Originally Posted by
SmilingBoy
I'm sure neither bmi nor LH would be able to close the programme without taking over the miles. But I'm not so sure about things like "lifetime gold". What if bmi creates two new status levels (say platinum and titanium), which correspond to silver and gold now, and just changes the benefits of silver and gold to something negligible, would you have any case?
They have the right to change benefits, change earning rates, change burn rates, and lots of other things. I doubt anyone would have a case if they were just changing benefits, if within reason. Changing to something totally negligible though might be something that could be challenged legally. Lifetime gold though is not something that can be changed. Lifetime means one and only one thing. The gold benefits could be changed but lifetime cannot.
The lifetime gold also means lifetime *A gold, which means you have much more protection against devaluing BD gold because unless all *A carriers devalued their gold it would still be something of significant value to a lot of frequent flyers.