Over the years there have been multiple statements by senior GS agents, that spend on UA metal is the only criteria. This statement are available in older GS Qualification threads. The benefit of FT is access to history. There may be changes this year but historically that has become an accepted fact.

As there have been many others in the past with heavy LH operated flights that did not make it, I am skeptical of statements "9 long haul LH segments" qualified. Were they LH code UA segments? GS have been know to be confused about codeshares. Also to have fuzzy memory due to the large amounts of flying they do. We regularly have folks "I did such and such" to later realize they did not. Additionally some GS are GS because they are nominated by their employer -- and not realize that. This may be an explanation of these anomalous cases.

I would need to see multiple supporting cases by folks that understand codeshares, native metal, ... differences. The level of misunderstanding of the system is high.