BA Humbug

Hi all, looking for some collective wisdom here ...

I am planning to fly AMS-EZE, layover 24+ hours (3 days, to be exact), then fly the tag EZE-SCL on the same ticket. Would I get AMS-SCL XP (36) or AMS-EZE and EZE-SCL XP (51)?

Thanks!

irishguy28

Because you are not flying straight through to SCL, you will get the 36XP for AMS-EZE and a few days later you will get 15XP for the entirely separate EZE-SCL sector.

If you fly back from SCL without breaking your journey again in EZE, you will only get 36XP for the SCL-EZE-AMS flight.

BA Humbug

Thanks for the quick reply! Unfortunately not exactly what I wanted to hear (wanted to defer 100+ XP to next year), but c'est la vie ...

irishguy28

can you clarify what that means, exactly?

mpkz

I guess that he would prefer to earn 36XP next "year" after the SCL leg is done rather than 36XP this year, because he might not be aware of XP rollover (or is that over?)

BA Humbug

I'm currently FB gold at 183 XP year-to-date and a tier reset date of August, and this trip would net me 126 XP with the separate EZE-SCL leg, thus getting me to Platinum. If I got only 111 TP, I would land at 294 XP and therefore be able to roll over 114 XP (out of 180 required) toward next year's gold.

Since 95% of my flights are on SV, I don't relaly need to get to Platinum (I just need a lounge + guest and extra baggage), and my flying patterns for the upcoming 12 months won't normally net me Gold so I'd prefer to carry 63% towards Gold ?

Unless you are saying that it would be more worth it to go for Platinum and then "soft land" to Gold in 2024-2025 so that I have 2 years effectively to get enough XP for 2025-2026 membership year?

Fabo.sk

If you soft land you carry over anything over the threshold of the lower level.

the math for you is a bit more than I can muster in a rail replacement bus (Paris vous aime, eh?) so I'll try and tackle it later. I think it's better for you to defer.

​​​​​​A good question for that is, what would happen if you fly without entering your FB number, let your status reaualify and only then retroclaim. Would you be awarded Platinum retroactively?

irishguy28

If your flying for the next 12 months "won't normally net me Gold", then it's a no-brainer to go for Platinum; that means you will get Gold for the following year, regardless of how little you fly.

There really is no reason, in Flying Blue, to wish to "avoid" XPs - unless you (for a very particular and individual reason) wish to carefully manage the "reset" of your membership year by carefully controlling when you go up in status. This should normally not be a concern.

hhdl

If you get 309 XP by the end of August, you become Platinum and roll over 9 XP. If you then get 171 or fewer XP from 1 September through 31 August 2024, you would roll over nothing but retain at least Gold through 31 August 2025. If you get between 171 and 291 (exclusive) in the year ending 31 August 2024, those earnings less 171 XP will roll over to the membership year ending 31 August 2025.

If you hold short at 294 XP, you will stay Gold through 31 August 2024 with 114 XP to start. If you then get 65 or fewer XP by that date, you drop to Silver with 14 plus your XP earnings rolling over. 66 through 185 XP (inclusive) are Gold through 31 August 2025 with those earnings less 66 XP rolling over.

So if your anticipated 1 September through 31 August 2024 XP earn will be less than 66 XP, going for Platinum and soft landing is definitely better, but above 66 XP, you will rollover more to the 2025-starting year by holding up.

BA Humbug

One potential upside to staying Gold -- if your boarding pass says "Gold" on the FQTV even with KL / AF prefix, they will allow access into the Al Fursan First Class lounge in JED (as the highest tier in Al Fursan is Gold), whereas they won't allow Platinum as it's a "partner' program.

Your thumb just has to coincdentally be covering the AF/KL part of the boarding pass ...

irishguy28

I have been to JED twice this year. As FB Platinum, and with no chicanery regarding thumb placement on my boarding documents (I handed over the SV boarding pass for a thorough inspection on both occasions), I have now twice been welcomed into the (pretty unremarkable) Al Fursan First Class section of the lounge in JED.

