I tried to qualify last year but failed. I did 55 nights in IHG hotels with 24 nights in ICs at 7 different locations.
I was interested in my EQPs but forgot to look at them before the year ended. I just got an email from Ambassador titled 'Your 2016 travel at a glance' and I note that I had 237512 EQPs. I assume that equates to US$23.5K? So I would say that I was a reasonably high spender, but my night count was not high enough.
My first two weeks of 2017 have started 'well' on the qualification path. I've got 3 nights so far, with 2 different IC stays in Vienna and Miami. Most of my IC stays last year were from June onwards, so I am hoping that I might be able to qualify mid year. Who knows what the score is now with all these qualification shenanigans going on.