in 2012 i earned silver, so i was a silver most of 2013, until i qualified for gold around this time last year. so i will be gold until February 2015. I'm not really sure why it's February, since that will have been about a year and a half as a gold medallion.
this year i flew less than i did in 2013, and only qualified for silver for 2015. after February i will be silver.
i can tell you gold is like 1,000,000x better than silver. a lot more perks.