My recent experience with this: emailed Finnair plus requesting a match from SK Silver, was granted it over email but my account didn’t update.

Contacted AY via chat and was told they’d made a mistake - I couldn’t have a status match because my account’s address was in Finland.

HOWEVER, the chat agent told me that if I had an address in another country, I could be matched. She changed my address to one I gave her from the UK (a legitimate address I might add) and told me to email AY+ again.

This time, I got a reply the next day saying my status match had been confirmed. My account in the AY app changed to silver right away.