hfly:
On the contractual point, I doubt that you would fare as well under the Dutch legal system as you do under the US one, and the jurisdiction of the US courts in this situation is highly dubious, partly because of the terms of the FD programme which, if my memory serves me right, contains a clause attributing competence to Dutch courts and making Dutch law applicable to the contract. Also, the FD programme is in principle not open to US residents (you have to go with WP instead). I would have thought that US jurisdiction would be forum non conveniens.

All I was saying was that there is no more reason to assume that they cannot limit the number of years of post-RW status on the basis of status points already acquired than there is to assume that they cannot change the number of miles required for a particular award. If, as everybody seems to assume (me included), they can do the latter, then they can do the former.

I think that the question is less one of legal entitlement than one of commercial practice/customer relations. They may consider that it would alienate their most frequent flyers too much to limit the carrying forward of elite eligibility. They might decide, on the other hand, that allowing the carrying forward is too much of a disincentive to fly KL, as you have no need to maintain status and you might as well build up status on another carrier to multiply your advantages, all the more so as another one of the good perks of the FD programme is that you get access to lounges as a RW, even when you do not fly KL or partners.

By the way, is there any other carrier that allows you to carry forward status when you exceed the top elite threshold (apart from lifetime schemes, that is)?