Originally Posted by
GUWonder
Is there any scenario in which an A3 account credited with 48,000 tier miles over 20 consecutive months could remain A3*Silver when the four most recent flights credited to the account were A3 flights under 1500 miles each?
What I'm really getting at is this: is there ever an error in the website's indication of how many more tier miles are needed for an upgrade from Silver to Gold? If the accounts don't get upgraded immediately upon the additional tier miles/flights being credited to the account, I could see there being such an error.
To answer my questions: yes; and yes. It happens because there is a gap in time between when the qualification requirement for going from Silver to Gold hit and when the account upgrade from Silver to Gold is completed. A recent example I looked at involved an 80-90 minute gap between (a) when an account was credited with enough tier miles to meet the threshold for status upgrade and (b) when the status upgrade took place.
How can you tell there was an 80 to 90 minute Gap? Flights are only credited to the DAY they took place (and usually added a day or two later), not to a specific time. Usually there is actually a two to three day gap between these two events, not 80 to 90 minutes! In my case my account was upgraded from Silver to Gold three days after the qualifying flight was taken. Although I believe this situation has been improved somewhat now, there is usually at least a day gap where you could take a points-earning flight and receive zero award miles (I did!). It doesn't seem fair but that's how it is.
If you observed a 1.5hr gap between your qualifying flight being credited and your status changing that wouldn't make any difference at all. Or am I misunderstanding what you're saying?