Nowadays we are not as loyal to the various affinity programs from airlines and hotels as we once were because these have gotten less valuable and the recognition is not what it used to be. That’s a whole other story but, if you are like us, you may find yourself traveling with an airline you don’t travel with a lot simply because the flight was better priced or had a more convenient schedule.
This was the case for us when we opted to fly United Airlines to South Africa out of Newark instead of taking the usual routes through Istanbul, Qatar, London, or Frankfurt. And this option actually got us there one day early with an arrival the next day instead of two days later.
We didn’t have status with United Airlines but liked the flight and thought we might fly them again. I looked for status matches and was happy to find that they did a status match challenge with American Airlines which would allow us to get reciprocal status (and keep it if we flew enough segments in the next 4 months). Not bad, and since we were approved almost instantly that meant that it gave us status with United for the rest of our itinerary.
Better yet, as we searched around for status matches, I found that my husband’s Marriott elite status actually gave him an automatic silver status on not just United but several airlines. And we didn’t even know it!
So, look over those elite program perks and offerings carefully and sign-up for the status matches and reciprocal partner status perks. Many of the credit cards have offers and it seems that hotels and airlines (and even Uber) are all trying to work together to attract new customers with these enticing offers.
So just like that I am now a Premium Platinum member on United, and my husband is a Premier 1K. Not only did this give us access to pre-boarding, we even collected a lot more miles and points thanks to this status. Not bad, for clicking a few links while waiting at the airport!