Issue with Filters in Custom QuerySets mongoengine

Question

I have a MongoEngine model Place

class Place(Document):
    is_favorite = fields.BooleanField(default=False)
    name = fields.StringField(max_length=150)
    price_tier = fields.IntField(min_value=1, max_value=3)

    meta = {
    'queryset_class': AwesomerQuerySet
    }

I'm using Custom QuerySets from MongoEngine.

class AwesomerQuerySet(QuerySet):
    def getNinePlaces1(self):
        #the below line returns empty queryset
        qSet = self.filter(price_tier=2)[:9]
        return qSet

    def getNinePlaces2(self):
        #the below line returns proper queryset
        qSet = self.filter(is_favorite=True)[:9]
        return qSet

Output:

print(Place.objects.getNinePlaces1())
>> []

print(Place.objects.getNinePlaces2())
>> [<Place: Place object>, <Place: Place object>, <Place: Place object>, <Place: Place object>, <Place: Place object>, <Place: Place object>, <Place: Place object>, <Place: Place object>, <Place: Place object>]

Issue: I'm not sure why Place.objects.getNinePlaces1() is returning an empty set. Please help me understand.

Let me know if I'm not clear. Thanks!