JerryFF

I have a colleague who is MVP Gold. She says she will not have flown enough to retain her Gold status, just MVP. She was wondering if there is a "grace period" into 2012 where she will still have Gold or will she lose it immediately on Jan 1? Thanks.

jerry a. laska

No grace period. January 1 status will drop to MVP.

Eastbay1K

When the cork pops, your status bursts.

dave1013

She'll lose her status when the ball drops but if 2012 is like recent years, there will be a challenge starting on or about 1/15 where she may be presented the opportunity to regain Gold status if she flies a certain number of segments in a certain amount of time. Normally the announcement of such a program is echoed on this board, so stay tuned.

JerryFF

Thanks all. This seems to be one time when AS is stingier than some of the legacy carriers.

CDKing

Stinks that UA/CO changed their grace period to 1/31 so not as big of a spread as before

ANC

I dont view them as being stingy. The more they give the more somebody will want to take. If they give a 2 week grace next people will complain it should be a month. They give a month the next thing you know people will gripe it should be 2 months yadda yadda. Plus people would game the system down to the last day no matter what it was.

baliktad

The grace period is not intended to give you extra time "coasting" when you haven't earned it. The grace period is intended to cover you if your qualifying flights were at the very end of the year. If you fly your last 2000 miles on Dec 31 and it takes AS a week to post, that's a week where you won't have status that you have rightfully earned. It's worse if those last few miles were on a partner that could take weeks to post. Add in the time for your AS status to propagate to partner airlines (like DL/AA) and you could be missing out on 4-6 weeks or more of status benefits.

The fact that AS chooses to not have a grace period AND chooses not to invest in expediting the posting of miles means that they just don't care about people who re-qualify late in December. The grace period should be long enough to cover posting of any flight (on AS or any partner) that departs before midnight on Dec 31. There's no need for it to be any longer, and it's a disservice to requalifying elites to make it any shorter.

ANC

well that I will agree with for that circumstance. I was responding to the question the OP asked in that situation where clearly it isnt a circumstance of miles posting late. Not to mention quite often AS doesnt clear the YTD miles when the ball drops. Sometimes its a few days before they go away AND any tickets you buy as a gold are going to give you the gold benefits. So how many tickets does one purchase between 1201am Jan 1st and the 3 to 5 days it takes those miles to post?

JerryFF

OK - suppose you purchase a ticket in December for travel in mid-January. You put your MP # in the PNR and it registers MVP Gold when you buy the ticket. Will it still show Gold when you fly in January and will you still be eligible for Gold perks, including upgrades? I guess what I am asking is whether your status will be downgraded in the PNR.

The reason I ask if if the opposite happens - that is, you purchase a ticket when you are MVP and then after purchasing the ticket, you reach Gold, you have to take your MP # out of the PNR and put it back in to received Gold benefits.

jwright

So this probably affects a small percentage of elites for a minimal amount of time. If somebody was really exorcised about being caught in this expression of utter disdain and outright contempt by Alaska Airlines, I'm willing to bet they could call customer care and get help.

ANC

right AFAIK thats how it works, once its in the res you have to remove it and re add it for any status changes to update whether up or down. I could be wrong and it may have changed so maybe somebody else can chime in here?

ANC

right AFAIK thats how it works, once its in the res you have to remove it and re add it for any status changes to update either up or down. I could be wrong and it may have changed since AS has been slowly working on some of these little IT quirks so maybe somebody else can chime in here?

wildway

Does anybody know if there is a soft landing? In other words, if you were MVP Gold, but you didn't even make it to MVP during the qualifying year, do you lose all status? Or do you just drop down to MVP? (I thought I heard that AA has soft landings.)

dgreen12

No soft landings at AS as far as I know.