You might remember my blogging about my own experiences with US Trial Preferred membership as well as those of my good friend from North Carolina. I get lots of questions about the program, and the number one question I receive is “If I buy Silver, but fly enough to earn Gold or Platinum, will they give me that status?” There’s plenty of evidence on the message boards that the answer to that question is yes. Now I have some real evidence as my friend wrote me this morning just to say “Gold Preferred.” He hit the qualifying miles late last week, and his new status posted overnight.

I believe this isn’t just a fluke, but is the way they want the program to work. It can make sense to buy the Trial Gold program if you have a lot of international travel coming up just for the Star Gold status alone. But if you are looking at just domestic flights, and know you’ll fly enough to hit the higher status levels, suck it up as a Silver for a bit and earn your advanced status by flying (and save a couple hundred bucks too). Hey, maybe it will make you appreciate that higher status just a little more.