there are plenty of people who spend that kind of money on travel every year, and not purely as a basis to get status. some of that is work travel, a growing proportion is the increase in premium leisure travel. throw in some optimisation thro some BAH bookings or selective oneworld ticketing, and you can make GGL even tho you may not have done previously. plenty of reports in this thread of people who know colleagues making ggl for the first time despite no/minimal changes to their travel pattern. fundamentally it's not wrong that an airline wants to give the trinkets to those who spend the most.