bgriff

And one other consideration ... keep in mind that you can double up the benefits if you hit $50K in spend on your card in a calendar year. So that would presumably be enough to hit Gold this year, or you may decide that the large amount of rollover to next year is better for now, and then work to earn two 20K MQM credits next year which along with rollover would put you close to earning Gold next year, and with some flying might even get you to Platinum. If you rolled over ~20K MQMs, hit $50K in spend on your Amex in January 2018, and did two very long trips to South Africa or Australia or Singapore or something in the first quarter of 2018 (and/or found some appealing long-haul business class fare deals), you could earn Platinum status from the end of those trips through to Jan 31 2020.

Platinum does start to get more valuable, and also makes your miles somewhat more valuable thanks to free cancellations and changes on award tickets. But you'd be out of pocket for hitting a total of $75K in Amex spend, plus the long-haul trip(s) next year, and then you'd need to be doing a decent amount of flying while you have Platinum status to get any value out of having the status.