Originally Posted by
miamigrad
You don't lose your status until end of February. Qualification year is January 1 - December 31, while status/membership year goes until end of February.
In your case, if you were to do the challenge, you would not be able to initiate one until March 1 or later when you drop back down to Gold.
Wait - I always read (and the wiki seems to state directly) that you could only start a challenge after you go through a full year with no status. Does this mean that you can complete the PLT challenge, fail to requalify for PLT, then soft land to GLD and start a new PLT challenge as soon as you are GLD?
Alternatively, if that is not the case, then does soft landing year of GLD count as the 'downgraded year' from PLT? In other words:
Year 1 - PLT via challenge
Year 2 - GLD via soft landing
Year 3 - Start PLT challenge as soon as GLD expires?