Originally Posted by
sharklover
What does it cost if some is plat? A fair amount with giving away upgrades, double miles and lounge access. I have always been amazed that they made it so easy to get gold for life. It would not surprise em if they would change it to stem the number of golds and plats from this program. Earning it from flying is what makes the most sense.
Earning from flying makes the most sense, although 2M BIS miles does not - compare to UA, with 1MM BIS (albeit not counting partners) for 2nd tier. If we ignore credit cards and other promotions, that means that if someone kept PLT or EXP all the way to 2MM, the amount of flying to earn LT mid tier is exactly the same.
Given the caps on buying miles and promotions, I have to assume that the number of people making 1MM and 2MM without flying at least a
moderate amount are quite small.
Granted, flying a moderate amount and then earning the bulk of your miles using promo and non-flying methods is not not the same as earning EXP 10 years running (or PLT for 20) which is what flying alone if you just making enough flights to earn status each year - which is about where I'm at; even with ~25k of credit card miles each year and a few thousand odds-and-ends of promos and things like iDine, it's dwarfed by the 100k RDM each year for requalifying as PLT, and will drop the # of years (barring the likely change in the program) from 7 1/2 to go to 6. Not trivial, but hardly huge either.