It seems that the status match was for one year only. I had the same thing happen in reverse.
You can always call and ask for a renewal. If you do, please report your results here. So far nobody has tried AFAIK.
+1 for having the same thing happen in reverse.
A very nice unsolicited notification/welcome as AirTran A+ Elite appeared in email and subsequently a packet via snail mail sometime summer 2011; the card indicated "expires 8-31-2012".
Made reservations in October 2012 for MCI-FLL n/s on Southwest and FLL-SJU n/s on Airtran for travel over Christmas/NY. I had never flown AirTran prior to 2 weeks ago- no slam, no bias, just no need to deal with that which is known as ATL or MCO.
At the suggestion of a very wise FT member, I called the Southwest A-List+ line a couple of days prior to departing for Florida and inquired re: the chances of having the AirTran A+ Elite status reinstated so as to overlap my planned trip (I had already requalified for re-up of SW A-List+ and CP for 2013 sometime last September).
Zero hesitation and zero hassle, the response was "yes sir, we'd be happy to do that for you". They told me it would take about 10 minutes of keyboard work and they'd call me back once completed. They did and it was.
FLL-SJU-FLL flights in Business on AirTran were very nice and totally flawless. Great crew, had interesting chats both with gate agents and flight attendents re: the aquisition, etc. To a person, the AirTran folks all seemed to have a positive attitude about the future.
A new packet containing an A+ Elite card w/12-31-2013 expiration was in the snail mail when I got home 1-1-2013.