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Crazy …. match your BA status to SAS (SkyTeam) which you can match to Lufthansa (Star)!

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This is potentially the most intriguing deal I’ve seen all year. If you have British Airways elite status, you can match it to BOTH SkyTeam and Star Alliance status.

Even better, a British Airways Silver member will get top tier status in SkyTeam and Star Alliance, not mid tier!

In September, you would have status with all three airline alliances:

  • oneworld via your existing BA status
  • SkyTeam via SAS, as it moves from Star Alliance to SkyTeam on 1st September (SkyTeam status is valid with Virgin Atlantic)
  • Star Alliance via Lufthansa, which is currently matching SAS members

It also works with British Airways Bronze status, although the mid-tier benefits you get via Star Alliance and SkyTeam are not great. That said, your Miles & More Frequent Traveller status will get you lounge access when flying Lufthansa, Austrian and SWISS.

SkyTeam status match

Match your British Airways status to SAS EuroBonus

SAS is the Stockholm-based airline which is currently a member of Star Alliance and which is in the process of being acquired by Air France KLM.

On 1st September the airline will resign from Star Alliance and immediately join SkyTeam alongside Air France KLM and Virgin Atlantic.

You can match your British Airways Bronze, Silver or Gold status to SAS EuroBonus by filling in the form here.

It is very easy. You don’t even need to send screenshots of your current status although SAS reserves the right to ask for verification. You must open an SAS EuroBonus account before filling in the form.

The following matches are available:

  • oneworld Ruby to EuroBonus Silver
  • oneworld Sapphire or Emerald to EuroBonus Gold

BA Bronze is oneworld Ruby, BA Silver is oneworld Sapphire and BA Gold in oneworld Emerald.

Interestingly it will also match some other Star Alliance airlines:

  • Star Alliance Silver to EuroBonus Silver
  • Star Alliance Gold to EuroBonus Gold

How long does my SAS status last?

You will receive status until 31st March 2025. From 1st September 2024, this will be SkyTeam elite status after SAS switches alliances.

You can keep your status for another year by doing the following:

  • Silver – take two cash SAS flights by 31st March 2025
  • Gold – take five cash SAS flights by 31st March 2025
Star Alliance status match

How do I match my SAS status to Lufthansa (Star Alliance) status?

Lufthansa is keen to keep SAS elite members in the Star Alliance fold after 1st September and will match your SAS EuroBonus status.

The website you need is here.

SAS Silver members (which you get by having Bronze status in British Airways Executive Club) will get Frequent Traveller status in Miles & More. This only offers lounge access with Lufthansa, SWISS and Austrian – but of course your British Airways Bronze card doesn’t get you any lounge access at all.

SAS EuroBonus Gold and above will be offered Senator status. This gets you Star Alliance-wide lounge access. Remember that you get SAS Gold by having British Airways Silver or Gold status.

Whichever level of Miles & More status you get, it will stop your existing Miles & More mileage balance from expiring as the 3 year ‘use them or lose them’ rule is suspended for elite members.

Assuming you go for Senator, you will receive status until 28th February 2025.

You can extend Senator to 28th February 2026 very easily via a status challenge. Credit six cash flights to your Miles & More account by 30th November 2024 and your Senator card will be extended by a year. There is an even easier two flight challenge to extend Frequent Traveller status.

Participating airlines for the status challenge are Air Dolomiti, Austrian Airlines, Brussels Airlines, Croatia Airlines, Discover Airlines, Eurowings, LOT Polish Airlines, Lufthansa, Lufthansa City, Luxair and SWISS.

The status match runs to 30th September. There is no benefit to delaying your application as your new Miles & More status will run to 28th February 2025 regardless. The quicker you apply, the more time you have to fit in the six cash flights to extend your new status.

Conclusion

This is an amazing opportunity to use your British Airways Executive Club status to get status in all three main airline alliances.

Even better, a Silver member in British Airways Executive Club will end up with top-tier status in SkyTeam and Star Alliance.

Who knows …. there may be an opportunity at some point to match that top-tier status in SkyTeam or Star Alliance to top-tier (BA Gold equivalent) status with a oneworld airline!


How to earn Avios from UK credit cards

How to earn Avios from UK credit cards (April 2025)

As a reminder, there are various ways of earning Avios points from UK credit cards.  Many cards also have generous sign-up bonuses!

In February 2022, Barclaycard launched two exciting new Barclaycard Avios Mastercard cards with a bonus of up to 25,000 Avios. You can apply here.

You qualify for the bonus on these cards even if you have a British Airways American Express card:

Barclaycard Avios Plus card

Barclaycard Avios Plus Mastercard

Get 25,000 Avios for signing up and an upgrade voucher at £10,000 Read our full review

Barclaycard Avios card

Barclaycard Avios Mastercard

Get 5,000 Avios for signing up and an upgrade voucher at £20,000 Read our full review

There are two official British Airways American Express cards with attractive sign-up bonuses:

British Airways American Express Premium Plus

30,000 Avios and the famous annual 2-4-1 voucher Read our full review

British Airways American Express

5,000 Avios for signing up and an Economy 2-4-1 voucher for spending £15,000 Read our full review

You can also get generous sign-up bonuses by applying for American Express cards which earn Membership Rewards points. These points convert at 1:1 into Avios.

