Originally Posted by chrisl137

I think you're missing the other adjectival phrase that was in 3Cforme's original post. It's "low value but high whine" that the airlines separate out (bold added). If you're high value and high whine (like some 1K and GS, as can be seen on the UA forum very clearly) they just put up with you. If you're earning most of your AS miles on other airlines (if you're gold you're sitting in someone's airline seat, but since AS doesn't have a PQS requirement it isn't necessarily theirs) they might not see you as a high $ return.