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Turkish Airlines (apparently) still matching ANY airline Gold card to Star Alliance Gold

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I am currently the holder of a Star Alliance Gold card until July 2014.  This gives me top tier privileges when flying Lufthansa, Thai, SAS, Singapore Airlines, Turkish, Egyptair, US Airways, United, Austrian, Adria, Luxair etc etc.

I did not get this the hard way, by undertaking a gruelling flight schedule on Star Alliance carriers.  I did it by getting Turkish Airlines to match my British Airways Gold card as I wrote about last July.

Most people, including me, had assumed that this matching bonanza was over.  However, Turkish Airlines is STILL actively matching Gold cards issued by any other airline.  Even, amazingly, other Star Alliance airlines.

So, if you have an airline Gold card – say, your Cathay Pacific Marco Polo Gold from American Express Platinum or the Gold card from the recent Flying Blue match – then I would give it a go.  Even if you do not fly Star Alliance airlines at the moment, a lot can change over the two year period that you will be Turkish Airlines Gold.

Details of how to apply can be found at Loyalty Lobby.  It appears that it may take two months for them to get around to doing your match, but that certainly doesn’t mean you shouldn’t go for it!


Getting airport lounge access for free from a credit card

How to get FREE airport lounge access via UK credit cards (December 2021)

As a reminder, here are the three options to get FREE airport lounge access via a credit or charge card:

American Express Platinum card Amex

The Platinum Card from American Express

30,000 points and an unbeatable set of travel benefits – for a fee Read our full review

The Platinum Card from American Express comes with two free Priority Pass cards, one for you and one for a supplementary cardholder. Each card admits two so a family of four gets in free. You get access to all 1,300 lounges in the Priority Pass network – search it here

You also get access to Plaza Premium, Delta and Eurostar lounges.  Our American Express Platinum review is here. You can apply here.

Nectar American Express

American Express Preferred Rewards Gold

Your best beginner’s card – 20,000 points, FREE for a year & two airport lounge passes Read our full review

American Express Preferred Rewards Gold is FREE for the first year. It comes with a Priority Pass card loaded with two free visits to any Priority Pass lounge – see the list here

Additional lounge visits are charged at £20.  You get two more free visits for every year you keep the card.  

There is no annual fee for Amex Gold in Year 1 and you get a 20,000 points sign-up bonus.  Full details are in our American Express Preferred Rewards Gold review here.

HSBC Premier World Elite Mastercard

A huge bonus, but only available to HSBC Premier clients Read our full review

HSBC Premier World Elite Mastercard gets you get a free LoungeKey card, allowing you access to the LoungeKey network.  Guests are charged at £20 although it may be cheaper to pay £60 for a supplementary credit card for your partner.

The card has a fee of £195 and there are strict financial requirements to become a HSBC Premier customer.  Full details are in my HSBC Premier World Elite Mastercard review.

PS. You can find all of HfP’s UK airport lounge reviews – and we’ve been to most of them – indexed here.

Comments (12)

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  • Owain says:

    Raffles, I note from the instructions you have to send a copy of statement from your current frequent flier program. Having the MPC Gold through Amex Plat means even though I have the status I still credit all my oneworld flights to my BAEC account, in this instance how would this play out when attempting the status match?

    • Rob says:

      I would try sending a different page off the website, one that shows you are Gold but does not actually show your activity!

    • DG says:

      Thanks for heads up Raffles! The TK website allows up to 5 images to be attached to the form – I took photos of the front and back of my CX gold card and a snipped image of my online account statement (just showing date, name, number and status).

  • mrtibbs1999 says:

    If you have a non oneworld status and would like a 5 month match, could I suggest Air Berlin, who within 20 minutes of my application made me TB Gold from my KLM card, service@topbonus.de

    I also applied for TK as if successful it will make me second highest tier in all 3 alliances. Thanks for the Link!

    • Rob says:

      Very interesting! I will do a quick post on this for next week.

      • mrtibbs1999 says:

        Please do, it’s a great offer and of course you can create e new TB account in 5 months at a different address and get matched to your new TK card lol

        • Pierre says:

          hmmm…If it is a match from *G to OW, wouldn’t it be *G->OW emerald, in which case it is a match from, let’s say, A3 gold to AB platinum?

          • Rob says:

            It is always pot luck with status matches. Some airlines bother to look up exactly what tier a card belonged to, some simply match to the same coloured card. This sometimes works in your favour and sometimes doesn’t.

  • Ninmurai says:

    I sent my AA Platinum card in around August last year and it was rejected. I don’t suspect other OneWorld Sapphire statuses to go through.

  • Raffles says:

    I doubt they are that sophisticated. BA Silver will get you Star Silver equivalent, which is useless if issued by Turkish, unless you end up flying them. I get a feeling that Cathay Gold would get Star Gold.

    • Thomas says:

      I have just applied using the Cathay Gold and will update as and when I hear back from Turkish. Reading on LoyaltyLobby there is some indication they may have tightened the “offer” a bit as a number of people have been turned down, but time will tell, sounds like a two month wait until we know.

  • Ben says:

    I applied in October for the TK status match for CX gold, but was declined as they only match OW emerald.

This article is closed to new posts. Discussion continues in the HfP Forums.