ngxiuhou

I was quite suprised, in such a worldwide frequent guests and loyalty programme forum, no one in flyertalk posted the news of status match between IHG and China Southern Airlines which had already shocked the China market for a whole yesterday.

The IHG spire elite member could be instantly matched to the gold elite of China Southern Airlines, the expiration date is 2020/02/28, and if you could accomplish 2 qualified segments with CZ before 2019/12/31, your gold elite membership would extend to 2021/02/08. Please note, during this year, the gold elite of CZ equals to the elite plus elite of Skyteam, and in the following year, CZ would most probably join the ONEWORLD alliance, so it would be a totally complementary oneworld GREEN member after LATAM.

And there was a bug in IHG, because of the offer "Instant spire elite" offer, member could first be instantly upgraded to a Spire, then instantly be matched to the gold of CZ. For this bug, it was estimated that nearly 70,000 members got a free gold elite of CZ and Spire of IHG yesterday in China.

I am so sorry that friends in America did not know that, so I post this news here to make you all know, just cry! baby!

Drcool

I am IHG Spire. How can i match? What link?

thank you

moondog

It wasn't really a "bug", but I must admit that execution of the promotion could have been a little smoother.

ernestnywang

I don't know if CZ will ever join oneworld, but if it does, next year seems way too early. Even if it does, CZ gold will very likely be oneworld sapphire, not emerald (green). CZ will need to create a tier higher than gold if it joins oneworld, so there will be a tier for oneworld emerald.

moondog

I've yet to hear a single credible source suggest cz is likely to join OW, let alone anytime soon.

Chinatrvl

Flyertalk is/ has become useless for people based in/ heavily frequenting Asia, in my opinion. No surprise there, it was much discussed on other forums.

KLflyerRalph

I was able to find this: https://www.uscreditcardguide.com/ih...-status-match/
Judging from Google Translate, registration is only possible through Wechat.

moondog

Yes, and it's working well again now.

coolfish1103

No one here really cares cause the membership will only be useful for flying 1) CZ and 2) Skyteam till Dec. 31.

CZ itself is nothing spectacular and Guangzhou as the main hub isn't helping unless Hong Kong is destroyed. Yes we know Beijing is also a hub but the operation is hardly comparable to Shanghai and location is not that great.

It's also only available through wechat, which I think most American/European who are not visiting China or have a relation with them will utilize it, so not making to the news is not surprising.

There are also many other Chinese oriented promotions on fliggy that never made it to flyertalk. Not the first time.

moondog

Note to all:
-this is the first first post in my entire history on FT in which I play the "you are (dead) wrong" card

Gentleman Adventurer

Hmm... I tried to take advantage of this offer today on WeChat, but it didn't work for me... I was able to log in to the WeChat IHG mini app, but when I went to register for the China Eastern promo it wouldn't let me get a dynamic PIN. Probably since I don't have a domestic Chinese phone number. Oh well.

MSPeconomist

It's China SOUTHERN (CZ), not China Eastern (MU), which is continuing as a major SkyTeam alliance member.

Gentleman Adventurer

Ah, yes, That's what I meant, just mistyped... Indeed I entered my CZ Sky Pearl loyalty number, but still was not successful in activating the status match offer

baroqen

This has always been (kind of) the case. While far from useless, it's definitely not geared towards those in Asia. That said, it's still been extremely useful for me these past years that I've been based out here... just nowhere near as useful as if I were still back in the US.

Also, what other forums are you talking about? If there are other English language forums for Asia-centric, I would love to know about them. I definitely have to sift through a lot more non-applicable information on FT. However, if they're Chinese language forums then they would be useless to me and a ridiculous comparison due to the obvious difference in user demographics.

baroqen

Well... Hong Kong does seem to be doing a pretty good job of trying to destroy itself lately...

I actually made plans recently to go to the much further Guangzhou airport rather than fly out of HKG. Between the potential for transportation breakdowns to/from the airport as well as all of the cancelled flights... Hopping onto a train to get to CAN suddenly didn't seem such a bad idea.