

The chase for status is part of the fun, IMO, but I think I will get a better measure of if 1K is worth it over the next year. The GPUs are the most noticeable benefit, and given we are both apt to travel internationally as much as we can before having kids (which is probably in the next 2-3 years), I can see some meaningfulness to that. Otherwise, I probably would not sweat the difference between 1K and Platinum all that much...I just don't want to be in BG2. Since I have the Presidential Plus CC and well north of 50k FPQM, that shouldn't be much of an issue.