Confusing FF miles/status earning and redemption
 

I have a few FF programs and sometimes manage to gain silver or gold status, but I find the airline sites to be incredibly opaque about how many miles I need to keep my status or move to a higher level. It's like they don't want me to know my rights as a customer and take advantage of my status.

Anyone else have similar issues? How many programs do you regularly use? How often do you check your current miles and status? What confuses you most about the miles earning or spending calculations?

I have status in 3, and credit to 5 alliance (plus a handful of non alliance). Every program I credit to has a visual counter in the app that shows current progress and amount to reach the next tier.

Welcome to Flyertalk. If you mention the names of the programs where you have experienced this problem, we should be able to steer you to the forum where each program is discussed, and people there will help you find the information that you need.

My main one is Emirates. They seem to offer information about how to obtain a higher status but are vague in offering me what I need to do to keep my current one. I have had similar vagueness with Qatar and Qantas in the past, although maybe they are better now. I don't think the information is completely hidden, but there's no proactivity on the airline side.

I suggest that you post your Emirates question in this thread: https://www.flyertalk.com/forum/emir...ee-2025-a.html Be sure to include specifics such as your current Skywards Elite Tier (Blue, Silver, Gold or Platinum), and the amount of Tier Miles that you have already earned in 2025.

If you gain Silver you then have a year * to earn 25,000 more miles to retain it. If you get to Gold you then have a year to earn 50,000 miles to retain it or you'll move back down to Silver for a year.

* - A tier is earned until the end of the month it's earned in the following year, so for example if you got to Silver today, 5th November, it would be valid until end of November 2026

https://www.emirates.com/uk/english/...ogramme-rules/