Before February, i.e. before changes were made to The Marco Polo Club, they have 4 membership tiers - Green, Gold, Diamond, and Lifetime...at that time, you got Lifetime status when you have been a Marco Polo Club member (i.e. at least Green) for a minimum of 10 consecutive years, and have flown a minimum of 2,000,000 kilometers (about 1.2 million miles) with CX...

After February 1, Green was renamed Silver (there's now a new "Green" non-elite tier)...and Lifetime is renamed Invitation, and is now by invitation only instead of having some specific milestones that you have to meet...I think now this is more like the "VIP" status they have in other airlines/programs...is this the lifetime membership for diamond members that Chatter is talking about ?? otherwise, if you're just Diamond, you have to re-qualify every year...