Originally Posted by orbitmic

1) First does F need a top tier a la BA Gold? I don't really agree. That is, in principle, what Platinum is here for. Now, you may well say that Platinum is not sufficiently differentiated from Gold on FB (or just that platinum is not good enough), or that platinum is not selective enough (see below) but all those arguments would not necessarily lead to a need to add an additional level, more to a need to repackage them. If saying that a top tier is missing, ten the argument should be that gold and platinum are distinct enough and cater to important separate groups of frequent flyer but I don't get that vibe on this forum (more that people feel gold and platinum aren't sufficiently differentiated or only by withdrawing things from gold).

2)I also have sympathy with the idea of a minimum share of travel on AF-KL.

3) You mention F lounge access as a perk for this top tier, but here, we might run into some problems. BA does it in broad terms for GCH but have effectively had to create some 'fake' F lounges by name to keep all those emeralds out of the 'real' F lounges at LHR and JFK. They do it more literally at CCR level but despite a much higher threshold than AF-KL could ever consider, this still makes the CCR crowded and participate in an F experience that is much less exclusive (or good) than AF's. So this possible perk raises very serious question, because my guess is that if it is indeed awarded, then the quality of the P lounge will almost mechanically reduce as AF won't be able to sustain the costs of extending the offerings to even, say, 20 additional daily users who are not flying F or paying for the lounge access (that would be a fraction of BA or L numbers).