(The first time I wandered into the empty, unstaffed "First" area without realising what it was, and was eventually pursued by a flustered lounge agent to verify whether I should be shepherded back out or not)

That lounge doesn't strike me as in any way, shape or form to be worth sacrificing Platinum for - all the more so when it guarantees you Gold for the year after when you say you're not going to be able to get to Gold otherwise - even if you still doubt that you would be allowed into that section of that lounge, despite my experience showing that it's not going to be an issue.

hhdl

I'm interpreting that to mean "would fly enough to get Gold with 114 XP of rollover" (i.e. earn at least 66 XP) "but not earning 180 XP in the year". In that situation, if one truly values Platinum that little over Gold, it's long-run better (more rollover into the 2025-starting year as Gold) to hold short.

irishguy28

Admittedly, we're not talking about the exact same timeframes, because once the OP goes up to Platinum, their Gold year automatically terminates and the new Platinum year commences. However, assuming that the OP is already quite a ways through their current year, then the effect of this change will be minimal.

By avoiding Platinum in the current year, their NEXT year (starting September 2023, the "2023-starting year") will also be Gold, and they also have a head-start thanks to the giant rollover, only requiring an additional 66XP flown in the next ("2023-starting") year to also get Gold for the year after that (starting September 2024, the "2024-starting year"). Your reference to 2025 appears to be inaccurate, as that is still too distant in the future for us to say anything about rollover.

However, if the OP goes up to Platinum, their NEXT year (starting either July 2023, August 2023, or September 2023) will be Platinum, and no matter what they fly, they have a soft landing to Gold for the year starting sometime in 2024 (either July 2024, August 2024 or September 2024, the "2024-starting year").

So, going up to Platinum this year would even remove the need to collect those additional 66XPs, and maintains Gold for almost the same period, through which it sounds like there wasn't going to be a lot of flying anyway, so there would not have been any further rollover to be concerned about going into the "2025-starting year"

hhdl

There's a substantial XP window between 66 and 180. If this individual lands in that window, they roll over substantially (up to 105) more into their 2024-starting year, which will come in handy in future years.

Consider a 148 XP per year earn rate going forward.
Year 0: Gold 114 XP vs Platinum 9 XP => 262 XP vs. 157 XP
Year 1: Gold 82 XP vs. Gold 0 XP => 230 XP vs 148 XP
Year 2: Gold 50 XP vs. Silver 48 XP => 198 XP vs 196 XP (calendar might skew by another month)
Year 3: Gold 18 XP vs. Gold 16 XP => 166 XP vs. 164 XP
Year 4: Silver 66 XP vs. Silver 64 XP => 214 XP vs. 212 XP
Year 5: Gold 34 XP vs. Gold 32 XP => 182 XP vs. 180 XP
Year 6: Gold 2 XP vs. Gold 0 XP and so forth

Question is then whether the value of a Platinum year over a Gold year now beats the discounted to the present (after all: no change is permanent, but change is) value of a Gold year over a Silver year (note that anything between 66 and 164 per year is sufficient to ensure a sooner Silver year by hitting Platinum).

Basically if you don't expect to hit (counting rollover) the XP for the tier below (especially if not flying AFKL and getting the ability to buy SAF), holding back will tend to be Pareto-optimal: the benefits of the status being held back from are relevant (in this case the most relevant is probably something on the order of a few thousand miles on partner flights.

Flying Blue is a program which (after a fairly low threshold) tends to reward low volatility of travel volume more than absolute volume.

irishguy28

Given that the threshold for Gold is 180XP, a rollover of 105XP is wiped out the very next year.

(Again, in the specific scenario of the OP, where even getting the 66XP needed next year if they stuck at Gold this year looks to be problematic, they are mathematically far better off getting Platinum this year, because they end up with Gold for the same period (with a maximum differential of 2 months) as the other strategy of sticking this year at Gold, and flying another 66XP next year - but without even needing to fly those extra 66XP.

Go for Platinum this year: Platinum til July/August/September 2024, Gold til July/August/September 2025 with no further XP required.
Stick with Gold this year: Gold til September 2024. Further flying required (66XP) in order to get Gold til September 2025.

In both scenarios, getting Gold for the period September 2025-August 2026 will largely depend on whatever flying is done staring from September 2024; we know that the next 12 months look pretty lean for this flyer, so it's not valid to assume there will be a big rollover into that year starting September 2024 regardless of which "Path" the OP now takes.