Turkish Airlines still offering a Star Alliance status match to BA Golds

Links on Head for Points may pay us an affiliate commission. A list of partners is here.

Turkish Airlines was very aggressive early last year in offering status matches to elite members of other airlines. I even took advantage of this myself, matching my British Airways Gold card.

Turkish Airlines is a member of Star Alliance. This means that, if you get a status match with them, you will receive a Gold card valid on ALL 19 Star Alliance airlines – Lufthansa, Air Canada, United, Swiss, Thai, Egyptair, Adria, SAS, LOT etc etc. Even better, Turkish Airlines gives you Gold status for two years rather than the usual one year.

You don’t even need to match a British Airways Gold card. They were also matching any elite card from a Skyteam member. Even odder, they were matching a Gold card from another Star Alliance airline! Getting a status match to Thai was a lot easier than trying to renew your existing Star Alliance Gold from another airline.

To be honest, I thought that Thai had stopped doing matches. However, this email received by a Head for Points reader two weeks ago (who, ironically, was denied a match to his BA Silver card) shows that they are still doing it.

Dear XXXXXX

We have received your e-mail message dated 10.12.2013

Please be informed that only Star Alliance Gold , Skyteam Elite Plus and Oneworld Emerald members have an opportunity for Status Match.

Therefore we are sorry that we are unable to meet your demand positively.

Kind Regards,

TURKISH AIRLINES INC.
CUSTOMER RELATIONS MANAGEMENT

Full details of how to go about getting your existing Gold card matched to Turkish Gold can be found in this Loyalty Lobby post.

Note that you cannot match your Cathay Pacific Gold card. This is because Cathay Gold is NOT treated as OneWorld Emerald – you need a Cathay Platinum card for this. This is why Cathay Gold gets you the same benefits as BA Silver and not BA Gold.

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:

British Airways Accelerating Business American Express

30,000 Avios sign-up bonus – plus annual bonuses of up to 30,000 Avios 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.

(Want to earn more Avios? Click here to visit our home page for our latest articles on earning and spending your Avios points and click here to see how to earn more Avios this month from offers and promotions.)

Category

British Airways and Avios, SkyTeam alliance partners

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

Brian says:

5 Jan5 January 08:03

Presumably, when you refer to ‘Thai’ twice in the article, you actually mean ‘Turkish’??
Worzel says:

5 Jan5 January 08:15

Brian(08:03), I think you’ll find that both Thai Airways and Turkish Airlines are members of the Star Alliance Group.
- nux says:
  
  5 Jan5 January 08:36
  
  If you read the post, the two mentions of ‘Thai’ are in relation to them doing a status matching
  
  Also no such thing as Cathay Platinum, Cathay’s Emerald tier is Diamond.
- Brian says:
  
  6 Jan6 January 13:45
  
  I realise that – but the article is about Turkish doing status matches, not Thai….
Ralph says:

5 Jan5 January 08:16

OT – Raffles, I didn’t post on your request for feedback on HFP format but I do feel this fantastic site would benefit from a user forum. Nothing on the scale of others we know of but one that has topics that are specific to HFP premise. This forum can have volunteer moderators, it doesn’t all have to be moderated by yourself as this would likely end up being too much work, I would be happy to be one of those moderators, having ran a gaming forum in the past and there may be one or two others with relevant experience that could also help.
AndrewM says:

5 Jan5 January 09:31

I tried to get matched from OW Emerald (BA Gold) to Turkish a few months ago and they didn’t match me. To be honest it wasn’t a big deal as it my first (and maybe last) *A flight in years.
Mick says:

5 Jan5 January 10:11

Raffles, how did you get BA Status? I thought I read on here that you only really fly on redemption flights?

I did not know you could use Avios to get status
- Richie says:
  
  5 Jan5 January 10:49
  
  On redemption flights you do not earn status or avios. To get status you need cash tickets. . (2 return long haul business flights will get you nearly enough for silver.) once you get to that level everything changes, as you earn double avios, you have seat selection, 32kg in each bag. An extra bag. And lounge access. . Believe me it’s hardest the first time. Because if you are using your avios for upgrades later the chances are you will be earning WTp tier points minimum . And they do sometimes post at the level you have upgraded to. However they technically shouldngonthrough at the level you originally paid for.
- Rob says:
  
  5 Jan5 January 16:24
  
  I do. Long story, best not explained here! It was NOT a freebie from BA though!
  - Calchas says:
    
    5 Jan5 January 16:37
    
    A freebie from someone else then? 😉
    - Don says:
      
      5 Jan5 January 19:10
      
      Yeah previously Raffles said he was BA Silver?
      - Rob says:
        
        5 Jan5 January 23:04
        
        I was, and now I’m Gold again!
Roger says:

5 Jan5 January 10:45

I wonder what is the definition of Skyteam Elite Plus. I’m assuming it doesn’t include my lowly Flying Blue invited Gold with currently zero flights.

OTOH, it could be worth a try.
- Calchas says:
  
  5 Jan5 January 16:39
  
  Yes it does. Elite Plus basically means the SkyTeam lounge access tier. FB Silver, which is SkyTeam Elite (that is, “Elite non-plus”) only gets you extra baggage and priority at all queues.
  - Roger says:
    
    5 Jan5 January 21:16
    
    Gosh, thanks. 🙂
Tim says:

5 Jan5 January 12:23

Can we potentially match A3*G with Turkish? Just as a backup…
- John says:
  
  6 Jan6 January 06:25
  
  Yes, but you then need to maintain your TK gold.
OttoMH says:

5 Jan5 January 12:23

I would have thought that A3 would be a better route for BA Golds? You’re likely to be flying in long haul J so a trip or 2 on star alliance will get you 2 years star gold. I did it with 2 long haul Y on AC and a few intraEU hops.
- Calchas says:
  
  5 Jan5 January 16:40
  
  A3 Gold gives you lifetime Star Gold, unless that has changed.
  - Matt says:
    
    6 Jan6 January 02:21
    
    My A3 Gold isn’t lifetime, but it is valid for 3 years, and for only 20k flown miles. Incredible deal. I’m not aware of an A3 lifetime programme but I may have missed something…
    - John says:
      
      6 Jan6 January 06:24
      
      It isn’t lifetime, but the renewal requirement is 1 flight every 3 years.