Down comforter/Alternative down question

[tea4one]

I went to a meijer store recently and seen that they had both down and down altenative comforters on sale for 50% off. My question is will the down alternative lose any of the fill? I already know the down comforter will lose some of the feathers. How can I prevent this? Do I need a duvet cover that is 1000 thread count or am I going to have to just live with the comforter losing some of the fill power?

[Robyn1007]

I don't know about down alternatives but in order to avoid loosing as much fill power from a down comforter you need the actual comforter to have a higher thread count rather than a comforter cover (there has been debate here about which is what, some call the cover a duvet others call the actual comforter the duvet). The cover having a high thread count is nice but the feathers still come out of the comforter and then just stay in the cover until washing. I finally bought a nice down comforter on a huge reduction at Foley's a couple of years ago and it looses far fewer feathers that my old one.

[Gumbeaux]

The cover having a high thread count is nice but the feathers still come out......

This is an important point.

Almost all the feathers that come out will come out of the seams and needle holes.

[tea4one]

Thank you for the replies so far, hopefully more will chime in and help with the down alternative portion of this thread. How high do I want to have the cover be in order to lose as little of the fill power as possible?