Originally Posted by irishguy28

If you want to reach gold, you have to get to 30 sectors before the end of any year. You can do so this year - there is no restriction on having to wait until next year, and there is no restriction on the number of level upgrades you can attain in one year (if you fly enough, you can go from Ivory, to Silver, to Gold, to Platinum, all in the same calendar year).

Getting to Silver doesn't really help in any way (it's just the "half-way" point to Gold, and means that you only need another 15 sectors in that same year to reach Gold). There is nothing to stop you getting to Gold this year, 2013, if you fly another 15 sectors (for a total of 30) before the end of the year.

And just to clarify - having Silver status in 2014 doesn't mean that flying another 15 sectors in 2014 will get you to Gold. As you correctly stated, your level flights balance will be set to 0 on 1 January next. The 15 sectors you have now won't count at all in 2014. Regardless of what your status is, you must fly the required number of sectors in a single calendar year in order to attain that status - so you have to have 15 sectors flown in a single calendar year to get Silver, and you must have 30 sectors flown in a single calendar year to get Gold.

Whenever you get to a new level, it is valid for the rest of the year in which you attain it, and for all of the following year. So if you reach silver now, you will have silver status for the rest of 2013, and for all of 2014 (and because of the way FB works, they extend the status for the first 3 months of the following year in order to give themselves time to send out the corect cards for the subsequent year) - so you would have Silver until 31 March 2015 as a result of earning Silver on any date in 2013.

Likewise, if you kept flying and earned Gold on any date in 2013, you would have Gold status until 31 March 2015.