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Old Nov 6, 2017, 5:13 am
  #104  
Fabo.sk
 
Join Date: Jul 2015
Location: HAG
Programs: ST E+, *G, some hotel gold...
Posts: 7,832
Originally Posted by irishguy28
First of all, your level miles / status segments will be converted to XP.

It is very unlikely that, in the process of doing this conversion, the XP number generated pushes you above one of the XP thresholds. If it does, however, that number of XPs is removed from your account and your status is upgraded.

The far more likely scenario, though, is that your account is "updated" on 1 April and will have a new XP number, with no change in status. When you cross the next XP threshold, only then will that number be taken away and your status updated, with a year in which to retain that status, or aim higher.
Probably unlikely, admittedly most of the people who can get 20-25K level miles within a quarter already have Gold or Platinum.

Originally Posted by irishguy28
Yes, building a high segment or level miles amount in the first quarter of 2018 would be a sensible thing to do, for those that can. Because it will be the very last time that level miles/segments can be used to attain more than one single status level. (though, unlike the old scheme, those Level Miles/Segments won't remain available to you for all of 2018, but only until you go up a level, at which stage they will be taken away).

In your example, if you had 24k level miles at the end of March 2018, you would just be short of Silver. The 24k level miles would be converted to 120 XP, which gives you Silver - so you actually earn Silver faster under the new scheme for this particular flying pattern. You would then start the "new" programme with an XP total of 20XP, and a target of another 160XP required by 31 March 2019 in order to get to Gold.
You would get silver faster, but yeah, if the 25K level miles are converted to XP for Gold, you could get Gold much faster later on. I need to keep an eye on that.

As an aside, it seems that AF wants to keep more people at Silver as opposed to Gold. It used to be easier (by miles) or at most as hard (by segments) to get from Silver to Gold than from Ivory to Silver. Now it is significantly harder to get 180XP from Silver to gold than it is to get 100XP from Ivory to Silver.


Originally Posted by irishguy28
In your example, it clearly would be better to "run" for Silver, so that you avoid having the status-upgrade performed as part of the change to the new programme; you would then start already as Silver, and have a much greater starting XP total to bring Gold closer.
Indeed for my planned status run it's imperative that I get to Silver before April, but it turns out it's actually almost better for me to leave the rest for the new rules as I'd be able to attain Gold easily and have plenty XP left over for eventual requalification. (The downside of it is that under old rules, I'd have gold until end of 2019, plus grace period. The upside of it is that while I expect to have a solid number of segments in rest of 2018, but not much level miles to roll over; these upcoming flights would help with requalification.)

Originally Posted by irishguy28
However, I think this is very much a corner-case, and there won't be many people on 24k level miles by the end of March. One hopes, however, that anyone flying that much DOES their homework and makes sure they play the system to their benefit. It would be better to attain Silver, for this particular customer, under the "old" rules by the end of March.
My corner case is specifically interesting in that I plan to start next year hard, but from a total zero.
I suppose there will be many people with 24K miles by the end of March, but I believe most of them are already Gold or Platinum, so all the miles will convert into requal pool anyway.

Same applies for segments by the way, from 14 segments you'll be one domestic short of silver at 98XP, but with 15 you'd get 105 towards your Gold.
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