pianoamit

I'd say it's slightly unfair to women who retire earlier (the LY one anyway)...

CCayley

Would I be right in hazarding a guess that by 'ridiculous criteria' you mean 'criteria I wouldn't meet'?

pianoamit

You would be right in that I don't meet the age criterion (not that I enjoy flying LY too much anyway).

However, as has been pointed out on the LY forum a number of times, most people's business travel tends to die down in their 60s. Therefore, it's clear that LY is trying to make a token gesture to a very small group of people. Plus, based on the average life expectancy in Israel, even those lucky ones who do make it into the programme, won't be using it for very long...

clubman

That's because you read it here:

http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/briti...ut-israel.html

And it's lifetime Gold, not Platinum.

clubman

Seriously? I have no idea where you get your facts from but the average life expectancy in Israel is one of the highest in the western world, and at around 82 years is a little higher than the UK and considerably higher than the US.

KenJohn

I wonder if that would break EU or UK age discrimination laws?

CCayley

If so wouldn't free bus passes, winter fuel payments, old age pensions and cheap haircuts for wrinklies be likewise verboten?

I believe that 'concessions' - special arrangements or discounts for people of a particular age, are still legal.

pianoamit

That statistic doesn't take into account the chances of dying as a result of terrorist activity. The early 2000s intifada, when worked into the life expectancy figures, dramatically lowered that 82 years figure.

Anyways, I have no intentions of flying LY again anytime soon by choice... So this lifetime status option is completely irrelevant to me. I maintain that it is preposterous - particularly in the face of AY's lifetime programme, and AF/KL's lifetime Platinum after 10 years (at any age)... I know a couple of friends who got KL lifetime Plat by the age of 17.

Paralytic

That's irrelevant - LY's rule is dependent on age, not retirement status. If there's an issue here, its caused by Israel's retirement laws.

pianoamit

Urmm... You don't seriously think they threw some dice around and came up with the number 67, right? It's clearly linked to the age of retirement. However, as women retire earlier in Israel, they will not be likely to travel much 'on business' between 65 and 67, and will most likely not be able to attain this lifetime Gold joke.

Paralytic

I agree they most likely chose that age because it was the greater of the retirement age for men and women, but its not LY that determines that retirement age.

Can women be forced to retire earlier, or is it just that they're given the option?

pianoamit

No one is ever 'forced' to retire... That's not legal in Israel... But most people retire at those ages.

However, as with everywhere, many people who feel that they are financially capable of doing so (and most platinums probably would be) retire a fair bit earlier...

lorcancoyle

Given women have a longer life expectancy they should get theirs X number of years after men

orbitmic

This is getting far too OMNI for my taste but while terrorism is absolutely monstrous and the second intifada made over 1100 Israeli victims (3000 Palestinians also died during the same including nearly 1000 killed by other Palestinians and 2000 by the IDF) but both have had a negligible impact on life expectancy calculations, and that very bloody episode finished in 2005.

For info, while this is by any account 4000 people who should never have died and again, is absolutely terrible, in terms of pure demographic calculations and life expectancy impact, there are 12,000 murder victims in the US every year, and 6,000 suicide victims every year in the UK. Both murder and suicide rates are extremely low in Israel and as clubman suggests, life expectancy in Israel is one of the highest in the world and increasing sharply has the country has generally improving eating habits unlike many other Western countries.

paulwuk

It's probably dropped a little by the stress caused by moving to the A321 and T1