Each person has their own tolerance level.

For me, I prefer not to spend miles on econo flights to start with as they rarely "pay off" except for last minute travel (in which case most non SEs can't find flights on such as short notice basis).

I value my points at somewhere between 5.5 cents (historical average including those years when I made unwise investments in reward travel ) to 7.5 cents per mile (last few years when actual value has averaged from 7 to 9 cents per mile) --in other words the value I want to receive from them not what I actually would have shelled out of my own pocket but the market value of the travel (e.g. business class ticket from A to B).

Most people value them at far less, perhaps 2 to 3 cents per mile. Even at that, your trip doesn't value out at the cheaper level as 80k miles would be $1600 to $2400 of needed value. I would rather spend my own money to get higher status than use points for relatively cheap econo class travel.

My real goal is to get a 1 to 1 benefit, ie for every dollar spent on travel, I get $1 of travel reward benefit. That has been harder to do these last couple of years with fewer Aeroplan promos but in 1999 and 2001, counting air travel only (ie NOT credit card, rental car, hotel earned Aeroplan miles), I could manage 4 to 5 cents per earned mile so it put me right in my "sweet spot", actually costing less to earn the mile than the benefit received. That was clearly unsustainable for Air Canada. Lately it has been 8 to 9 cents per earned mile (although status mile earning is clearly costing much more). Likely Air Canada still doesn't consider that to be good enough for them but it works for me ^ I expect more reductions in ability to cheaply earn points!

With current increase to 100% earning for Tango Plus in Canada, I likely will stay at about the same cost per mile (ie the higher 8 to 9 cent range) despite losing over the last couple of years, the C class benefit of 125% points vs 50% domestic or 100% international on discount econo fares.

I am prepared to pay a bit more for the great benefits received but there is always a tolerance limit. AC has slowly increased my tolerance through the gradual increase in upgradeable fares from virtually any fare, to V class to H class globally then to H class only internationally and to the highest econo fares within North America. I know it was likely planned on their part and they have been good at easing us into this. I think other plans will go the shock and awe route (massive reductions in benefit over a short period) and there will be a lot of dissatisifed members!