YOWgary

I've been 50K or better for ten years running, and I'm still only just over a quarter of the way to MM.

It really does require a LOT of flying, specifically on AC metal, and if you're flying segments or standard fares you may as well forget it.

Jebby_ca

Spreadsheets. Helped that it was a milestone flight as well

HerpaYvr

Stop sandbagging and just do better,

YOWgary

I mean, I only have to fly Ottawa-Toronto-Vancouver two hundred and ten more times in paid J to qualify...

...but if that's what I'm doing, the only real value to SE is priority meal selection anyway!

canadiancow

I started my spreadsheet in an era where I needed MRs (or at least creative routings) to get status.

I find it to be a bit of a pain to deal with now, but maybe I'll be less annoyed when I'm not at 600k SQM by the end of January.

I had to do a creative routing (YYZ-ORD-IAH-NAS) in December 2020 to hit 250k SQM, but other than that, it's been years since it gave me anything useful.

There were years that I needed to pay really close attention to SQM, SQD, and even eUps. But with the 200k perpetual SQM rollover, the fact that 20k SQD is now inevitable for me, and the ability to do eUp requests at time of booking (so I always have an accurate counter) and the threshold eUps from the rollover SQM, there just isn't nearly as much use for me.

If you want to plan something special for a milestone (SE, MM, whatever), then it can be nice. But I hit MM on my couch, and SE just isn't special (to me) any more.

Even end-of-year stats on eUpgrades were interesting to me. But my last failed eUp was in 2018. I guess I track whether they cleared in advance or at the gate, but even that was 1 gate in 2022 (so far), 1 in 2021, 1 in 2020, 0 in 2019 (20 eUps, all cleared in advance, as a "basic" SE). Things are just easy and barely worth tracking any more. And most of those eUps were pre-MM and pre-credit card. So I'm even less likely to fail (or even go to the gate) now.

HerpaYvr

lol, remember last year when I booked 13 YOW-YVR flights in Flex for $136 and you correctly stated that those flights would be changed through YYZ/YUL. You predicted well my friend. You were spot on so I achieve even more as that extra 250 AP X 2 added up and that promotion sure helped a lot in early 2021. I did a lot of work on those weekend flights and Vancouver dinners. Flight crews thought I was from corporate as I was flying cross country every weekend. Maybe that is why I live alone

JordanK

I remember hot towels as recently as 2018, in PY. I guess they got rid of them for COVID reasons, and realized they were saving a bunch of money and no one was complaining so they never brought it back. Maybe if we all start a coordinated campaign to submit requests to bring it back...

I haven't experienced priority meal selection since I became SE early 2022. They just work their way from front to back.

For those of us in our early 30s who are SE and also getting a non-negligible amount of grey in their hair... this hurts. Must have something to do with spending so much time at a higher altitude / lower pressure.

To OP's question though:

I hit 50K in 2019 the "hard way" (no rollover, no promos, etc.). Didn't do much flying over the pandemic, but they kept rolling over the status. Starting flying again in the second half of 2021, accumulated about 30,000 SQM. Then they rolled that over to 2022 because they also rolled over status, and then they rolled the SQM over again because I have an Aeroplan Black CC, so I started 2022 with about 60,000 SQM and $6000 SQD.

I did a bunch of domestic flights in Jan - Mar 2022 which got me to about 75,000 SQM with their double-SQM promo, then bought a paid-fare J to Europe to finish it off with the double-SQx promo, and hit 100K/SE for the first time.

I was excited at the time, mostly thinking that the Concierge service would make traveling so much nicer. Turns out, concierge service hasn't been doing so hot lately and have been pretty useless in most cases I needed them. The nice thing, though, has been the insane number of eUp credits, and the priority on the eUp waitlist. I haven't bought anything higher than a Y since my J Europe flight, but I also haven't flown anything less than J in 10+ trips since then

Adam Smith

Moderator note: several posts on meal priority have been moved to the meal priority thread, while a post regarding historical flight records was also moved to a relevant thread.

MillennialMiles

My only regret was not flying more of them. Total steal compared to prices now!

JayTakesOff

​​I do have some YYZ- US travel coming up for work and am super curious how YYZ-MUC-SFO in J can be gotten for cheaper than YYZ- SFO in flex

Picked up flying back up post pandemic. Never really focused on status but this year, given some trips, CC spend, I'm inching near 50K, with 1 more Euro trip and 1 Dubai trip tentatively scheduled for November.

canadiancow

With the same advance purchase, I don't think that's ever been possible.

But I've certainly done the MUC turn in P for ~800 USD. And I have spent close to that on Latitude FP credits for YYZ-SFO.

JayTakesOff

Thanks for sharing!