virtualtroy

I love these historical footnotes, a cautionary tale to all. Hopefully nobody has gained lifetime status on Oasis, MaxAir or Eos? (Probably impossible, given the short time they operated for...)

nologic

I was a lifetime Ionosphere Club member, and turned into a lifetime Presidents Club member. ^

I was a lifetime Piedmont Club member, and that turned in lifetime USAir Club.^

I was a lifetime Ambassador Club member, and that turned into squat.

topflyer78

Wow, that was lots of useful info indeed, thanks everyone... I would like to attempt a recap, to see if I got it right - or if not, or where not complete, please correct or add. For purpose of the recap, I am only listing airlines that are in one of the alliances, and whereby life status is f or top tier.

ONE
* AA: After having received 2M "program-to-date" miles (from all sources, including not airlines) over any period of time (even over 20 years), you become AA Platinum (and top tier for One World) for life.
* QF: After having received 14K "status credits" (on airlines only, all OneWorld partners) over any period of time (even over 20 years), you become QF Gold (and top tier for One World) for life.

STAR
* UA: After having received 1M "program-to-date" miles (but only on UA flights, not even other Star members), you become UA Premier Executive (and top tier with Star) for life. [btw, what is Premier Executive 1K then ? that is even more top ?]
* OZ: After having received 1M "program-to-date" miles (from all airline partners), you become OZ Platinum (and top tier with Star) for life.
* LH: Possible but only if aged over 65.

SKY
* AF/KL: After ten consecutive years as Platinum Elite (or former equivalent), you become Platinum Elite (and top tier for Sky Team) for life.
* KE: possible but not clear, someone can complete ?
* DL: possible but not clear, someone can complete ?
* CO: possible but not clear, someone can complete ?

I think the perfect way to correct this, would be for someone to copy and paste this in further posts, with relevant corrections.

francophile

AA platinum and QF gold are equal to OW Sapphire which is the second-tier.

topflyer78

Thanks a lot for this. So, does this mean, essentially, that there is really no One World airline that will grant lifetime elite status equivalent to the One World top tier ?

That seems it applies indeed with SkyTeam (AF/KL, DL), and Star Alliance (OZ Platinum, UA Premier Executive, which are both Star Alliance Gold, right ?)

Efrem

You can also get *A lifetime Gold through bmi, which gives you lifetime bmi Gold after ten years of earning it: a total of at least 399,000 status miles starting from scratch. (I'm a thousand miles from qualifying for my second year, so I have a ways to go. Wish me luck!)

virtualtroy

See http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/showp...&postcount=136

Efrem

I know, I saw it there (shortly before I was about to post the same thing, BTW) but wanted to round out the list in the post I quoted. The other items in that post also appear somewhere higher up in this thread, but also not collected in the same place in the same way. Not the first time a given fact has appeared twice, in slightly different contexts, on FT - and won't be the last, nor IMHO should it be.

derekcarden

My understanding is:

CO: A plan will be rolled out anytime now for some type of life status

DL: Per their site:

Million Miler Status
The Million Miler™ Program recognizes and rewards those customers who have flown an exceptional amount with us.

* Members who reach one million Medallion Qualification Miles are currently awarded complimentary annual Silver Medallion status.
* Members who reach two million Medallion Qualification Miles are currently awarded complimentary annual Gold Medallion status.
* Members who reach four million plus Medallion Qualification Miles are currently awarded complimentary annual Platinum Medallion status.
* Every time you reach a new level of Million Miler status you will have the opportunity to choose an exclusive gift by Hartmann™ as a token of our appreciation.


AF/KL is the easiest to attain, especially with the help of extended miles (over 115k level miles in a year go toward the next year), but AF/KL plat doesn't mean a heckuva lot either.

perezoso

Over in the CO Forum, CO Insider has just provided the details of a new 3-tier million miler program with lifetime elite status.

Basically, 1mm=Silver, 2mm=Gold, 4mm=Plat. Many more details in the thread.

.

Efrem

If AA did something like that, with lifetime EXP at 4MM (or perhaps even 5MM) I'd move all my flying back to oneWorld. As it is, with the likelihood of my earning EXP year-to-year fairly small these days, it makes more sense to sit on lifetime AA PLT, using it when the occasion arises, and requalify for *A Gold annually. Once I had lifetime EXP, were that to happen, its benefits (e.g., EXP desk) would keep me there in ways that Platinum can't.

I don't know how many others like me there are out there, but it seems to me that the number of lifetime EXPs would be (in frequent flyer program terms) small, and the incremental revenue from each of us would be substantial. In AA's current situation, it's an inexpensive carrot with significant near term benefits, with most of the (not large) costs well down the road.

Could that have been CO's reasoning?

topflyer78

Right, so in essence, lifetime status can be attained for top tier for SkyTeam and *A, not OW, but the OW second-top-tier privileges are quite good anyway... But what's the Guinness about, which airline or card ?

Efrem

AFAIK, this is true - but keep in mind that *A only has two tiers. Their top tier (Gold) is more or less comparable to OW mid-tier (Sapphire). You earn *A Gold with 50,000 miles on UA; OW Sapphire with 50,000 on AA* - in both cases mid-tier airline status. Both give you access to business-class, but not first-class, lounges. *A has no equivalent of OW Emerald, which gives access to F lounges and so on and requires (to continue with the above example) top-tier status, 100K miles, on AA. If you fly 100K miles with UA you'll get their top tier, but it won't move you up the *A scale because you'll have been at the top already.

So, while it's technically correct that you can't (again, AFAIK) earn lifetime top-tier on OW, you can earn a lifetime elite level that corresponds, broadly, to *A top-tier.

_____________________________
*I know this oversimplifies a bit, but the details don't affect the issue here.

topflyer78

Thanks, this is very very helpful. Indeed, the benefits are probably similar, though there is still that feeling that you are not quite at the top, you know... In fact that's also the case once you make it to Star A Gold, e.g. you are equivalent to LH Senator, but LH also has Hon Circle, and SK also has Pandion, above the basis Star A Gold. Still, alliance-wide, you are at the top. With Sky actually, or do some Sky memmbers (e.g. CO, NW, DL ?) indeed have tiers above that also, i.e. they have two airline tiers equivalent to Sky Elite Plus ? Still, you would still be at the top alliance-wide.

Anyway, I guess I will then aim for One World Sapphire then, with AA... And maybe one day they will introduce a new threshold at 4M or 5M to become their top tier (Exec Plat, right ?) equivalent to Emerald... ? So if I have my 2M already, I would just need to progress... hmmm... sounds correct reasoning ?

sdsearch

Lifetime EXP at 4MM or 5MM what???

It's possble to earn lifetime status with AA with absolutely zero flying. (I don't know why you'd want to, but it's possible.) That's because AA is the only airline left which counts all miles from all sources toward lifetime status.

But no way will they ever want to give away their top elite status to people who simply used (or churned!) the AA Citi cards a lot!

And AA can't tell which lifteime miles you earned a few years ago were flight miles and which were non-flight miles. So even if they switch in the future to only flight miles counting, it would only be from then on. Which would still make it very hard to make a lifetime EXP status, without some sort of restriction like "earn at least 4MM total lifetime miles, with at least 2MM total lifetime miles since we started only counting flight miles as lifetime miles". Would that help you in less than 3 decades if you're flying so little you're never making EXP the "normal" way?