I'm a History major, albeit wiith an MBA, so apologies if my math is fuzzy.

Our legacy cards earned .25 PQM per dollar spent and 1 RDM; i.e. Silver "cost" $100k of spending with Gold 2x and Plat 3x more expensive.

Under the new program our cards will earn 500 PQPs for every $12,000 spent, and PQPs expire at the end of the year earned.

Silver will cost 5k PQPs, which implies 500*10=$120,000 of credit card spend with higher levels commensurately more expensive.

The implication is an effective 20% devaluation of credit card spend for elite status. While no customer is happy with that, since the last Presidential Plus EQM reset in 2010 inflation has been about 17% so actually not that bad especially for those of us with relatively low annual fees.

Interesting tidbit: apparently when the PP card was launched in 2006 it was 2k FEQMs for each $15k spent with a yearly cap and reset. This would imply $187.5k of spend for Silver status, or far more than even under the new program. (Shh don't tell United.) Not surprising that four years later they changed the ratio to make greater wallet share more appealing.

PS: Also, I don't think we have a word yet on what happens if someone spends, say $18k on a PP: will they get 500 PQPs, 750 PQPs or 500 PQPs + $6k of spend that would roll over into the next year.

PPS: The Chase Southwest Visa Priority gives 1.5k tier qualifying points per $10k spent, and 35k points for A-list which is their status that is somewhere between UA Silver and Gold of benefits. Think this implies $233,333 of spend for A-list.

So---I'm not happy about this changes, especially around lounge access, but think that overall they are an "enhancement" that is negative, but not evil.