Something strange just happened.....A few weeks ago I had 60 miles to go before Silver tier by end Jan 2010 (Marco Polo club mile balance was 29940). Last month I took a 14000 mile return flight to USA and back to Asia (AA288, AA289). This was credited to my account showing around 44,000 club miles on my MarcoPolo page. Now checking this morning I have been reset to 0 miles with 30,000 to renew silver, with a new membership period of Sep 11 2009 - Sep 30 2010.

Does anyone know what happened? I thought I was closing in on Gold....and now I am 60,000 away! Can I ask to get the 140000-60 miles (or at least 7000 miles) credited?

Appreciate if anyone can help me understand this, and perhaps offer some advice as to how to make the most of this is future. I live in Shanghai and fly at least quarterly to Chicago and twice yearly to Europe/Australia.

Thanks a lot....

The 30k went to renew your silver status. So now you have to earn another 60k to reach gold.

The missing clubmiles, I'm not sure what happened, but they are probably banked somewhere so when you are close to gold, they will be used to get you over the top. I'm sure others will clarify this.

It should not get to 44K then reset to 0. Something is not quite right. Call them:
* If you were Green, you should be promoted to Silver and the Club Miles should be reset after AA288. AA 289 should show up in your balance. It should never get to 44K before reset to 0.
* If you were Silver already, they should not reset and renew your membership year yet.

Thanks for the advice......Just spoke to Club. They said it was the computer system and that there is nothing they can do.....i then persisted politely and she went and talked to a manager. Came back and said that they would post a note in their system to say that next year in Sep if I am short 12k miles out of 60k needed for Gold, then they would auto upgrade tier to Gold.

While relieved that my miles have not disappeared I am a little disappointed still as I was hoping to get earlier to Gold - ie not have to wait until end of Sep 2010 to then speak to them and remind them about this. (hoping that the note in their system actually exists otherwise reminding them about this might be tough).

My situation again is:
- Club member cycle: Feb 2009 -Jan 2010.
- Tier: Green.....been Silver and Gold in past but living in Shanghai and doing more domestic travel pulled me down a bit. New role has more international travel now, so trying to get back to Gold)
- Last statement showed me 67 club miles short of Silver tier.
- I then flew AA288, AA289. = 14,086 club miles.
- Account yesterday showed I was 44,000 club miles and still Green tier.
- Then today it shows I am Silver tier and 0 club miles with a new membership period of Sep 10 2009 - Sep 30 2010.

I think I understand what happened. AA only posts miles to CX once every week. If you round trip is within one posting period, miles on both segments are posted on the same day. Following that, the computer checked your Club Miles, promoted you and reset your Club Miles to 0.

CX needs to improve their IT.

What has happened is absolutely normal. You can't go from Green to Gold. You have to go to Silver first, and this resets your Club Miles to zero. It's the way it always has been.

The only issue is, as cxfan1960 says, that the upgrade batch only runs once a day and both your AA flights posted together so you "lost" 14,000 miles when you should have only lost about 6,400, and have 7,000 Club Miles towards Gold qualification. This seems like reasonable grounds for complaint to me. I would write to CX Customer Relations and point out that the unreasonableness of what happened.

And for future reference, CX bases everything on posting date, so what you could have done in your case was to remove your MPC number from the second flight AA289, wait for the first flight to post, which would have triggered the upgrade to Silver, then submitted a missing mileage request for the second flight.

Having said all that, if they do upgrade you to Gold at 48,000 miles then you will have got a better result even than you would have got by the two flights posting separately.

TaipeiLivin,

You can join AAdvantage. It is a lot easier for you to get to Gold or even the Platinum with AA. You can get bonus mile as AA elite member and you can get CX award ticket with AA mile.

Thanks for the tip tylorcl,
I know that this is not an AAdvantage forum, but compared to CX MPolo how are the Op Upgrade opportunities? When I was Silver and Gold with MP I was pleasantly surprised of the frequency that I got these. This is what is driving my preference towards getting status back with CX....(I guess also good for their biz).

Cheers (ps I wonder if I can change my login name to ShanghaiLivin now!)

Also Christep and CXfan1960, thanks for your notes - that has cleared it up for me a lot.

OK. One other idea for you is to bank AA mile and trade your AA mile with someone who has CX mile. Maybe you can trade your 50K AA mile for 40K CX mile. MP silver and gold member also need mile to upgrade, right?

The reason I propose this is because you usually take AA, only a small portion of the AA fare base can get you CX mile. CX also looks at the CX flight you took for the MP status consideration.

A few things to be noted:
* If OP lives in US, AA may make more sense, but OP is porbably based in Asia and fly more on CX than AA.
* CX makes it difficult to use miles on other people. Asia Miles members can only nominate 5 people without paying a fee (except for MPC Diamond). Most Asia Miles members only nominate their immediate family members. Changing nominees back and forth will cost the member dearly.
* Asia Miles members can get miles on most AA fares, whereas only CX YBH booking classes can earn AA miles on economy tickets.

A bit of b/ground: I am Shanghai based. I tend to fly CX to Australia, and AA to the States. As I fly to Chicago, to go via CX and HK would not work.

If I opt to switch over to AAdvantage, then I may as well make the switch over to *Alliance as I will be effectively starting over again. This would also bode well for domestic flight miles - as now I do not get any CX club miles due to OW not having local OW member. I fly weekly within China.

In a few years I will move back to Australia - but will continue to fly to Asia I would think.

Thanks,

Then CX is best for you. Even you do not get status miles with CA and MU but you can get Asia Miles. When you move to Australia, you can fly domestic with QF. you can easily retain Silver by flying with AA between Shanghai and Chicago twice a year. You get lounge access with CX when you fly with them as Silver which you can not do with any other OW airlines as I know.

I am in Uk but use QF for better mileage opportunities.

Maybe the OP can use the *A status match promotion to get elite status with CA. You can therefore enjoy the CA domestic lounge when you travel within China with CA.

That is for HK resident. OP can do that if he has a HK address, but CA is not participating in this promotion. In any event, CX SL will be matched to *SL, and cannot access any *G lounges.

CX is better as SL members have lounge accesses which flying CX/KA.

CA is excluded from the promotion (they're "Phoenix Miles," right?). I'm assuming it's because of the CX/CA tie-up, and CA doesn't want to make it seem like they're explicitly stealing CX's customers .