Originally Posted by
YOWgary
You're referring to the sub-group of travellers who (A) aren't wealthy, and (B) fly paid-J often enough to have firm opinions about the overlap between J-fare perks and elite-tier perks, but also (C) aren't sure whether they'll hit $12K in spend?
I don't know how possible it'll be next year to hit 12k spend in airfare without flying paid J. I know that's definitely not a requirement to have hit 50k this year (because I flew exactly 0 paid J).
I do think there's a sub-group of travellers who could normally spend, say, 80% of the dollar requirement to hit 50k (under the 6k SQD threshold), and would be somewhat motivated to push for that 50k mark. But I'm not sure how large that group is if you raise that threshold to 12k. I also don't know if it even matters, because I don't think the carrot AC is dangling is worth the effort to consciously hit that threshold - ie. if you were going to spend the equivalent of 12k SQC in dollars anyways, it wouldn't be because you wanted to hit 50k.