American Express Preferred Rewards Gold

Your best beginner’s card – 30,000 points, FREE for a year & four airport lounge passes Read our full review

The Platinum Card from American Express

80,000 bonus points and great travel benefits – for a large fee Read our full review

Run your own business?

We recommend Capital on Tap for limited companies. You earn 1 Avios per £1 which is impressive for a Visa card, and the standard card is FREE. Capital on Tap cards also have no FX fees.

Capital on Tap Visa

NO annual fee, NO FX fees and points worth 1 Avios per £1 Read our full review

Capital on Tap Pro Visa

10,500 points (=10,500 Avios) plus good benefits Read our full review

There is also a British Airways American Express card for small businesses:

British Airways American Express Accelerating Business

30,000 Avios sign-up bonus – plus annual bonuses of up to 30,000 Avios Read our full review

There are also generous bonuses on the two American Express Business cards, with the points converting at 1:1 into Avios. These cards are open to sole traders as well as limited companies.

American Express Business Platinum

50,000 points when you sign-up and an annual £200 Amex Travel credit Read our full review

American Express Business Gold

20,000 points sign-up bonus and FREE for a year Read our full review

Click here to read our detailed summary of all UK credit cards which earn Avios. This includes both personal and small business cards.

Comments (223)

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

  • Lobster says:

    Re. Lufthansa rejections: are these established or new M&M accounts? TIA.

  • Lucy says:

    Mine was a new M&M account. Opened it on Saturday in anticpation

    • Lobster says:

      Thanks Lucy. Ours are much older but haven’t had status for a few years — fingers crossed!

  • hugo r says:

    My sas account has been upgraded and is showing as gold. Did the status match on the day of article.

    I’ve held LH MM for years , tried the match today , it came back straight away as in sec on the webpage to say that the sas account has had no activity and was earned via a status match … seems there system is very clever , obviously declined

    • Lobster says:

      Looks as though the party’s over. (I wonder if SAS is using statusmatch.com behind the scenes to process the BAEC to EB requests.)

  • Alan says:

    I applied for the status match on the 6th July and got upgraded to SAS Gold today. I opened my SAS account on the App and “current status” is to September 2026! Wonder per the HfP article it will revert to 31 March 2025 once SAS becomes Skyteam. Dont know if its relevant but the BA statement I sent in has quite a lot of recent TP activity.

    • Graham D says:

      I have something similar. Upgraded to SAS Gold today yet my now Gold status is apparently valid to end of July 2026!

      I have flown 4 x SAS segments (not 5) in my current membership year but these were before the status match offer…

  • HampshireHog says:

    So nowt even on trying to match BA silver, no email nada

  • Andy says:

    Was rejected by Skyteam due to ‘Declined as the status was not earned from flying’. Wonder if that was anyone else’s experience if if flying once might change the outcome please.

    • Lobster says:

      Rejected becase your BA status was a soft landng, or what do you mean?

      My half-plan at the moment is to ‘upgrade’ the SAS status, i.e. extend it by flying five times, before submitting to LH.

      • Andy says:

        Thanks – I received gold on SAS EB via the status match to BA and I guess there is a criteria to earn the status by flying on SAS before Lufthansa are willing to match. Maybe I misunderstood the article or they have tightened the rules.

        • Rob says:

          No criteria at all but faced with 3000+ HfP applications in one go plus probably the same again via other sources they are taking emergency measures.

          Why not do an SAS flight before end of August and reapply?

          • Andy says:

            I fibbed that I had a ‘number of SAS flights coming up’ and asked if this would make a difference. Was hoping they would be clear about it either way but they just said ‘sure try again then’.

  • Scruffy hound says:

    Got the SAS Gold yesterday, tried M&M match today and it was rejected: States “the account did not earn status from flying” & “the account was recently received status match elsewhere”

    • Rob says:

      Looks like SAS is using the statusmatch.com back-end platform then, which means they know that you were comped to SAS when you apply for LH. There is no other way they could know this, except for potentially guessing from the account number.

      • BadOmens says:

        Just got approved for EBG. So is there a route left to match this to M&M?

      • Sam music says:

        How would the statusmatch.com know when I was upgraded by SAS?

        • Rob says:

          They could be doing the processing behind the scenes for SAS.

          What is becoming clear now is that statusmatch.com is improving its offering to airlines by sharing information on who has matched before. It gets more attractive to future airlines to work with them because statusmatch.com knows when your existing status was not genuinely earned (because they did the original match for you!).

  • t0m says:

    EuroBonus confirmed my upgrade.. hoorah! Thanks for the tip off.

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

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