Originally Posted by
Kralxiao
I applied for a membership match at Turkish Airlines last year, and I was matched to the Elite level (Star Alliance Gold).
In September last year, I completed a flight with Turkish Airlines, which was extended to July this year. But in this membership year, I can't complete the second challenge, which is to fly 15,000 miles in Turkish Airlines. ( Because my route goes between China and Australia) But I have travelled 25,000 miles with other Star Alliance members, which meets the regular protection requirements, and the website has also shown the status has been protected.
However, some sources of information say that this method cannot be protected. I want to ask which statement is correct?
I think it would be better for you to ask the question directly to Turkish Airlines through their feedback form... but don't expect a clear cut answer within the first or second response.
If status is very important for your travel, better perform a mileage run with Turkish Airline just to clock-in 15,000 miles before July 2025.
If you are stationed in Australia and don't want to fly to IST, there are 2 fifth-freedom flights of Turkish Airlines between SIN-MEL and KUL-SYD.
If you book in Economy, just make sure it is in Q class ticket.
Originally Posted by
the810
My understanding is that for the regular requalification requirements you need to fulfill the challenge first. As far as I understand the system, it looks at your earnings in the first year and in the last two years when your status period ends and if either of those is fulfilled, it will extend the status. But since you didn't complete the challenge, you will never reach that point, thus the system will never check the regular requalification conditions.
As for the website showing status protection, my understanding is that it always does that during the "trial period" and it doesn't really mean anything.
That's my problem in my post #1053 in this thread (I was asking TK customer support
"where can I see or confirm that my status is valid until 1 October 2026?").
Quick recap: Matched 1 Oct 2024, expiry 1 Feb 2025, flown 15,926 miles on Jan 2025, extended to 1 Oct 2025 + should be 1 year afterwards.
I have read and understand in this thread that TK system only updates the expiry date after the previous expiry date was reached, and I am pretty sure that my status is valid until 1 October 2026 because I got 15,926 miles in TK metal within the first 4 months.
The gist of my question above is to decide whether I should perform another 9,074 miles run just to clock-in a total of 25,000 miles before 1 October 2025, for a possible extension until 1 October 2028.
My interpretation is that if I wait until more than 1 October 2025, I have to collect 37,500 miles to extend the status for 2 more years.
It is also annoying that there are multiple interpretations about the requalification requirements in this thread.
ISTflyer and CoweyB said (pre-COVID, around page 40 in this thread) that the miles collected in the first year didn't count to the requalification requirements of 25,000 miles and we need to collect 37,500 miles in the second year.
However,
f0zzyNUE, craigthemif, and atflyer said (post-COVID) otherwise, that the 25,000 miles collected even in the first year of status match will secure a 4-year status of Miles & Smiles Elite (4 months + 8 months + 12 months + 2 years).
I tend to stick with the latter interpretation as it is more recent, but this is not guaranteed until we got a confirmation from TK representative.
Or maybe until f0zzyNUE's family member status expire on 30 March 2025 and we can see if it will be extended to 30 March 2027 
Originally Posted by
GGLwannabe
This morning I had an email confirming that my status match had been granted and, on checking, I could see my new Elite card in the app - so a result!
4) Don't use Firefox as your browser to do any of this.
Congratulations on your status match
Now good luck finding cheap Economy or Business Class flights
What's the problem with Firefox?