My assumption is that it will only apply to people in the Spend channel and is intentionally lucrative to get people into Spend. I'm willing to be manipulated if that's the case.

I modeled spend earn for SEA-HNL-SYD RT on HA vs 250% SEA-LAX-SYD routing (AA/QF). The base airfare for AS would need to be $8442 to break even on status points, which is not unreasonable compared to the AA/QF pricing. That said I can spend a little more time and fly CX YVR-HKG-SYD for a much lower J cost and get many more points for my trouble...and a burger and fries.