orbitmic

I think they are pretty clear in saying they rollover what you got beyond your own qualification threshold so I'm pretty sure that if you are gold you will only get what you got beyond the gold threshold. It would be rather absurd otherwise. You could even ask the same questions for people who qualified through soft landing!!

irishguy28

Ivory members don't qualify for miles rollovers. (This relates to level miles, not award miles as you wrote above).

If a member is Ivory in the current year, it means that they did not surpass any of the level mile thresholds in the previous year (if they had, they would now be at least silver). This means that there is no "surplus" for them to roll over into the present year.

orbitmic

Thanks for spotting the award miles - duly corrected. I know the plan for FB was to only rollover above elite thresholds but I wonder if it is so clever. The point I was trying to make is that if an ivory has 23,000 level miles in a given year, if it were me, I would plan some sort of one year rollover as it seems to me that there would be an incentive in giving these people the possibility to become silver more easily.

irishguy28

I think that would be incredibly generous - and not in keeping with the "aim" of the rollover program.

The rollover is an acknowledgement for those that surpassed one of the set targets - it's a "reward" for having achieved a certain set amount of flying.

Allowing Ivories to carry over anything is a different (opposite) type of reward with the opposite type of logic from the rollovers - it's a benefit designed solely to try and help them qualify for the next highest level. (The rollover for Silvers, Golds, and Platinums is first and foremost a benefit designed to help them maintain status. If Ivories get a benefit that is designed to help them move up a level, why would the Silvers and Golds also NOT get such a benefit, in addition to the new rollover of miles?)

Even with the rollovers that Silvers and Golds now get, there will still be lots of Silver members and Gold members, who will still not manage to go up a level, and who may only just maintain their existing level, or indeed drop a level. So if Ivories were to get this special additional leg-up, shouldn't Silvers and Golds also get it, too? If they didn't, they may be annoyed that Ivories do.

I hope I've explained why the Ivory rollover would be a totally different thing to that which now exists for Silvers and above. And I know of no FFP that has a "benefit" for its lowest tier members that is not similarly offered to all higher levels - which is, in effect, what your proposal amounts to.

So if an Ivory member was granted, say, 20% of the level miles they accrued in the previous year, by rights FB should also grant 20% of the level miles accrued in the previous year for ALL members - all silvers, golds, and platinums.

But like I said, this would be too generous. It would be good for the passenger, of course, but I think it's an unreasonable expectation. You may think it's unfair that Ivories "get nothing" while all the other members do, but FFPs differentiate based on status, and it's surely not surprising that such benefits only kick in once a flyer has at least got themself out of the lowest category.

irishguy28

Well, like I tried to explain earlier, as long as it is done on or before December 31st, the goal will have been achieved. The final decision on your status for the next year is made at the very end of the year. Of course, the earlier the rollover miles are added, the sooner some people may find themselves being upgraded in status. For these purposes, it probably makes sense for the airline to add the miles at the last possible moment. For those people who will only be upgraded as a result of receiving the rollover miles, then they will be upgraded at the last possible moment, meaning that the otherwise "unearned" status won't be granted any earlier than at the final end-of-year status check.

stimpy

Oh I can think of a few more reasons why it's important to find out ASAP!

orbitmic

It's interesting (and I mean that genuinely) because we have rather different readings of the 'meaning' of the FB gestures. To me - both from what I read and from what was explained to me when we discussed this with the FB people when they first explained their project to us last year - I took it more as a way of smoothing out the rigidity of thresholds and avoiding excessive 'wastes' of level miles. In that sense, someone who has cumulated 23,000 level miles in one year and remains ivory is far more of a 'waste victim' than someone who has qualified for silver with 26,000 (and will be able to carry on the excess for the next year). If it happens once then noone would notice, but if you think of someone who would fly 20k (level) miles every year, they would constitute pretty good customers and it could be in AF-KL's interest to give them a chance to make it to silver and 'taste the benefits' of flying a bit more. The only reason why it seems much harder to implement rollover level miles for ivory members is mostly technical: the threshold for ivory is 0. Thus, if you allowed the carry over of miles beyond that odd thresholds, level miles would keep cumulating till a passenger finally reached silver (i.e. if a member flew 5000 level miles each year, they would then have 5000 level miles after year 1, 10000 after year 2, 15000 after year 3, etc). Obviously that would be a really big problem, but this is where I thought they might end up looking for an artificial threshold (e.g. allowing ivories to carryover anything above 10 or 15k) but I think it also has inconvenients (which I could develop separately).

Also, I understand the difference you make between helping people to retain a level or helping them to reach a new level, but AFAIK this is not a difference FB are making. When they present the change, FB say: 'Major breakthrough makes Elite upgrades and renewals even easier' so they really put 'renewal' and 'upgrade' to next level back to back. Same is true in the detailed release. So I'm not sure it is a difference they see as relevant themselves.

irishguy28

Given this thread: http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/air-f...e-members.html - are you all now seeing your rollover miles successfully applied to your accounts????

orbitmic

Absolutely not in my case. It still shows the miles rolled over above the 'old' platinum threshold and does not include the additional 45,000 (all the miles between 70000 and 115000 that should presumably be credited as well).

maxmax3

Actually, I do not see anymore option of segments roll-over (above 105 flights) for Platium members. It was still there yesterday and I do not see nymore my rollover segments above 105 for 2013. Interesting, rule has changed ?

stimpy

Didn't they say at the middle of the year? So July 1st or thereabouts, right?

irishguy28

They said "from mid 2012 onwards". So anytime until December 31st

brunos

As a newbie to this thread, let me stress that I am happy with this change that exist(ed) in some other FFPs. The April Fools changes on earnings plus the French FB Amex changes has probably meant that the proportion of elite qualifying on miles rather than segments has dwindled. This is a partial but nice offset.

I agree with Irishguy28 and Orbitmic that there are conceptual and technical reasons for not granting that privilege to ivories. Similarly, those who get a status by soft landing or status match will not benefit and that seems reasonable.

The issue of the date when these past miles will be credited is tactical and technical. I am afraid that all the changes are taxing AFKL IT capacities. And FB is not a part of AFKL that will be the priority for expensive IT investments. It is nice that AFKL decided to implement the changes in 2012 (carrying over excess 2011 miles), but it must be work to test all cases. And complaints will be numerous.
As our good Gottard friend would say, execution is not the strength of AFKL.

That brings me to my question. I have not kept my situation as of the end of 2011. I do not receive printed copies and there is no way I can find such info on the website. I receive an email by flyingblue.com two or three times a year, but never near 31 December. So unless I check my summary near year-end (and there might be adjustments early January) and print the screen, I cannot remember how many miles should be carried over. Any way to find out?

irishguy28

Yes.

(Instructions are given based on logging in to your FB account via KLM.com, in English. Procedure should be similar/identical via AF.com)

1. Click on "Mileage Summary"
2. Your mileage summary should appear, with the default being the last month's activities shown (towards the bottom of the page)
3. Select the drop-down box showing "Last month" and instead select "Select Period"
4. In the date boxes that now appear below, select 01 Jan 2011 and 31 Dec 2011 as start and end dates. (NOTE! Only about ~18 months history is retained, so 1 Jan 2011 will no longer be selectable in a few weeks' time)
5. Click show transactions. Your entire FB history for 2011 is now displayed.

brunos

Thanks, but I cannot find this. I tried both in english and in french.
regarding period, I only have two options. Either "last month" or "this year". I do no find the "Select period" option. Do I do something wrong? This has been the case for a while.