General program rule is if you earn status this year, you will have status through the following year. The specific cut-off may be the end of January or February (I'm not sure which right now). It's getting where the CSRs are almost as clueless as the FDCs. I had one FDC congratulate me for finally making Platinum status saying how I don't have to chase nights anymore. She was shocked when I told her we needed to do 75 nights EACH YEAR to keep Plat or get 750 nights and 2M points for LTP (which I was quite some distance from at the time).