TAM, which merged with Oneworld Alliance member LAN to create LATAM couple of years ago, exited Star Alliance on March 30th and entered Oneworld on March 31, 2014.
Now, number of Star Alliance airlines are offering TAM Red and Black frequent flier card holders instant status match for Star Alliance Gold status.
You can access this offer on Star Alliance’s website here.
The airlines offering status matches:
Air Canada
Air China
Air New Zealand
Copa Airlines
Ethiopian
Scandinavian Airlines
South African Airways
TAP
Turkish Airlines
United Airlines
It is somewhat surprising that Avianca is not offering instant matches to their Gold status that would likely benefit former TAM members the most.
Thanks for a LoyaltyLobby reader in Brazil forwarding the offer that he had received.
Conclusion
It is interesting to see if there will be instant matches for US Airways frequent fliers as well.
If you are TAM elite member eligible for this match, I would look into matching for United/Copa (same program), TAP or Turkish Airlines.
The Copa/United is reasonable match if you are planning to fly either of these two airlines. Copa provides space available upgrades on all of its flights. TAP could be a choice for those that use the airline between Brazil and Europe.
Turkish could be an option for those TAM members that don’t fly that much on either United/Copa or TAP, but would prefer having Star Alliance Gold status.
If you are TAM member and will continue flying the airline regardless of the witch to Oneworld, there is no downside for doing this status match with one of the eligible airlines. You never know when the Star Alliance Gold status could come handy.
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I decided to get the TAP Victoria for a few reasons:
1) I already have a turkish gold card, it was given in a status match a few years ago
2) I´m a red fidelity, but that probably would get me to GOLD on Copa/United, and altought you can get upgrades on domestic flights I do think gold is far off the top tiers, making it almost impossible to get any upgrade
3) Tap only has one top tier card, the GOLD Victoria that needs 75,000 miles per year to achieve. For me is the best option, as there are a lot of flights with tap.
TAP isnt great, but the chances of scoring an upgrade, combined with the option to transfer points of some creditcards in Brazil is a good value.
I´ve also considered SAS, that on the Gold card give you a complimentary Silver card to hand it over, but as I´m not planing any more trips to Scandinavia anytime soon, having the card in Brazil would be a waste of time
So based on your experience TAP is good at doing op ups for their own elites?
I’m not sure to have understood well the offer. Now, I’m a member of Star Alliance (LOT-Lufthansa and Turkish Arlines) – the lowest level. If I become a member of TAM, can I match its status to any of my Star Alliance cards on the Gold Status? Is that wright?
Rafal, no, it doesn’t work in such way 🙂
You should be an elite status holder with TAM in order to be eligible for the status match to Miles&Smiles Elite. Additionally, there is currently no offer from M&M.
Don’t forget that Copa/United status doesn’t allow lounge access when traveling in US on United. But other alliance members do provide lounge access.
[…] frequent fliers that have coordinated status match program through Star Alliance (read more here), seems that the alliance doesn’t have similar program for US Airways […]
[…] On the off chance any readers of this blog have elite status with TAM, several Star Alliance carriers are offering status matches to their own Star Gold-equivalent tier to those with a TAM Red or Black card (again, HT to LoyaltyLobby). […]