Get BA lounge access by matching your non-oneworld Gold card to airberlin

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A couple of days, I wrote that the Turkish Airline status match still seems to be active. If you have a Gold card issued by any other airline, Turkish may be willing to give you one of their Gold cards for free – and that means that you would get 2 years of Gold status, including lounge access, across all 20+ Star Alliance airlines.

Mr Tibbs posted something very interesting in the comments.

He had managed to get airberlin‘s frequent flyer scheme, Top Bonus, to give him 5 months of Gold status as a match to his existing Gold card.

Now, airberlin is – like British Airways – a member of the oneworld alliance. This means that you can use an airberlin Gold card to get you most of the benefits of a British Airways Silver card, including:

access to BA lounges when flying on BA or another oneworld airline
use of business class check in desks
free seat selection on BA flights

This is no different to the benefits that those people who get the free Cathay Pacific Marco Polo Gold card from American Express Platinum enjoy when flying BA.

If you want to try to match your Star Alliance or Flying Blue status to airberlin Top Bonus, you should open a Top Bonus account and then email service [at] topbonus.de and ask for a match.

You should include as much documentation as you can, including a colour scan of your current card and (if you have flight activity on the card) a copy of your statement. You may also want to give some reason why you would be flying on airberlin in the future – or perhaps even book a cancellable airberlin ticket! – although this should not be necessary.

Note that there is no point bothering to match an existing Silver card for Top Bonus Silver. Top Bonus Silver is equivalent to British Airways Executive Club Bronze, and that doesn’t get you anything of value, frankly!

How to earn Avios points from UK credit cards

How to earn Avios from UK credit cards (December 2021)

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

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

British Airways BA Amex American Express card

British Airways American Express

5,000 Avios for signing up, no annual fee and an Economy 2-4-1 voucher for spending ….. Read our full review

British Airways BA Premium Plus American Express Amex credit card

British Airways American Express Premium Plus

25,000 Avios and the UK’s most valuable credit card perk – the 2-4-1 companion voucher Read our full review

You can also get generous sign-up bonuses by applying for American Express cards which earn Membership Rewards points, such as:

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

The Platinum Card from American Express

30,000 points and an unbeatable set of travel benefits – for a 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, along with a sign-up bonus worth 10,500 Avios:

Capital On Tap Business Rewards Visa

The most generous Avios Visa or Mastercard for a limited company Read our full review

You should also consider the British Airways Accelerating Business credit card. This is open to sole traders as well as limited companies and has a 30,000 Avios sign-up bonus: