I tried doing some searching on this one but didn't find anything.

I've been a US Airways flyer the past few years (CP last year and Gold this year), but have moved from PHL to Dublin and thus found a good point to look into changing my loyalty (that and the year round DUB-EWR flight really helps).

I've been going back and forth on whether to request a status match from Continental. Given it's a once in a lifetime thing and I don't need it for the upgrades (almost all of my flying will be Trans Atlantic and thus any connections would be booked in First) the only thing I'm missing out on would be the bonus miles. I was initially thinking it may be a good idea to hold off on the request in case I need to request a match once I return to the states (or at another point later in life). I finally decided I would ask for the status match since I'm looking at about 6-8 Business class flights back to the states this year and that mileage bonuses I'd be passing up are too large to ignore.

Currently I have roughly 18k EQMs ytd and 90% of them have been in either Full Y, Z, or A class bookings. I have a trip booked on AF (using my CO FF number) in Business from DUB-CDG-LAX in June as well that would put me well past the silver marker. Imagine my surprise when I log into my account today and find that I'm now, already a silver elite. The odd thing is I haven't requested a match! I don't want to look a gift horse in the mouth but it really did catch me off guard.

Is there precident for this? I'm wondering if there are other methods to be comped silver that they took into account? The value of my flights YTD are probably about $10k YTD and as I mentioned above I have another 17k miles to accrue in June. In short it's not like I'm not going to earn my status the hard way this year (in all honesty will probably end up at Platinum if my travel keeps up-- again all based on all of my bookings in business class) so I don't feel "lucky" for getting this, I'm just trying to find out what may have happened.

Whatever happpened I must say I'm quite impressed with this airline... it's already obvious they know how to treat their customers being given this status pre-emptively-- anyway they've got my loyalty!

My wife got comped on NW for having Marriott elite status. Also gotten it the other way - Hyatt and Hilton due to CO status. She had even called once about getting bumped to Plat early on CO, so she could get lounge access on an Int'l coach flight. CO seemed willing, but when she told them that the flights were NW, they balked - they want to see confirmed bookings on CO that will earn the mileage.

I'm guessing that CO saw your pattern and future tickets and thought it would be a nice gesture. Good for them, but not unprecedented.

My suggestion would be to call prior to the gold-earning flight to see if they will accelerate you again. The worst they will do is say no, and if they say yes, you can earn some extra bonus miles.

I will try calling OnePass and check if they can match your US Gold Status! Silver Elite only earns 50% bonus compared with 100% bonus for Gold. My experience might be different but OnePass seems to be accommodating when it generates business for CO. Last year, I called OnePass twice and granted to get the Gold and Platinum status based on the current flights I had. The agent checked my EQMs, the miles to accrue on the flights I had that day, and after a few minutes on hold, I got my new status.