Somewhat complicated question, and hopefully somebody on here can answer this. I will try to explain this out as clearly as possible, so please bear with me.

Consider the following hypothetical scenario:

August 02, 2010 - Qualified for Gold, tier miles are reset and new tier year begins (through August 31, 2011)
Rest of August 2010 - no tier miles earned
Sept 2010 - no tier miles earned
Oct 2010 through August 2011 - 45,000 miles earned (not enough to requal for Gold)

Based on the above, the GCH would drop to Silver. However...

September 2011 - Earn 5,000 tier miles

Now, earning 5,000 in Sept 2011 would result in 50,000 tier miles earned in the Oct 2010-Sept 2011 12 month rolling period. Would this mean that after the drop the Silver, the member would immediately requalify back to Gold with the new tier year of Sept 2011-Sept 2012? Or would the tier mile count be reset to zero at the end of August 2011, with the member needing to re-earn 50,000 to reach Gold?

I may run into the above scenario this year, so it would be good to knwo what to expect. Any insights are much appreciated!

No - the tier miles won't be reset to zero. The ones older than 13 months will expire, but the rest will remain. So yes, you would hypothetically drop to Silver for a couple of months till your Gold status is renewed.

ETA: OK, I might be wrong there. Looking at my account - it shows me tier miles from the last 13 months for earning Gold, but only shows those from my review date for renewing Silver. So it might be the case that to maintain status they count from review date only, but to move up a tier it's the last 13 months.

This is indeed a tricky question.

Actually, the way I understand it is that you would drop to Silver and then have to re-qualify for Gold.

Look at the T&C's on Skywards.com



Quote:
(c) In your second and subsequent years of retaining a tier, you have exactly 12 months to retain your tier, count backing back to your last review date

You qualified 02 August 2010 - so you have until 02 Aug 2011 to requalify. The way you might address this is book and pay for the Sept ticket in Aug and then approach Skywards to see if they will grant you any leeway.

But assuming one is Silver again, they should then count tier miles from the last 12 months, allowing you to get back to Gold within a couple of months, and not earn 50k all over again.

I was in the same situation, I emailed and Emailed and even emirates phoned up a few times saying it was not possible, After a few more emails and phone calls i was granted Gold. I think i was 7000 Miles short of getting gold and i was going to miss out on gold by 2 days.

I will be down to silver in May, the only good thing to me regarding Gold was the Lounges in Manchester and Bangkok, Not so keen on the busines lounge in T3 Dubai, Prefer T1,

Malc

Thanks for the definitive response, malct. I don't stand to lose much, just the tier bonus, as all of my travel is in J (either paid or upgraded) and the lounge access is a non-issue.

If I understand correctly you would not need to earn 50K again to requalify for Gold. I dropped status for 4 months then got it back again from 1 flight as they did the 13 months rolling period backwards for me. Was even short by 92 miles and it automatically requalified me.

So i think OP should be ok. Another point to note is that although your review date is Aug 2011, you get an extra 2 months free (14months status) so in theory you wouldn't even drop to Silver as ur status should remain until October 2011.

My review date was end of Dec 2010, I qualified for gold and when looking at my account today all the tier miles accrued in Dec 2010 have been cleared and my tier miles to date is zero.

OP's review date would be 31st Aug 2011 and I think the tier miles will be reset to zero and the review date will not change in the future.

Status will drop to silver and 50k tier miles need to be achieved before gaining gold status and even if that happens before 31st Aug 2012 the review date won't change.

That happened because you did qualify for Gold again. For maintaining your current status it will show you tier miles earned after qualification (in your case 2 months ago). In the OPs case, he will drop to Silver, so to maintain Silver it will show miles from the review date, but to achieve Gold again it will show them from the last 12 months.

As described above in eightblacks reply.

(b) Upon achieving a higher tier, your status is valid for one year from the month you achieve it. Your review date is set to the end of the same month the following year. This means in your first year, you have between 12 and 13 months to retain your tier, depending on what day of the month you achieve it.

OP achieved a higher tier in Aug 2010 and the higher tier is valid until end of Aug 2011. Review date is set to 31st Aug 2011. This being the first year the OP has just short of 13 months to retain gold. All of this is consistent with point b in the T&C�s.

(c) In your second and subsequent years of retaining a tier, you have exactly 12 months to retain your tier, count backing back to your last review date

On the 1st Sept 2011 the OP will drop to silver and in the second year and therefore will need to count back to the last review date (31st Aug 2011) to retain tier. I'm assuming his is the part where the confusion arises. However, it is quite clear that the OP would have 12 months from the review date (31st Aug 2011) to accrue 25k tier miles to retain silver and in turn would need 50k tier miles to re-qualify for gold.

Why would someone need 25k miles to retain a tier but possibly achieve a higher tier by gaining less than 25k miles, in the OP�s case 5k. Doesn�t make sense!

Point (a) in the T&C�s only applies to members who do not have a review date set as per the �new� system therefore the 13 month window doesn�t apply in the OP�s case.

Here's how it works.

End Aug '11 OP has 45k tier miles and drops to Silver. They then need 25k by Aug '12 to retain Silver.

Gold status was valid till Aug '11. OP loses status, but the tier miles are NOT reset to zero. The OP again needs 50k within a 12 month window. It is not 5k in the next 12 months but 5k before the oldest tier miles expire. Assuming nothing was earned till Oct '10, OP has till Oct '11 to earn the 5k. That is still 50k in the last 12 months. The miles are only reset to zero after you renew the tier, not if you don't, as these miles haven't counted toward Gold status.

It's a complicated system and it's difficult to explain, but hopefully that makes things a little clearer.

Ung1 is right. As usual!

Without sounding silly, Gold's who continue to requalify don't see the rolling tier mile issue. It's only when you have been Gold and you fail to qualify in the window, that you will then see the rolling effect of watching the oldest tier miles drop off within the 12-13 month period.

If that makes sense. Or did I just make things worse?

So the consensus (based on ung1 and khalid26's responses, and as opposed to malct), is that previously earned tier miles do not disappear or drop to zero. Rather, the tier period simply continues to roll forward after you drop to Silver, and you could technically immediately re-qualify by flying enough to reach 50,000 in the new rolling period, which would include previously earned tier miles.

This is consistent with my brother's experiences. His review for Silver was Dec 2010, but he did not earn enough miles to requalify. He did however fly a bit in January 2011 to re-earn Silver, based on a new Feb 2010-Jan 2011 rolling period, and immediately re-earned Silver.

OK, I guess I should accept the general consensus. I'll take the word of the more experienced travellers. Usually I would call the company to make sure but skywards customers service reps don't always know the answers to tricky questions themselves.

Does that then mean the review date can change year on year?

Yes once you move up a tier, the review date will change to the date you qualified. Just to make it clear, the tier points will no reset ONLY IF you fail to qualify. If you reach Gold then it will reset to zero straight away.