If confusion has arisen, it's on your side and seemingly due to the information provided earlier that miles don't expire while you have status. This is, in fact, a hindrance in your case. Please, forget about status, and forget about the "dispensation" granted while status is held. It is of no help to you here, and in fact, judging by your statements, seems to be driving you in the wrong direction.

Please bear in mind - the normal status holder rarely allows gaps of 20 months to go past without accruing a mileage-earning flight - so the "miles don't expire while you maintain status" is pretty much an automatic, built-in consequence of the type of behaviour that got you status in the first place. But you are in a very dangerous zone now - you have passed up the opportunity to avail of a soft landing, and thereby prolong your status - and you will lose the "miles don't expire" guarantee at the very end of March. At that very instant, your miles WILL instantly disappear, as soon as you drop to Ivory, if there were no new miles added within the 20-month limit.

It's not just likely - it's guaranteed. From April, you will be Ivory. (Had you taken a single SkyTeam flight in 2012, not only would you have extended the lifetime of your miles anyway by default, but you would have received a soft landing to Gold, and had SkyTeam Elite Plus status for all of 2013).

As I said above, you need to take the flight before your miles expire. (The "miles don't expire while you have status" is a bit of a red herring, and you should ignore this feature of having status, unless by some chance you intend to achieve at least Silver status by the end of March). Having status does not give you an exemption from the 20-months rule - it's just that they will delay the actual deletion of miles until you lose status. In your case, your loss of status is guaranteed, so you should focus on the real issue - the 20 months window!!!

If you allow a greater than 20-month gap between flights to occur - which appears to be your intention under the second scenario above - your miles are destined to expire. In this instance, having a little "grace period" due to the very last few weeks/days of status is problematic. This does not override the requirement to have taken a flight at least once every 20 months. If you haven't abided by that basic rule - fly at least once every 20 months to maintain your miles - then you have lost the miles. Your status will have the effect of delaying the inevitable by a few weeks, but the damage is already done, so to speak. Once your status is gone, the miles will instantly go, too.

If you want to keep your miles, then put your status out of your mind (you've technically already lost it, and you don't seem able to get status back by the end of March) so you need to do the only thing that is now available to you to prevent your miles from expiring - which is to PREVENT A GAP OF 20 MONTHS OCCURRING SINCE YOUR LAST MILEAGE EARNING FLIGHT.


SHORT VERSION of all the above:

There is just one basic rule to keep miles alive - fly at least once every 20 months. This rule must be respected, and your soon-to-lapse status does not allow you to violate this rule.