lhr baby

I think you are spot on with this. I very much suspect the whole point of this is to reduce the number of people who have current gold privilages. They might provide extras to top tier to make it look like an upgrade, but I very much expect the main outcome will be to reduce the number of people who get top tier and lower the benefits for those that don't. It will be difficult to justify qualifying for a higher tier on A3 but it might be necessary to get benefits equivalent to current gold across *A.

Whilst I would prefer they didn't change anything, I think there is one benefit they could change for the better that would encourage people to try and earn top tier. That is to allow better earnings rates for top tier. What I mean by this, for example, is if they gave extra tier points to top tier status holders across the whole of *A or even better gave top tier status pax points on cheaper tickets. I'm getting tired of all these fares on LH that earn nothing unless you are a Miles and More member and the extremely low earnings rates UA provides on some of it's fares. If they said some of these fares earned some or extra points for top tier members across the whole alliance rather than for individual FFP members, then it would be worth trying to earn this status even if you are a member of an FFP like M&B.