To be clear, I wasn't suggesting it was a logical or desired approach, merely that I could see conference room people trying to mess with stuff by incorporating "big data".

What range is good from airline perspective?

Oh yes. I understood that. And my response was somewhat tongue in cheek.
I can provide a single data point for the conference room. I just received a status match on American Airlines for Executive Platinum (their 1k equivalent which is apparently all I’ll ever qualify for on United). It took 2 hours for them to respond. And I just completed shifting $12k in scheduled flights on United for the rest of January and February to American. Fares were mostly similar. Some routing was less convenient and some more convenient. But I was dealing with that last part trying to maintain GS status on United. One nice aspect of the American program is they don’t care if your flying is on American metal or one of their alliance members. That works very well for me. And after spending 182,000 butt in seat miles on United metal in 2023, I’m looking forward to some variety.

cpm combined with dollars spent, of course.

to be fair ua also doesn’t care about metal for 1k, just pqd. I think for ck American also gets tricksy.

Just adding more info: Per up-thread, I’m GS since 2018, $43k+ PQP, ~$37.5 paid UA metal in 2023 with a lot booked for 1Q 24. I called today just to see about a challenge. The agent seemed to have been given some talking points although not sure she stuck to them. First she said that all GS were automatically pre-registered in a challenge and would be contacted in “early January” about the details. She said mystatus.united would then track that. Then, in response to a question, she seemed to read back over the script and it said “all global services challenge-eligible customers” would be pre-registered. I asked what “challenge-eligible” meant and she said she had something that said that “most members” would get the challenge. But she could not get more detail after putting me on hold for a while and she suggested she tried to register me but could not. So she said she sent the matter to MileagePlus and they should get back to me within 10 days about the challenge - my read was she seemed to want to say that I would get a challenge because that’s what it seemed the talking points were saying but then realized she didn’t know that for sure. So there we are.

fwiw we do have a corporate relationship of some sort with United - I don’t know the details exactly.

I will also add two cents to some of the above discussion which is that putting aside my case (and I am obviously on the low side within this group by any measure), the thing that seems insane is changing the rules without notice when many relied on those rules in allocating their 2023 spend. Of course United can do this - the “rules” are subjective and unpublished. But they are always clear that spend on United is key and you would have had no reason to think you’d miss it with the level of spend some on this thread had until a few days ago. It’s obviously going to really antagonize some of their best customers and for what? Because they are experimenting with some new analytics? Maybe we are fungible flying dollars to the finance folks but surely there is some value in the customer service folks treating the company’s very best customers (who fly and spend on United a lot more than me) with fairness and respect. Strikes me as indefensible, but what do I know.

I wonder how many of the high PQD rejects were million milers.... They are more captive and more expensive for United.

Just goes to show customers are "sticky" until they aren't. No amount of analytics can account for the frustration variable. People will take less convenient routing when they hit their threshold...

I spoke with a very friendly GS agent today who seemed happy to discuss the changing requirements for GS. She was older and seemed very knowledgeable, but obviously take this with a grain of salt since United doesn't officially reveal qualifications. She indicated that requirements are stricter now than in previous years (duh, but interesting that she outright said it), and that other factors such as international Polaris tickets and Chase credit card spend are considerations (somewhat known, but again interesting to hear it directly from a United employee). I mentioned that a co-worker automatically requalified with less PQP (32K vs 37K) but similar travel patterns to me (international polaris) and she noted that previous year spend is absolutely a factor (another pretty well-established fact at this point). She did mention that many but not all GS are being automatically entered into the challenge and that it is typically $18K within 120 days as others have confirmed, but that I would get an email soon officially confirming it. I'm not sure how useful this all is, but it's a lot more information than I got when I called last Friday.

I am

Spent 300K on my business explorer card in 2023, so I guess it wasn’t a factor for me ;)

Sadly we've been reduced to 'talking points'

So a friend of mine at a large consulting firm who did not get renewed called in today to ask about the challenge. He got the “everyone is automatically offered a challenge” script first by front line, but then asked to speak to a supervisor in the MPSC. He waited a long while, and she eventually came on. She started by saying that many factors were now taken into consideration - including credit card spend, fare class, multi-year commitment, and number of flights taken. She then went away and came back, and said he was not eligible for the challenge and would need to contact his Corporate Travel Manager for more information.

Seems to imply that existing GS that are not part of corporate contract discount program and narrowly missed the mark will be open to a challenge, but corporate discount participants may continue to be excluded. This actually makes more sense given what we’ve seen this last week - would be nonsensical to give an unrestricted $18k challenge to one of the $150k spenders they’ve already upset.

The point on “number of flights” was interesting as well - PQF effectively. More PQF = more usage of services? In addition to CPM if you are not over, say, $1k per PQF that may count against you?

Interesting.

Anyone else find it weird that the challenge will be readily available at $18K of spend in 4 months, but members flying above that run rate ($54k in a year) didn't get the invite?

Me thinks this is all a bit wonky. I will return to my peaceful 1K existence.

Is the challenge by invitation only or can any 2023 GS not requalified for 2024 write in to ask to participate in the challenge?

I got offer after only $30K PQD last year -- which inlcuded a few $1000 on non-United. So theoretically GS for ~45K. I'd be pissed if I spent $70K last year and didn't get it.