Originally Posted by iahkid2014

I'm at a bit of an inflection point as I'm booking a work trip for next week while looking at the second half of year travel planning. I just requalified for 1K the other week and sit at ~28k PQP, 16 PQF, and ~21,000 United BIS (11k BIS on partners). I'm IAH based and my most frequent work travel route is to the KSA where I'll likely have another 2-4 trips in J between now and year end. This is where I find myself in a bit of a conundrum: do I stick with the grueling IAH-EWR-DXB-KSA route and chase a distant dream of GS or do I hop on either EK or QR for the long hauls and turn a two stop into a one stop.

I'd love to get GS if only for the check in lobby at IAH on my personal trips with our two young kids but don't want to waste my time if there's likely no shot as a first timer out of IAH with potentially 50-60k PQP by year end if my travel pattern continues.