Does Continental do a "soft drop" for elite status?
 

Does Continental do a "soft drop" for elite status?
Meening if you were platinum, and you dont qualify the next year even for gold, do they give you gold, or to the lowest level?


Thanks

Except for the Milllon Milers, there are no soft landings with One Pass. If you were Platinum and received something like 26,000 EQM's in 2008, you would drop to Silver Elite. If you earned say 24,000 miles you will drop to non-elite.

It feels really hard when it happens.

and would probably spend nights praying for a buy-up opportunity;)

However, if you haven't been receiving many upgrades lately you'll hardly notice. Just remember, you can always board "early" by selecting a seat in the rear of the plane (and you're more likely to have an empty seat next to you than in the "premium" section).

Sort of true. I find it better to check in at 24 hours, and grab the exit rows that an upgraded Plat just had.

All Silver elites are automatically granted a 'soft landing' down to the next lowest status, if they fail to make silver.

But the good news is that you'll hardly notice the fall.

In 1999, I earned Plat for 2000, and then again for 2001. I stopped traveling and failed to gain status for 2002, but CO comped me Silver. Guess that was back in the day :)

Nope; when it comes to elite status on Continental, it's fly or die.

Silver is virually pointless for getting upgrades. The only real benefits are the baggage fee waiver and the in-airport "EliteAccess" perks (security line, blue carpet)

For that, I think it makes more sense to give up on chasing Elite and just buy the Presidential Plus credit card, which still gives the EliteAccess benefits noted above, PC access, Hyatt Platinum, Avis Presidents Club (double upgrades!)

The problem with soft landings is that they tend to tick off the elites who earned their status by flying.

I can understand if a longtime Plat has an extenuating circumstance, but I think that these situations should be handled on an individual basis. But why should someone who qualifies as a Plat for one year due to an extended project (but is no longer regularly flying CO) drop to Gold, when there are others who have earned Gold year after year?

I think that longtime loyalty should be rewarded, though, so perhaps CO could offer soft landings to elites who have 500K lifetime miles, or something along those lines.

not really, you can get an upgrade if you buy a Y/B fare. This said, even as a plat out of SFO I could not get an upgrade absent a Y/B... total joke.

went from a 100K per year PLT to an accidental silver (made the change to UA in Feb, and already had the miles as a "31 in plat" sfo-EWR, plus a few random flights), but last year it was one flight on CO, a few on DL, so back to nothing...

perhaps with the tie in with UA I will fly them again some time.... i miss the 31" pitch oh so much....