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Match your British Airways Gold or Silver card to Star Alliance Gold via TAP

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TAP has been running this very generous offer now for around 18 months.  I thought it was worth covering again, especially as the prospects for travel in 2022 are getting brighter.

It is an EXCEPTIONAL opportunity for a mid-tier British Airways Silver to get Star Alliance Gold.

Here’s the deal.  You can use your British Airways Executive Club Gold or Silver card to get Star Alliance Gold status via a TAP Air Portugal status match.

This would give you top tier privileges when travelling when any Star Alliance carrier, including Lufthansa, SWISS, United, Air Canada, Aegean, Turkish etc, for at least 12 months.  This makes it an especially good offer for a British Airways Silver member who would suddenly become top tier across Star Alliance.

The match is not entirely free but it won’t be hard to recoup the modest cost of €99.

I have done this match myself and I can confirm that it works fine.  That said, I timed it badly.  I applied back in Autumn 2020 and, due to covid, my match had been unused when it expired in Autumn 2021.  Appeals to TAP for an extension fell of deaf ears, although I know some people got lucky.

How do I get a TAP Air Portugal status match?

Full details are on the TAP Portugal website here.

You must be a new member of Miles&Go (you can do the match at the same time as applying) OR have joined since 2020.  If you have an older Miles&Go account you may want to quietly abandon it and start again.

The match is open to anyone who has status with AAdvantage, Aeroflot Bonus, Aerolineas Plus, Air Europa SUMA, Cedar Miles, Club Premier, Etihad Guest, Executive Club, Finnair Plus, Flying Blue, Iberia Plus, LATAM Pass, MilleMiglia, OK Plus, Privilege Club, Royal Club, Safar Flyer, SkyMiles, Skywards, Smiles or TudoAzul.

You CANNOT apply if you have previously had a TAP status match or, in the last six months, if you have previously applied and been rejected.

The exact match you get can be seen by looking under clause 2.3 in the small print at the bottom under ‘Application Process’.  For British Airways:

Executive Club Gold = TAP Miles&Go Gold = Star Alliance Gold

Executive Club Silver = TAP Miles&Go Gold = Star Alliance Gold

Executive Club Bronze = TAP Miles&Go Silver = Star Alliance Silver

I should say upfront that Star Alliance Silver doesn’t have many benefits – you don’t get alliance-wide lounge access for example – so if you are British Airways Bronze this is probably not worth the effort and the €99 cost.

The process is clearly explained on the website.  You send TAP a copy of your British Airways Executive Club membership card and the other information they require.  If you are not already a member of TAP Miles&Go you can join and apply for a match at the same time.

This may have been fixed, but when I signed up, you had to remove the first ‘0’ in your phone number or the form would not be accepted (and it wouldn’t tell you why it won’t be accepted).

TAP Miles&Go

What happens next?

TAP will notify you within 30 days that your match has been PROVISIONALLY made.

You then need to do one of two things within the following 10 days:

Purchase at least 4,000 Miles&Go miles or

Join Club TAP Miles&Go at one of the four membership levels (the cheapest is €99 for a year – you receive 14,000 Miles&Go miles for this, although they are dropped into your account over the 12 months)

Club TAP Miles&Go is the cheapest option at €99.

How long does my status match last for?

The website says that it will be valid for a minimum of 12 months.  Mine was approved in August 2020 and ran until the end of September 2021, when I had a hard landing to the base level.

You can renew your status at a 50% discount to the standard requirements:

  • Renew Gold with 25,000 Status Miles and flying 4 times with TAP Air Portugal
  • Renew Silver with 10,000 Status Miles and flying twice with TAP Air Portugal

The four segments could be obtained relatively easily with a return trip to a small city in Portugal, changing in Lisbon or Porto.  TAP flies from Manchester as well as Heathrow and Gatwick so this is also an option for those outside London.

What are the benefits of Star Alliance Gold?

I am not focusing on the specific benefits you get with TAP because I am assuming that most HfP readers would do most of their Star Alliance flying with other carriers such as Lufthansa.  You can see all the benefits of TAP Miles&Go Gold here.

(One benefit of TAP Miles&Go Gold – gifting Gold membership to a friend – is NOT available to status matched members.)

You can see the benefits of Star Alliance Gold on the Star Alliance website here.

You get:

  • Lounge access (Gold members often have access to higher quality lounges than other members, for example the Senator room in the Lufthansa Lounge in Heathrow Terminal 2)
  • Fast track security and boarding
  • Priority check-in
  • Priority baggage handling (which often works, unlike on BA!)
  • Extra baggage allowance
  • Free First Class upgrades on all your Heathrow Express trips

Conclusion

This could work out very nicely.  It is an exceptionally good deal for British Airways Executive Club Silver members who will find themselves with top tier status in Star Alliance.

The match isn’t free, but the cost of €99 to buy cheapest Club Miles&Go package is attractive.

The only issue is whether you will get full benefit from your membership.  Will you be doing a lot of Star Alliance travel over the next 12 months?  You are spending some money to set this up and it is a ‘once per lifetime’ match.  I got it very wrong when I applied back in August 2020.

It is worth thinking about.  It is especially interesting if your British Airways status has been extended to 2023 – you will not need to earn any additional BA tier points for a while and could experiment with Star Alliance at no risk to your future Executive Club tier.

