I am more curious if there is no promotion, how much the DM pool will be reduced. Even maintaining Gold could be a task for some ppl. The lack of cheap MH and probably QR J tickets make it even more difficult.

By the way, will any of you pay for Econ Flex for the sake of more status points? I used to find it silly to do so, but later on I realized the incremental cost is not bad, valuing around USD4.5-5.5 per SP. That's the value I find other than the free flight change as most of us here should have more than enough baggage allowance and free seat selection already