COFF-Platinum

Not that uncommon. I was seated next to a swedish LTPE couple on my last transatlantic flight and we counted more than 500 crossings between the three of us.

Gajan

I understand that in NL alone 200 people qualify for PFL (information based on last years PFL event invite).

Provided that France has a higher FB frequent flier base, I assume the number of PFL qualifying in France would be a factor X higher.

cityflyer369

That's an interesting number. It's probably safe to assume then that the total number of PFLs is less than 4000, possibly even less than 2000. If FB has about 20 million members (or was it 16 million?), then that's about 0.1 or 0.2 percent of all members.
What can we guesstimate with this number about the percentage of Plat members and about the percentage of PFLs on a particular flight?

Gajan

Sorry, I meant 200 per annum in NL.

stimpy

I would guess the numbers are quite low for now, but they will increase sharply in the coming years due to rollover EQM's and Flyertalk.

cityflyer369

This changes things a bit. :-)

johan rebel

Any airlined that gives a hoot for their top tier elite would not seat three of them next to each other, they would strive to keep the middle seat free. As you mention OpUps, I assume that economy was overbooked, in which case the LTPEs ought to have been upgraded ahead of everybody else.

Pursers have quite some discretion in this regard. In conversation with one of them I once pointed out that the first row behind the curtain was completely packed, whereas there were plenty of empty middle seats further back. After take-off I was invited to take a seat in ES, with full service.

Johan

johan rebel

We are of course all guessing here, but assuming ±500 qualify worldwide every year, the total is perhaps a bit higher? Given that lifetime is not the same as eternal, there will of course also be some attrition.

Johan

Goldorak

Here's an idea for a new LTPE benefit (to differentiate from "regular" Platinum benefits): when you die, a tombstone offered by AF/KL with written "from Air France-KLM, with our eternal regrets to one of our best client"

Gajan

I understand that the number that qualify per annum in France is higher than this; I assume that the number that qualifies worldwide (including NL and FR) for LTPE is probably at least 2,000

RigpigMalta

Since inception and taking into account the numbers bandied about on this site, you have to be looking at 50k+ minimum LTPE at least, as the person who qualifies always has it, and death being the only way to lose it!

Plus Plats are multiplying like lemmings since abonne, Carryover miles etc

orbitmic

How many do you think qualify each year from France? If I were to make wild guesses, I would expect France+NL to account for at least 3/4 of qualifyers every year and I would personally be surprised if France had 6 or 7 times more people qualifying each year than the Netherlands because the population is only 4x larger, France is slightly less wealthy per head than the Netherlands, and many French business flyers predominantly fly domestically and those flights never used to qualify for FB miles and segments until very recently and for abonnes only.

I guess that we will never know for sure unless some FB person throws confidential papers in the wrong rubbish bin but if you say 200 from the NL, I would have personally imagined somewhere about 1200-1600 in total.

Last point, it is worth remembering that one doesn't qualify for PfL twice in other words, I would guess that after a number of people have already made it, the number of new qualifiers will go down as those very frequent flyers are now out of the pool for qualification.

stimpy

Good point. After a few years there won't be linear growth of PfL's.

brunos

Not sure that I agree with you.
This is an overlapping generation model. Let's assume that each birth year has the same number of future very frequent flyer (VFF). Undoubtedly, the first year that the PfL is introduced (meaning the first year that one of the "old" VFF can become PfL), there should be a large number of qualifications because the past pool of VVF has accumulated and suddenly becomes PfL. But the following years should be steady state. Pax who became VFF ten years ago qualify. As pax get older and more successful they become VFF and obtain PfL ten years later.
It could be that it was easier (or more difficult) to be F+ Rouge, so that history could affect the steady state for a couple of years. It could also be that Plat is granted more generously (or less) than in the past and that will affect the steady state.

strikerbird

Nice way of getting a free upgrade