Originally Posted by sehgalanuj

Having a status based on revenue to only their own airline isn't unique to AFKL. Delta has 360, which is invitation only and so the requirements aren't known. But I'd wager that it is based on revenue thresholds being spent at Delta exclusively, similar to Ulti. Diamond at Delta is better compared with Platinum at AFKL.

But even beyond that, even within Skyteam VN has had their million miler status for a while. This counts only flights from within VN. There's also discrimination between frequent flyers of each airline that excludes fare classes, or only counts other Skyteam airlines as half for qualification segments, and so on.

The alliance is based on recognizing statuses across the alliance, once a Skyteam Elite or Elite Plus level has been reached. There has never been anything stopping an airline within Skyteam from deciding what the qualification criteria are for that status. An airline attempting to reward people who spend more with them, than alliance wide, while not penalizing alliance elites, seems to be quite logical. If I stretch this further, the airlines have always rewarded their own members more than what they reward Skyteam elites (beyond just lounge, one extra bag, priority bag, etc.), which makes sense too. So I can't see how creating a higher tier breaks any alliance wide membership benefits.

The way I see it, Gold at FB is still Elite Plus in Skyteam. Now, if they restricted Gold as well to just UXP, then sure, your point would be valid in my view. But there remains a Skyteam Elite Plus level status that is attainable across all Skyteam members, without exclusively patronizing them.

You might be cross-crediting to two programs now, but in the end, FB is designed as a program primarily for people who patronize AFKL as their primary airline. Most people would remain Plat at FB, or go higher, rather than look sideways. This forum, and people like us, are the anomaly in trying to maximize this.