We already have award flights booked to SYD next year. Getting EQM for those flights will be a huge gain for us. Since the WT4F household is now a member of the "no business travel" club, this will go a long way to retaining status.

RANT: My Opinion
The one thing I wonder about is how they've detached added benefits like UGGs, Lounge Passes, and the 75K 50K RDM. It looks to me like they've come close to making them roll up close to the previous awards, but now they're attainable with just a few more EQM. For example, it'll take getting to 85K EQM to get the option of selecting 50K RDM or one of the other options. Sure it's still attainable, but at just a bit more travel. I suppose this is the future, where EQM are more attainable and the consequence is that elite benefits have to be earned at higher EQM totals. The only difference I see here is that AS is moving towards a Loyalty Points based program, but still want to call them Miles because that's been their marketing pitch for the past several years. Just like Apple wants us to immerse ourselves in the Apple ecosystem, so are airlines. It's not just BIS. It's now using their credit card, shopping portal, taxi/rideshare, rental car, and hotel partners. If we immerse ourselves into the ecosystem, we will see the benefits remain relatively the same.