Knobbgb

I agree with KLouis. The Gold qualification from Silver should be on a rolling 12-month basis. After 29th December this year, the flight taken on 29th Dec LAST year will be deducted from the running total and the new date for qualification should move forward to a date 12 months after the NEXT oldest flight your friend took AFTER 29th Dec last year. I pretty certain that's how it works but it's been a while since I qualified. So - your friend should qualify for Gold on 1st January so long as the miles that cease to count (from 29th December 2016) are not more than about 10,000 miles. Does that make sense?

(And just to make it more complicated - sorry - I'm assuming that the 29th December 2016 flight was the one with which your friend originally qualified for Silver. If so, the miles they will 'lose' when that flight expires will only be the leftover ones - the difference between what they required to qualify for silver and the actual miles eared, which will have rolled over into Gold qualification).

NOTE that unlike Silver qualification, the RE-qualification for Gold does NOT work on a rolling basis so, if you friend ends up going way over the 24,000 requirement with their 15,000 mile flight on 1st January, then the extra tier miles will be lost; they'll start their re-qualification period from zero regardless.