Turkish Airlines still offering a Star Alliance status match to BA Golds

Turkish Airlines was very aggressive early last year in offering status matches to elite members of other airlines.  I even took advantage of this myself, matching my British Airways Gold card.

Turkish Airlines is a member of Star Alliance.  This means that, if you get a status match with them, you will receive a Gold card valid on ALL 19 Star Alliance airlines – Lufthansa, Air Canada, United, Swiss, Thai, Egyptair, Adria, SAS, LOT etc etc.  Even better, Turkish Airlines gives you Gold status for two years rather than the usual one year.

You don’t even need to match a British Airways Gold card.  They were also matching any elite card from a Skyteam member.  Even odder, they were matching a Gold card from another Star Alliance airline!  Getting a status match to Thai was a lot easier than trying to renew your existing Star Alliance Gold from another airline.

To be honest, I thought that Thai had stopped doing matches.  However, this email received by a Head for Points reader two weeks ago (who, ironically, was denied a match to his BA Silver card) shows that they are still doing it.

Dear XXXXXX

We have received your e-mail message dated 10.12.2013

Please be informed that only Star Alliance Gold , Skyteam Elite Plus and Oneworld Emerald members have an opportunity for Status Match.

Therefore we are sorry that  we are unable to meet your demand positively.

Kind Regards,

TURKISH AIRLINES INC.
CUSTOMER RELATIONS MANAGEMENT

Full details of how to go about getting your existing Gold card matched to Turkish Gold can be found in this Loyalty Lobby post.

Note that you cannot match your Cathay Pacific Gold card.  This is because Cathay Gold is NOT treated as OneWorld Emerald – you need a Cathay Platinum card for this.  This is why Cathay Gold gets you the same benefits as BA Silver and not BA Gold.

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