After a ton of calculations on Excel, I finally sorted out all my projections and status plans etc etc and am going to write to CX over the weekend and see what happens... wish me luck! I hope they will be generous given the huge loss of elites after the revamp!

I was matched to SL, based on two advance return bookings in J and to my surprise, the status showed immediately after my first leg.

Thanks to all those who provided the info in this thread, I wouldn't have managed it otherwise

Anyone think getting Emirates skywards silver + Plat status will work with a status match with Cathay?

What level are you expecting to be matched to?

AFAIK, CX might match you only to Silver, and on rare circumstances to Gold. On unheard situations, they will send out invitations to Diamond to SQ Solitaire members only. There are no loss to CX elites. These are the money earners who don't blink when booking full fare business or First class fares ex-HKG.

How do they know or have access to SQ PPS?

I hope I can get GO but I know the chances are slim. Basically I'm gonna relocate to HK permanently in a year or two, it'll be nice not to have to start from zero so SL would still be welcome, just not so desirable. I have grown so tired of AAdv and the SWUs/upgrades/hotline won't be of any help once I become HKG-based only, although I must admit the HK AA sales office takes good care of EXPs (registered my AAdv account using HK address).

I converted my AAdv earnings to a 'what-if' MPC model and I had around 1100 CP on CX metal out of 1500 total for the last 12 months, a further 600 booked ahead (all in CX J)...the twist is however these are mostly low-yielding tickets so I'm also skeptical it'll be convincing enough to snag GO right away. :( It's just that I saw on statusmatcher that there were anecdotes of EMERs getting matched to either SL or GO.


OTOH: Is there really no loss of CX elites? Everyone I know is getting their status renewed/extensions even if they were like 100 points behind requalifying...and I thought there were quite a few (just on here, per se) that left CX completely...

CX does not.

To finalize the invitation, CX simply needs the invitees to prove their PPS membership.

99% sure CX will only give you SL at max.

Anyone know how long they take to reply for status match requests ? :confused:

If CX only matches to SL, would I be able to take it and take membership holiday right away?

Don't think they will stop you, but why would you do that?

It's too much pain and endurance between MPC SL and DM1600, I'll need an extra 600 CP compared to starting from GO if I did the math right. Yes I can do 6 MH J runs to make up for it but if so...might just stick with AA as AA miles are infinitely more valuable/easy to accumulate with no expiration and change/cancellation fees for all sorts of awards.

Given my obsession with CX I was quite unhappy after finding out they don't actually care that much about partner elites (yes, an ISM showed me what's in her ipad for partner elites vs MP, NOTHING, no record for flight history/compliment/complaint/language preference/base etc), so I thought, since 80+% of my flying is with CX anyway, and I will be HKG based permanently in 2 years time, it's just a matter of time to switch?

I know I'm giving it a shot with low chances, yes don't fire on me I am not 'profitable' enough for MPC I understand :) Ironically, if they turn me down that will discourage me from flying with them, although they probably wouldn't care (and I'll end up flying with them anyway for 'essential' itineraries like HKG-USA) - but suppose if I can join MPC, then I'll happily stick to CX completely for like leisure flying, e.g. HKG-Europe.

But staying with AAdv then I can fly other high quality airlines like QR and AA (occasionally high quality only, I admit for sure) more too. Looking at a sample QR J Europe-DOH-Asia (I picked LHR-DOH-BKK) itinerary it shows you how stingy MPC is (180 CP, or 15% of DM) compared to other OW FFP like Aadv (~20% of EXP) or BAEC (560 TP which is a whopping 38% to BA Gold). Don't forget DM1200 is quite different from DM1600 still. The four certs for GO1000 are also of limited usability...(HKG-HND I to A, what else?) And never mind Asia miles that expires and doesn't have any elite bonus, and having to start from 0 for each tier advancement in MPC.

Rant over and apologies for my disorganized thoughts. TLDR, just giving it a shot, if they say no it's totally okay...and I'll have to keep flying them anyway...

(Or just forget about DM1600, whatever, just gonna buy those AS miles at $1500/per F segment :) )

At the end of the day, the "soft" benefits (e.g. recognition from the ISM) seem to me all pretty incidental in the grand scheme of things, and far outweighed by the published OW benefits such as FCL check-in and lounge access if you're not already flying in F. I would just reach/maintain OWE on BA or AA or whatever other program I can qualify most comfortably, and not worry about whether the ISM is going to bring me a bottle of water when sitting in Y.

3x QR J is, as you say, 90% of the way towards BA Gold and instead of doing the extra flying required for DM, you can e.g. get Star and/or Skyteam status which would be much more valuable when you need to fly those alliances.

I'm OZ diamond and sent a request to the marco polo club email address asking for status match. After a few days they sent me an email asking me to send them proof of OZ status, flight history for past year, and any future CX bookings. I had a flight coming up in about 2 weeks and told them would appreciate any status they could give me. About a week after first communication they offered me CX SL status which I accepted.

To G-CIVC, I would echo stargold as I've come from a similar situation as yours. I was 1K with UA moved to HK but settled with AA as my program. There was no way I could get to DM with CX but keeping EXP is definitely doable.

The AA SWU's are fantastic and they are usable if you're willing to take one stop and route through LAX. So you could say that kind of makes up for the lack of op-up opportunities on CX.

I will say I have gotten bottles of water ex-HKG to SFO (none the other way around but at least I can bring in a guest to the lounge at SFO and she gets to stock up on as many bottles as she wants).