Air New Zealand Air Points - Status matching from One World?

Hello - apologies if this has been done before. I did do a search, but for some reason my browser dies when actually conducting a keyword search today. I also browsed through the "Status Match" thread in Mileage Buzz, but there were way too many pages, and since the search function died on me today I thought I'd just ask.

We are both Silver tier on CX (kiwis living in HK). In light of the new planes, the new HKG to LHR route, the desire to support our national carrier, and the incredible difficulty we sometimes face getting CX flights to anywhere (cram 7 million people into a small region, and it happens), we are considering switching all of our flights to *A carriers - in particular Air NZ where possible.

We have Koru membership, but since we haven't flow long haul Air NZ for a while we currently have no status with Air NZ. At this stage we have two return flights on PE (HKG-AKL-HKG) booked in the next 6 months.

My fairly obvious questions are:

1) Do Air NZ ever do a status match? Is there any chance they will just give us FF Silver if we explain the situation to them? We are not huge fliers, but take at least three long haul (10,000+ miles each) return flights per year. With the LHR destination, we are more likely to take this last one on Air NZ from now on.

2) Re FF Silver, I can only really see two benefits that we don't already get through Koru (although feel free to correct me if wrong). Firstly, one time comp upgrade. Secondly, it will of course be easier for us to hit *G if we are immediately promoted to Silver. Are there any other benefits I've missed?

Thanks in advance,
AT

NZ doesnt normally status match unless a good case can be made. The potential to switch significant amount of flying (especially as it isnt discounted economy) to NZ may help.

I´m having trouble accessing many websites from this terminal (including NZ´s) so I can´t check how much the 2 trips would earn. Please note however that NZ´s scheme is based on rolling 12 month qualification and does NOT reset at each level - ie once you get to silver you don´t start again from zero to qualify for gold, rather just need the amount of airbucks for gold within 12 months regardless if you qualified for silver along the way.

The other benefit of *S is recognition within the alliance. You wont get lounge access but may get access to better seating, waitlist and op-up priority (albeit behind *G).