carpboy

My guess is 2000. There was a lot of turmoil and ill-feelings in that timeframe, I bet a lot of people who would have made it bailed.

cova

The discussions at the last "DO" implied 2,000.

CUSTOMDIRECT

I am an Infinite Platinum (made sure to nail it) but have not met many others lately. The number I got 2 years ago from a CO employee supposedly in the know implied much fewer.

carpboy

I wonder if the CSA's or whomever see us flagged as 'special' or if we are just another Pt in their eyes?

Nothing to so with CO Pt status per se, I recently had a DL FA at the end of a flight walk down the aisle to me waaay back in an MD-88 and shake my hand and thank me for flying DL, due to Sky Team status.

CALGal727

Infinite Elites are not flagged as special. There is no such thing as "just another Platinum". ALL Platinums are special. I can't tell you how many Infinites are out there although I can tell you that when they first handed them out only around 300 qualified. Once the program became public knowledge those numbers did jump significantly. The program is probably what got "Mileage Runs" started. There were some doozies in those days.

carpboy

300? Wow, I would have thought more than that. I guess I am one of the 300. I had gold (as it was at the time) on EA in the Texas Air days, and then when the two programs merged together started flying CO a lot. I had the top level when the qualifying period was first announced and easily made it, 1988-1993 IIRC. I think it only lasted two years, perhaps three, before they pulled the plug on new 'initiates'.

Funny thing is I've never done a run, in so many words. Short of making a connection to stay on a favored carrier compared to a non-stop on another line (everyone does that), the only 'run' I've done was when EA first started the program and I had to reach top level I made some flights to cities maybe a three hour drive away from where I had to be just to get the miles.

vincom

Too many? ::runs and hides::

-Vincent

jsmcnabb

I remember someone several months ago making a statement that there are 500 Infinite Plats. Don't know if it is true, but it was stated as "fact."

As a couple of sidenotes: I had to qualify for a sixth year back in the 90's because Continental could not find my qualifying record for the first year. That caused me to make an expensive milage run at the end of the year.

Of course, we were infinite Gold's at that time, and later had to go thru some worried moments when CO created Platinum above us. In the end, we were all upgraded to Plat.

cova

I would not say upgraded to Infinitie Plat (from Infinite Gold) because the Gold level used to be 60,000 miles, before it dropped to 50,000, which is the same as the current mid level Gold. So maybe upgraded from a 60K level to a 75K level. 50K level would have been a downgrade.

I know my first year as Gold (top level) was due to a bump up from Silver (mid level) with 53,xxx miles in my account. That bump up to the Gold 60K level did not count in my qualification for the 5 year run. My next five years were over 60K and in one year 130K+. Although the last few years only need 50K to maintain. So an earlier year with 53K/60K did not count, but a 53K/50K would have counted later.

I never did a mileage run, and in my fifth year I almost gave up - I was only 25K in Oct, but then had a lot of international business travel and got pushed up to over 60K. I was buying lots of A (same as full Y up) and full J in those days for CO crappy old international business class.

The Infinitite level used to be advertised in the CO Magazine - around the 1992 time period. So maybe the first 300 were unadvertised, but you likely needed to have already been started to had made it.

The OnePass program in 1992 - had eliminated upgrades except for Y and H fares, started COLite with no F, and with BK#2 - one really wondered whether you were wasting your time on CO. Those that did got rewarded.

Gordon and Larry in those days were mainly flying AA - Larry has indicated that he has Lifetime Platinum (mid level) on AA.

Maybe we should have an Infinite get together at the DO.

CALGal727

If I remember correctly the program was not "announced" but the first batch of cards were just sent out to the folks that qualified. After that it was an official program but only had a 2 year window to get started. There are quite a bit more than 500 Infinites but probably quite a bit less than 5000. In the early 90's traveling 60K actual miles a year on a particular carrier was rare indeed. People tended to use more than one carrier as the "Elite" type status didn't seem as important to people as it does today.

mlawless

So when CO announces their "better than Plat" level at the event this month, will all the Plats get bumped up to "Infinite Super-Elite"?

carpboy

You mean the current infinte Pt's? We better!

freakflyer

There must be more than 300, but Randy must have an inkling. All of us with the status have him to thank that we are livetime Platinum instaed of lifetime gold - as they originally planned when CO moved from gold being the top top tier to platinum being the top tier.

CUSTOMDIRECT

The actal number I had been told was 429 still active infinites but who knows,. Regarding "flagged as infinite", we are definitely flagged but apart from the occasional recognition of a res agent noticing it on her screen and thanking me for my business, the perks are Platinum....nothing more and nothing less!

Looking forward to meeting you all (locally in TX, Y'ALL) in IAH!






(who knows)

cova

Per the SkyTeam Fact Sheet, on www.skyteam.com
CO has 29.10M OnePass members.

http://www.skyteam.com/EN/aboutSkyte...fact_sheet.pdf

DL has 39M
NW has 29.7M
AF/KL total is 10M

The US numbers obviously include duplicate memberships, inactive, etc.
Not sure why the number of Elites is so confidential.
Maybe we can ask again at the DO.