Who: I am an event operations director for major paintball tournaments around the world and also run the player membership/tracking system.
When: 12/31, after a EAU-ORD-LAX-MEL mileage run that put me at 120,227 miles and $12,008 PQD.
Where: Various US destinations, this past year also CDG twice, LHR and PRG.
How: Work travel gets me to just about platinum and almost $10k spend. An unexpected funeral got me up to 10,500 PQD, so did the mileage run to make 1k
Why: Maintaining status makes travel much easier. SDC is a godsend and GPUs reduce some of the wear and tear of any Asia flights I don't sweat the RDM too much.
What: With the new $15k PQD requirement for 2019, I will probably fall back to Platinum which should be easy to make with regular business travel (and if not, I still have a Presidential Plus card and a pile of FEQM.)