Its April 2025 and I’ve got Silver status with Flying Blue. Both of us have.
But is it enough? We are flying to the USA in a few weeks. If I push for us to get to Flying Blue Gold we will be able to pick seats a few days in advance and we can use lounges.
One of us at FB Gold looked like it would work fine, no need for us both to get there.  This is how XP runs are born. I needed another 158XP to hit FB Gold. Could I get them in under a month?
Well I was certainly going to try.

So going into May My XP situation was like this
I had gained a total of 122XP Midway through my trip to Athens I hot 107XP so Silver was awarded and I then got another 15XP for the 2 remaining flight segments and 5XP for Linking my Accor ALL account to Flying Blue.

I had carried over 22XP and the countdown to MAINTAIN Silver or UPGRADE to Gold had started. This happened in March so my 12 months Silver would be over at the end of March 2026. GOLD Status Upgrade would need 158XP by the end of March 2026. We had flights to USA booked and with a SAF payment this would give around 100XP. I had paid 67XP for SAF. My original DUB-CLT flight had been cancelled and KLM rebooked us into flights from BHX-CLT. I expected either 20XP or 34XP depending on whether I was given XP for the original route or the new one. Usually Airlines award OR (Original Routing) Credit, so probably just 20XP
I would be getting between 101XP or 107XP from this leg so I’d be really close to GOLD – just 51-57XP required before March 2026 (In the end I actually got 101XP)

 

I started off by looking at how I could get closer to GOLD status so that it would kick in during my trip. SAF XP is usually given within a day or so of the first segment of a trip. So I’d have a total of the 22XP I already had plus 67XP – 87XP so I’d still need 93XP. Having GOLD Status on the way back would mean we could use Skyteam lounges and I’d get seat choice a few days early and could choose an Economy Comfort flight on the way back with KLM. Without the XP from SAF that 158XP looked pretty unobtainable.

 

I was left with three choices. 

1. 1. Do nothing just now. Get another 51-57XP before next March to Upgrade to GOLD, this had the advantage of starting the GOLDstatus as late as March next year. This meant I’d have status through 2026 and as far ahead as March 2027.

1. 1. Get enough XP to trigger Gold during the trip. This would be either May or June 2025 and would last for another year. Long enough for our next USA trip at a minimum. I’d need 93XP (or 83 XP if I waited until the return in June) If I was just a few XP short I might be able to trigger it on 1st June by donating miles for XP.

1. 1. I could chase XP before the flights so we would get lounges and seat choice on the flights out and on the way back. I’d trigger GOLD in May but I’d have at least 87XP towards requalification in 2026 meaning I’d need just 93XP to requalify from May 2026-May2027 as GOLD. This option required me to earn 158XP before we took our first flight in Mid-May

It was early April by now and I started looking on flyertalk for XP runs for flying Blue.
Flying Blue is the Frequent Flyer Program for Transavia Aircalin Kenya Airways and TAROM So I could earn XP on their flights but also on Skyteam Flights with Aerolineas Argentinas, Aeromexico, Air Europa, Air France, China Airlines, China Eastern, CSA Czech Airlines, Delta Air Lines, Garuda Indonesia, ITA Airways, Kenya Airways, KLM, Korean Air, MEA, SAS, Saudia, TAROM, Vietnam Airlines, Virgin Atlantic and Xiamen Air. I have since found that prior to April 2024 XP could have been earned on some non-Skyteam Partner Airlines. These only earn XP now if booked as codeshares with AF or KLM.
My target airlines at the time were just AF KLM and SAS although I’ve since found some other opportunities which I will share in a video.

I spent quite a bit of time reading FlyerTalk threads and much more time in Google Flights and ITA Matrix. 

There was an opportunity to fly from Krakow to Tbilisi via Amsterdam and Paris. All the segments were on KLM or Air France aircraft and the fare was in Euro Business class. Not great but better than economy and 15XP for the short segments and for the CDG-TBS segments 24 XP each so in total that would be 15XP+15XP+24XP+24XP+15XP=15XP which was 108XP in total for one return trip. Usually you need to stay more than three days to get the cheapest return fares but by flying over a weekend I would only need a one night hotel stay in Tbilisi – though with hindsight it was a missed opportunity to visit the country properly. 

I saw that flights to KRK from BHX would earn me 20XP plus with a SAF contribution I could add 23 more XP so 46 in total. Unfortunately I couldn’t get one of these to fit with my KRK-TBS flight so I decided to take a separate day-trip to Krakow. I could see what the layout of the airport was like and see how far the nearest affordable hotel was. I booked this for 19th April.

I really enjoyed the flights and the trip but it was exhausting.  I went early to BHX  Airport and stayed in the airport overnight to save on  a hotel stay.

I was going to be a few XP short of GOLD Qualification but still had to position to KRK (and get home) so I booked a one way with including a SAFcontribution – I don’t quite know how but my SAF contribution got awarded twice so I got 34XP for this one way flight in Economy. I’d yet to head off to TBS but My XP running total was

          22XP carried over after Qualification for Silver
          43XP for the KRK day trip
          34XP for the one way positioning to KRK

Thats 99XP in total and I only really need another 81 XP to qualify as GOLD. I’d be getting 108XP from the KRK-TBS XP run in Euro Business class. I had also unnecessarily purchased SAF on this trip. So I would have an additional 52XP from the SAF contribution. (this was the smallest small SAF available on the trip)

The KRK-TBS return with the small SAF contribution would bring in 179XP so for anyone with Silver wanting to upgrade to GOLD the one return trip can do it easily.
Partway through the KRK-AMS-CDG-TBS//TBS-CDG-AMS-KRK adventure I hit 180 XP and the counter reset.

The Final 2 flights added to this and as I was waiting to check in I saw another SAF opportunity so paid for 13 more XP

So going into the USA Trip I had qualified for GOLD with a surplus of 87XP – I need not have bothered with some of those SAF  purchases but they will enable me to have a chance at Platinum Status as long as I can accumulate another 213XP by the end of May 2026. But that’s a story for another day and one that hasn’t yet reached fruition.

As an aside I flew back from KRK to BHX with Ryanair. I was in seat 1A and got zero sleep or comfort as lots of very noisy passengers were queueing and talking in the additional legroom that seat had. Have you had similar experiences with RyanAir? If you have let me know in the comments below.