New status level incoming? 200k? Only from flown miles and SQD?

Promo definitely may benefit my wife, but what little concession is made for people who have already earned SE naturally this year?

IMO too much and will lead to more overcrowding.

Cow, your points are well taken. You see more layers at a glance than I do.
Maybe the better analogy would be that you see the ceiling is cracking and they have decided not to fix the roof until after next winter.
Or maybe later.

Without exaggeration, I am pretty sure that about 30% of the folks on my most recent flight to YYJ walked from MLL to the Zone 1-2 line.

Probably 15-20% too many. I digress.

Perfect, this will be awesome for me. I'm short a bit for 50k this year for SQD.

With this change I can actually reduce my credit card spend. The carry over / double promo had gotten me to 75k and was working towards $50k on Chase. Already passed 30k points earned; reward unlocked.

Thanks AC!

I would have made SE by flying and current promos anyway but now I have already made it.
Maybe if you hit the 30K with this CC promo and 100k SQM/20KSQD by flying, they should let one of them be banked to a future year - probably to Cows disgust.
Or some other benefit to the BIS promo.

I'd prefer they didn't do that, but at least I'd get a tangible benefit out of it, unlike all their other promos.

That's kind of what I meant, if they are going to hand out goodies, then reward the BIS peeps too.
Its obvious that CC spend here has become like the US airlines i.e. very important to AC's bottom line. It would be interesting to see how this plays out over time but I assume the AE loyalty program and the CC affiliation may or has overtaken actual flying for ACs profitability.
Its also possible that the CCs have come up with subsidizing this promo to drive more adoption and spend and AC is happy to take their money and dole out status extensions.
30K points earned is not that difficult since it is not $30K spend with the multipliers for AC travel, restaurants, fuel, etc. I did it Jan-Mar. I think most would do it with $20K spend on the premium CCs.

As of my May 1 statement my Chase Aeroplan card is over $22k this calendar year, and it's my only grocery card, and my primary dining card right now. Both of those earn 3 points per dollar.

$30k is easy. 30k points is trivial.

If status is extended through the spend, what happens to the SQM earned in 2022? How much of it is rolled over? And what happens to the SQD earned in 2022?

I’m going break the $50K SQD level this year by summer which means no more priority rewards. I’ve also blown through 350K SQM so there are no further threshold gifts.

This year has become totally ridiculous.

Agreed -- nice to have 2MM these days.

While I will reach the required miles before mid-year, the SQD spend might have taken me into the fall as international flying ramps up.

With this promo, I am guaranteed SE now (forgot it was points and not dollars on CC). If "stuff" happens again (and I hope it doesn't), this promo makes SE a sure bet but won't change my flying or purchasing habits. I would have made SE largely on flying spend (SQD) but with some obvious assist from CC rollover etc. anyway. I presume AC is concerned with a steep drop off in "elites" of all types and is trying to keep them loyal.

I hope all of these promos don't really backfire on all of us by making a whole host of benefits tougher to be delivered. It is hard enough just finding space on some flights these days and travel is just not as enjoyable right now.

Nevertheless, I will persist in my efforts to get in the air and fly up front (where there is a front)! After two years of only Q400 and Dash, it was good to get on a wide body and transcon flights. USA in a couple of weeks.

I find this very confusing. The 2x promos *AND* this? Like great I qualified for SE and I could consider swapping some cash tickets into points tickets now. But I agree with cow. Normalcy will now not return for some time and there is now no benefit to those who earned it through flying. =(

Well Mark Nasr did say they were "not done with the promotions" yet... I'm not too bothered with this tbh, but I wish SEs who have already extended their status through 2023 by actually flying got some tangible benefit out of this promotion. Maybe a rollover of some SQDs or bonus AP points or something...

Agree on that point. Although I will say I have had to wait in line for the YVR Dom MLL pre-COVID several times.

Agree.

As another one of those who earns their status through actual flying, I concur with those that think this is dumb.