The clarification on trial elite makes it pretty clear to me that this is what they mean, since they count trial Silver as Silver for those who have it.
According to the TCs "If you are enrolled in our Trial Preferred program, any change to your status from this promotion will occur after your trial period ends. " So this suggests to me that if you don't make your Trial Preferred Status, i.e. Silver, Gold or whatever, then your
present status will be your starting point. If you are Trial Preferred for Silver and miss it by not flying enough, then the one bump would then bring you to Silver. "Your hop, skip and jump count will affect your pre-trial status, not your current trial status."
If you look at the incredibly long list of flights they supplied by the 'member' on the FAQ page, he took a lot of flights but they only qualified him for 3 hops, 1 skip and 1 jump. To have increased his H,S,J's I'm thinking he would have also had to have had a trip to Europe, one to the Carribbean, Asia, and/or South America.
And I agree, it doesn't particularly 'reward' the consistently frequent fliers who fly the same routes over and over because of business, etc.
I have AGS-CLT-ORD scheduled - that would be an East
AGS-CLT-PHL-MAN that would be Europe
CLT-SJD (Cabo) - hoping that will count even though booked before 7/7
Do any of the above count for more than one?
I'm thinking I need to go visit my Cousin in Seattle to get the fourth. Any thoughts?