troytos

Yeah I wonder the same thing since i just did the match last week and now status is reflecting 12/2020 expiration date.

wolverine11

Thank you for pointing that out. All her flights are work trips on different PNRs. I took a closer look at her itineraries and only one flight qualifies as an L fare and she's able to select Premium seats for free on that one.

danielflyer

Just as a data point, I emailed Alaska after requesting my status match and asked to match my United Platinum to MVP Gold instead of MVP Gold 75k. About 8 days after completing the request I logged in and noticed I now have MVP Gold Status.

The 3-month window for meeting the challenge begins the day your status request is approved.

therossinator

Thanks for the data point. I'm thinking of doing the challenge but I have a short trip planned for 01 Nov and a trip to Hawaii that returns on 27 Jan. A tight 90 day window which means I'd need to time the challenge start date perfectly.
I was also considering timing my challenge after July to make 2021 status as well. I'll be 1K on United through 2020 but don't have any flights planned with them at this point. I was thinking of taking a trip or two to Asia next year just to inflate my YTD mileage flown on United to increase my likelihood of getting matched to 75K in July.

Now with the new elite qualifications for United, how will Alaska benchmark miles flown year to date when United couldn't care less about miles flown and only shows PQPs (read: $$$s) and total segments for year to date accruals?

chrisl137

They know what the earning requirements are, and all they're really verifying is that you earned the status by buying tickets, rather than through MM status, were gifted it, or did a challenge and only flew a little after completing the challenge, or something similar. The effective cpm requirements (if you just convert from 2019 mileage requirements to 2020 spend requirements) are much more than AS is generally expecting for their status levels, so they'd probably be happy to match someone who made 1K by flying less than 100,000 miles and spent 18 cpm doing it.

danielflyer

I think Alaska will continue with its current customer-friendly strategy, but wouldn't be surprised to see them require more flights on Alaska to requalify going forward. Alaska may have decided internally to be less welcoming to members who bank miles on partners but rarely fly AS metal.

Overall I wouldn't expect to see many negative changes, though.

therossinator

Your assessment sounds pretty optomistic. I find it odd that Alaska wants to see YDT miles if it's simply to verify that status was earned and not matched/given, when status which I'm requesting to be matched is earned from flights one year prior. If I were to apply after July 2020, I'd have 0 YDT miles (supposing I were even able to pull that info from UA). If I were AS, I wouldn't match me to 75k, but maybe they're more customer friendly than I am.

hamburgler

Just to note, I *still* haven't received any email from AS about the whole challenge, start/end date, etc. and still have a 12/31/2020 expiring MVP Gold 75K membership on the website and the App (downloaded to Apple Wallet too)...

danielflyer

I never got a formal confirmation. However I called in and was told the date from which the challenge applied-- it was October 10 for me.

h4xdaplanet

Just got the confirmation email from AS after matching on Oct 1. They just confirmed to me that if you match to their highest tier and don't meet those requirements, you will not fall down to the tier that you did meet (e.g. if you match to 75k and only fly to 10k, they won't give you Gold)

olouie

That seems really lame. I was going to try for 75k, but with the recent no notice devaluations I'll just burn the rest of my miles.

wolverine11

Finally received the status match email today. I have until 1/31/2020 to hit 20,000 miles. Looks like I will need to do some old-fashioned mileage runs.

Flying for Fun

Get the BofA AS CC and use the Companion Certificate to take a friend, SO. Purchase your AS tickets to cover the minimum spend & earn 3× RDM for each $ spent. You will both earn EQM.

Play around with multi-city search to construct convoluted itineraries. If you received GGUs, watch for segments with U availability for 2. Since the companion fares is always $99+ taxes, you are effectively getting two eligible fares for one upfare. Multiple segments with <= 4 hours connection time are also upgraded with one GGU each with U availability.

We have done two "mini" vacations each racking up over 16K+ EQM each. Flying PHX-SJO via SEA-ANC-HNL-SEA-LAX is a lot of Flying for Fun.

Jaes

olouie

Wasn't going to chase the 75k, but since the coast-2-coast promo is going on I just booked the rest of my flights and will make 20k easily by end of Jan 2020. Just too bad that one flight in Jan won't get the double miles.

hamburgler

Well that's annoying, since it doesn't give you the option of which tier to match to when you setup the match.. only asks your current status. Did they offer you the chance to downgrade your match?