It could be a solution (talking now from the point of view of Ben and FlyingBlue - rather than myself as a passenger ) but it probably comes with its own set of disadvantages.

It's tough to say/predict how frequent flyers will behave to any of these potential changes. Although raising the thresholds for gold/platinum would be the cleanest, most transparent move, it is also something that will instantly be noticeable by everyone. Some people might give up outright to chase status when they think they can no longer reach the threshold because it requires too much unreasonable extra spending without offering them enough benefits.

Note the highlighting of the word think. A frequent flyer programme (again from Ben's perspective) is all about extracting the highest possible spending out of us passengers. But there is a point somewhere in that virtual parabola graph where you try to extract so much extra spending out of frequent flyers that many will no longer play ball and just give up completely, and you actually start to lose out again as a company..

See what's happening right now over at BA! It's a fine balancing act where as a frequent flyer programme you at least must ensure that your frequent flyers still have the feeling they can still attain the status level they want. It might very well be that by differentiating fares and giving fewer XP to some works much better in this regard than just raising the qualification thresholds.

Anyhow, as I already wrote in the other thread with questions to Ben, I do hope that at least once they've decided what they will do, FlyingBlue will communicate any possible negative changes well ahead of time, so we can anticipate on this. A good frequent flyer programme is also about trust and transparency. So far, FlyingBlue scores high on these points (if you ask me!), so it would be a real pity to see this change. Again, I'm thinking of the atrocious way how BA communicated their recent changes which really did not go over well and made it a self-inflicted wound. Or the way how the Lufthansa Group manages to twist every negative enhancement as something they are doing due to "customer feedback". Anyone can see through such BS, and most of us would rather be told the honest, true story. From this point of view, I can only commend Ben sharing his thoughts and FlyingBlue's side of the story with us in this thread.

Most of us would understand that some changes might be needed - but honest and timely communication about it would be essential.