Originally Posted by
hirohito888
While I agree that it's going to be extremely hard to earn status on just pure spend, I think the new Gold will end up benefitting most of the short/medium-haul travelers on OPM. A very large chunk of corporate travelers make up the type of travel of 24 PQF and 8000 PQP, it's really just 12 round-trips a year, or once a month and $667 a ticket.
Those that were previously doing something like EWR-DFW/IAH once a month would have only gotten 33,600 PQM and were stuck at Silver will now be Gold. Assuming they're spending over $667 per ticket which is not unreasonable if booked a week ahead. I'm not sure that this is the right approach or not, but that group of travelers should be happy. And may end up filling up the E+ cabin and make 1K/GS who buy last min to sit in the back (which I've seen happen many times).
As for status, I fly J and F long-haul and I still care about it and there are still benefits to me for the time being. Whether or not it's worth 24,000 PQP is debatable.
I'm not convinced that mid-tier status is worth it for those fliers. For $8K base spend you get 2 checked bags, priority boarding and E+. You get the first two for virtually nothing with SWA, so $8K for extra legroom seats at booking. Yay? International lounge access is great (I love it) but that comes for $150/yr net with the CSR or other CCs.
I think UA is going to lose the "incremental spend" leg of the FF program incentives with this. I'm still not seeing a powerful argument that UA Gold at $8/$10K is remotely worth that kind of spend when there are other options available.