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StatusMatcher – what tier matches can you get from your existing airline and hotel status cards?

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statusmatcher.com is a site which I think HfP readers should know about, as it does offer a useful service to regular travellers.  I have no idea who runs it or where it is based, but it has been around since 2007 and has a lot of contributors.

A ‘status match’ is when you approach an airline or hotel company with proof of your high status with a competing airline or hotel group. You then ask to be immediately upgraded to the equivalent level with that company. This is not unreasonable, since it encourages customers to switch brands. People would otherwise be unwilling to give up their status benefits with the other group by starting from scratch with the new company.

Statusmatcher review

Some groups love giving status matches, others don’t. British Airways will almost never status match, unless your company signs a major deal with them or you have a relationship with an overseas office.  Virgin Atlantic, on the other hand, ran a status match for British Airways customers in 2021.

(Virgin Atlantic now openly matches the airline status of anyone with a Premium or Upper Class flight booked – see here.)

I have written about specific matches on Head for Points in the past.  Hilton and IHG have been very aggressive over the last year – you will normally be given status for 90 days or so with the chance to retain that status by doing a handful of stays. Keep an eye on HfP to be notified about these offers as they come and go.

Many other airlines and hotel groups offer UNOFFICIAL status matches.  You won’t find the details on their website, but they will do it if you ask. Marriott has run a Platinum Elite challenge in the past for example – it is how I first got my Bonvoy (well, Marriott Rewards as was) top tier status – although I am not sure if it is running at present.

The point of the StatusMatcher website is to provide a central point where people can report successful or failed status matches. It gives other readers a feel for who is worth approaching.

As statusmatcher.com has become more established, the data has become more reliable and more up to date.  You tend to need a decent level of feedback on any particular programme before you can ascertain a trend.

There is never a guarantee that a particular airline or hotel chain will match you even if it matched someone else.  On the other hand, if you have a number of flights booked with an airline then you might be successful where someone else failed.  Despite this, StatusMatcher does give you useful guidance and is worth adding to your arsenal of frequent flyer tools.

Comments (22)

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

  • polly says:

    We used SM continually after Platinum dropped CX gold. Big blow of us plat holders. Think we SM to QR gold then, staying OW Saphire . Then SM to good old air Berlin. By then we got to silver in BA on TPs anyway and managed to maintain that.
    As @Lady London says, the fail or success feedback is invaluable. Helps us decide who to try for.
    Not used it for hotels tho.

  • Ant says:

    Having previously been BA Gold for 15+ years, the data loss shenanigans was the final straw for me (although I was handsomely compensated). Air New Zealand matched BA Gold. And so I put my business into Star instead of OneWorld. The LOT Gold lounge in Warsaw is one of the better lounges in Europe in my view. Good food and Piper Heidsieck is their current Brut of choice, if the lounge is a little small. So Star and re-qualification with Air NZ for the two years prior to Covid. AirNZ have extended this since then. With less travel, I used the AirNZ status to do the Italian Skyteam and Qatar matches. The latter useful for me to realise just how utterly dreadful BA now is in comparison to its European peers. The Skyteam match (extended to the end of 2023) means I will be putting my business into Skyteam this year. With the BA lounge at Newcastle gone, and flights cut, for the next year at least the AMS/CDG schedule means Skyteam will get my business and I’ll re-qualify by April with flights already booked. Point is: these matches do work if anyone from BA is reading. Admittedly my, what, circa £10k on flights per year is not a a huge amount, but that’s £10k per year BA lost, first to Star, and now to KLM/AF and co.

  • Patrick says:

    Anyone remembers the AF status match debacle a few years ago?Got myself a nifty few years as a Gold member

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

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