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How to earn Star Alliance miles from UK credit cards

How to earn Star Alliance miles from UK credit cards (March 2025)

None of the Star Alliance airlines currently have a UK credit card.

There is, however, still a way to earn Star Alliance miles from a UK credit card. 

The route is via Marriott Bonvoy. Marriott Bonvoy hotel loyalty points convert to over 40 airlines at the rate of 3:1.

The best way to earn Marriott Bonvoy points is via the official Marriott Bonvoy American Express card. It comes with 20,000 points for signing up and 2 points for every £1 you spend. At 2 Bonvoy points per £1, you are earning (at 3:1) 0.66 airline miles per £1 spent on the card.

There is a preferential conversion rate to United Airlines – which is a Star Alliance member – of 2 : 1 if you convert 60,000 Bonvoy points at once.

The Star Alliance members which are Marriott Bonvoy transfer partners are: Aegean, Air Canada, Air China, Air New Zealand, ANA, Asiana Airlines, Avianca, Copa Airlines, Singapore Airlines, TAP Air Portugal, Thai Airways, Turkish Airlines and United Airlines.

You can apply here.

Marriott Bonvoy American Express

20,000 points for signing up and 15 elite night credits each year Read our full review

Category

British Airways and Avios

Comments (39)

This article is closed to new comments. Feel free to ask your question in the HfP forums.

  • gtellez says:
    3 Jan3 January 10:14

    What can you do with 14000 miles? Can you get at least some intra-europe flights? Or short-haul flights with other *A airlines?

    • meta says:
      3 Jan3 January 10:59

      Nothing. The only thing you can do is reduce the cost of economy flights. You can’t use miles+ cash option on business class flights.

      • meta says:
        3 Jan3 January 11:00

        Actually you might be able to get a domestic flight in Portugal such as Porto-Lisbon which I believe start at 8k miles one-way.

  • Save East Coast Rewards says:
    3 Jan3 January 10:41

    I don’t know why you say it’s great being able to match mid-tier BA to top-tier *A. BA silver is equivalent to top tier *A. It’s just neither SkyTeam or Star Alliance have an alliance wide equivalent of oneworld emerald (BA Gold)

  • Nick says:
    3 Jan3 January 11:25

    Yawn. Priority baggage nearly always ‘works’ on BA, it just doesn’t do what a lot of people want it to. Bags are loaded into bins based on the barcode, not any coloured label that might be attached. Premium and non-premium bins for the same flight are usually loaded in totally different laterals in the baggage hall (at least at heathrow), so there is no chance it will be thrown into the ‘wrong’ one.

    BA has made the decision that there are too many status customers in cheapo seats for priority baggage to be extended reliably to them (i.e. it stops being a benefit if it applies to too many people), so they restrict it to those seated in higher cabins. Once you know this, you’ll realise that 9 times out of 10 (matches by official stats) it does work according to the rules. What you also realise is that *A carriers also have significantly fewer status customers, at least in cheap cabins.

    One final tip, the only exception to the above is people checking bags at the very last minute, which get sent directly to head of stand rather than the laterals. These are all loaded in the bin closest to the door, so will always be first off. But then you don’t get time in the lounge, so swings and roundabouts really.

    • Save East Coast Rewards says:
      3 Jan3 January 12:17

      I can never remember priority baggage being that great with bmi when I was gold. Probably just like any alliance some airlines are better than others.

      • Henry says:
        3 Jan3 January 13:00

        Beware of Star Alliance member SAS Scandinavian! The SK forum on FlyerTalk is full of anecdotes about _janteloven_, which is a Nordic manifestation of either egalitarianism or chip-on-the-shoulder, you’re-no-better-than-me truculence, depending on your perspective. In any case, the result is that on some / many flights, bags with priority tags seem to come out last. 🙁

  • JandeW says:
    3 Jan3 January 12:41

    Rob may have got lucky with this offer, but I did not. I did exactly as instructed, paid my EUR99 and got absolutely nothing. I am still just bog standard TAP Member. Numerous emails and calls have failed to resolve the issue – their customer service makes the KGB look friendly! Tread with caution is my advice….

  • James Harper says:
    3 Jan3 January 16:20

    I think it’s worth saying that with the TAP status match you have to watch out if booking travel on Lufthansa. Many of Lufthansa’s fares map to booking class P, a class that earns nothing with TAP under any circumstances even if you book a full flex ticket. There are work arounds to get fares in Z, D and C obviously for more money but just beware of P – often referred to as Punishment Class by LH regulars.

  • Tina Tina says:
    4 Jan4 January 13:49

    Perhaps Rob can do an analysis of whether it is best to credit Tap status credits to Miles and Go or Miles and More?
    Including how you calculate the SCs and miles on any prospective flight, especially bearing in mind the dreaded P class mentioned elsewhere in these comments?

    • Rob says:
      4 Jan4 January 14:09

      Don’t need to, because there is a website called wheretocredit.com which does it all for you 🙂

  • Vahan says:
    6 Jan6 January 18:18

    It appears that the 25,000 renewal offer is no longer on the website. Does anyone know if it’s still valid?

  • Kirk says:
    7 Jan7 January 23:32

    How long after you applied for TAP to approve the match?

This article is closed to new comments. Feel free to ask your question in the HfP forums.

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