Grateful for this threat, as this was a learning moment for me as well. Moving away from Flying Blue (AF/KLM), as the earnings rate and redemption value of points on VS is considerable higher.

There, too, it used to be that you had 1 tracking year and get whatever status you reached. Now, it resets once you reach each tier, and you have to reach the next. (I.e. platinum now requires 580 XP/TP, where before you could do it in 300).

Think I'll make use of the VS status match to skip the first 400TP to silver (matched from BA) and give gold a shot.