When Will My Airline Elite Status Expire?

Achieving airline elite status is a big deal; you’re the best of the best and you get a few perks and rewards that only those within the same level of elite status are eligible to receive. Unfortunately, the best things do not last forever. This means your airline elite status will eventually go away, bring you back down to nothing and make you start all over again. It would be nice if we could achieve airline elite status one time, hold onto that forever and reap the many benefits of this status at the same time, but it’s not how it work. Sadly, your New Year, new you policy also means a new you in terms of your airline; and it’s not elite status.

When does your airline elite status expire?

It’s a valid question, and one that is often asked by those who have finally achieved that elite status. Unfortunately, it doesn’t matter when you achieve it, it resets at the beginning of every year. Perhaps you’ve been in the elite category since the second week of December when you visited the in-laws for Christmas for a long weekend and you felt it was your much-deserved reward for handling that situation without losing your mind. Unfortunately, you’re no longer part of that club. Your elite membership disappeared the same time as your good sense on New Year’s morning.

Or not.

Most airlines don’t work that way; most offer you elite status for the remainder of the qualifying year and then for the rest of the actual enjoyment year. You see, you might have earned that membership during the second week of December, but you get to enjoy it the rest of 2015 and the rest of 2016. Airlines are generous in that they recognize you cannot possibly earn elite status long enough to enjoy it in one calendar year, so they give you a qualifying year and a year in which to enjoy the elite benefits you worked so hard to earn.

While I cannot tell you exactly when your airline elite status expires, I can tell you that you need to check out the rules for the airline on which you qualified for this status. Typically, you get a full year to enjoy the elite membership, in addition to the time you finally become qualified during the qualifying year. Check with your airline if you are uncertain when your status begins and ends, and they can tell you precisely.

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