The Miles&Bonus program is renewed as of 24 nov 2014. The information in this FAQ is outdated. /Intuition
As the number of curious FT'ers coming to this forum is increasing, I thought I'd try to answer the number one question in a new thread. All this knowledge (and more) does already exist on this fora, but may be hidden in the still-to-be-chopped-up monster-thread. Don't be afraid of reading that one or other threads too, but here is the crash-course for quick knowledge to getting A3 gold card!
How do I earn Gold?
Make sure the sum "Total Tier Miles" presented in your account hits 20 000 at any given point in time.
You can make this happen
a) by crediting 19 000 tier earning miles to your A3 account
within 12 months of the flight date of your first credited flight
or
b) by crediting 3 000 tier earning miles within 12 months of the flight date of your first credited flight
and then crediting another 16 000 tier earning miles in any given 12 month period
If you understand every word in the above statements, this is the only thing you need to know! Now get out there and fly some 20k!
NEWS
A3 has upgraded the member page and will now display number of miles needed and by what date those miles must be earned.
What is the talk of 16 000 miles about?
That is what a A3 blue card holder needs to collect to reach gold, since the tier points are not reset to zero upon status upgrade. This is good if you are planning a slow route to gold. If you are going for gold the fast route, don't try to understand how blue works, just keep your focus on the 20 000 miles.
20 000? But you said 19 000 miles?
If you sign up for the program online, you will get 1 000 miles for enrolment. These counts as tier miles.
There have been occasional reports saying enrolment bonus only counts as award miles, but last time I personally checked the bonus awarded is both tier and award miles.
Please explain the rules better so I can make my own decisions!
This will be in the art of making something simple sound complicated.
Short explanation:
You need 20 000 tier points for gold. The program do not use calendar year and there is no membership year. Tier points do not get reset to zero upon getting blue card. Tier points do expire and gets deleted sequentially from your account after 12 months.
Long explanation:
A3 uses a points-expiry-policy / a rolling status evaluation year. The basic rule is that tier points will expire 12 months after you earned them. This date is labelled "Activity date" in your account and is basically the date of flying. For instance, a retro claimed flight will expire 12 months after flight date, not 12 months after it was credited to your account.
Originally, the Internet enrolment bonus was an exception and did not expire at all.
Starting autumn 2012, expiry rules will apply to enrolment bonus miles as well. User reporting indicates that enrolment bonus miles may have different expiration for different users. Both 12 months and 6 months expiry have been reported.
Your tier account is evaluated every day to see if you meet the requirements for status upgrade. The tier account will first be scanned for points that have expired, delete them and then the remaining tier points will be summed up. If the sum is above 4 000 you will get the blue card upgrade and if it is above 20 000 you will get the gold card upgrade.
Upon getting Blue status, the 4k miles that earned you blue are secured and will not expire. From this point you need another 16k miles for GOLD. These miles have the same expiry model as before, and since your first 4k miles are secured, these 16k miles can be earned in a period of 12 consecutive months of your choosing. If you fail to add 16k miles within 12 months, you will not lose BLUE and you will not gain GOLD. The only thing that will happen is that the oldest miles
after getting BLUE status, will start to expire.
You will not lose BLUE status, or the first 4k miles it seems, as long as you keep your account active. It is unknown if there is any other specific rules for renewal of blue status at this point. Check the information for 'keeping card active' under GOLD.
After getting gold status, the collected tier points will no longer expire. The account page will change, and the section labelled "Tier miles soon to expire" will disappear from your account.
To retain status the gold member must now keep his account active. This can be done by using the M&B co-branded credit card or by crediting one (1) tier earning
flight to the account within the following 36 months. At this point it is not known if there are any other requirements for re-qualification. Therefore, it is of little use to ask the forum about the re-qualification rules, as we can only provide opinions on this matter!
How do I log in to M&B using an iPad?
http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/aegea...l#post18726280
OK, there are tonnes of other A3 knowledge spread around here, but now you have all you need to get the Gold card. Minus the flying. So what are you waiting for?