Sorry to read that, was over fast. I guess similar to a lucrative CC SUB offer, gotta “strike when the iron is hot”*, never know when a nice offer will end. Even if there’s an expiration date it could still change.

FWIW, I suggest trying again in a day or a week or 2, never know when they might restart it.

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Any thoughts as to the limiting factor for this sort of thing, basically selling AA Club access for 1 year at 20% of typical membership rate? RJ limits, AA limits, OneWorld limits, website overwhelmed, other?

(* "To strike while the iron is hot" means to act immediately and decisively to take advantage of a favorable opportunity or situation before it passes or becomes less beneficial. The idiom comes from blacksmithing, where iron can only be shaped by striking it when it's heated to a high temperature; if it cools, it becomes hard and difficult to work with.)

absolutely. I had no other meaningful status to use, so had to match somewhere else first… Didn’t occur to me that it would be gone in a week. Sigh.

I'm locked for 2027 status exec pro but im going to be pursuing fellowship after 5 years of locums so i will not be able to get to exec pro. Is the best thing to do is Match Exec Pro -> DL/UA? then stay for a year and then go DL -> AA match or Hyatt Globalist -> AA match?

Which airline? Maybe a typo for AA Platinum Pro (often abbreviated Plat Pro) or old name for UA status level?

I can’t address your specific questions, I will offer that some airline and hotel programs have limitations on status matches, i.e. once every 5 years or once per lifetime. So if you’re not expecting much travel during fellowship, it might not be the most opportune time for a status match in terms of timing AND utilization.

FWIW, years ago United, Hilton and Hyatt were very gracious in extending statuses and also expiration dates of various awards for more than a year after no (commercial domestic*) travelling for 8 months due to Navy Reserve mobilization to Afghanistan. Statuses and awards were due to expire in the middle of MOB, I requested extensions prior to departing, all 3 programs told me to ask again upon return so my requests ended up occurring several months after expirations. I don’t recall if any required proof of MOB. My requests for those extensions were excellent examples of “never hurts to ask, worst they can do is say ‘no’, give them an opportunity to say ‘yes’.”

Wish you well for the fellowship. (FWIW, during my residency after 8 years as an attending in the Navy, I often felt as if I had been relegated to “2nd class citizen”. I don’t think that’s the case with most fellowships and it’s probably specialty dependent.)

(* Not including ~25,000 BIS miles on various military charter and transport aircraft, and sharing a small lodging room with a complete stranger who snored almost as loud as a chain saw, and sharing bathrooms with another 40 strangers. For a 50 something year old FF nutjob with multiple elite statuses all that was almost a “fate worse than death” ;) and a large contributor to my personal dissatisfaction with MOB.)

(And he thought to himself “not so fast elk-breath.”)

Murphy was probably an optimist and his law is probably highly understated. Never underestimate the ability of a business to screw something up completely. Perfect example which I’m surprised no eagle eyed fellow points and miles fanatic noticed.

As per the card images in the quoted post, my RJ status (matched) is “Silver Jay”/oneworld Ruby (small red/ruby oval bottom right corner), not as per the terms of the status match “Gold Sparrow”/oneworld Sapphire. Oneworld Ruby is of no importance to me, doesn’t get lounge access for AA domestic US flights as Sapphire does which is why the status match is worth $150 to me. In my enthusiasm for a successful match I didn’t notice the problem.

I learned it after successfully accessing 2 AA lounges a couple of weeks ago. OTOH when I tried to access an AA lounge at JFK a few days ago, I was told of the (my) Ruby status and turned away. I did successfully enter a different AA lounge at JFK a few minutes later by stating my promised and paid for RJ status, displaying the card quickly and then enlarging the image of the card to show only the membership number which was entered manually by the lounge entrance attendant.

Fortunately I saved emails I received, including 1 which states “New Status Level Upgrade: Gold SPARROW”, from both statusmatch.com and RJ. Planning an email to both later today, be interesting to see how much of a hassle this ends up being, hope I don’t have to dispute the CC charge based on not receiving the promised product, I suspect the bank (or Visa) might side with them because they did provide a product.

I suspect the limiting factor is that the designer of the original match did not realize that status would provide lounge access to any significant number of people. The current offer does not apply to USA residents, and does not match any USA based airline status.

HT (hat tip) to Status Match :tu:. Emails sent to Status Match and RJ late afternoon Sunday Oct 19, quick reply from Status Match, said to refresh and delete history/cookies. I replied late night Oct 19 that I had done so on 2 browsers (Chrome and Edge) and 2 devices (iPhone and iPad) with same results.

Quick email reply that they were sending to RJ for manual review then another email today 4:30am EST that error was fixed. Correct status noted on website and app immediately. Website card image screenshot saved, RP app downloaded and card easily added to digital wallet via app.

HAPPY CAMPER, slightly more (2 weeks) than 1 year of AA Club access, probably 25-30 visits, for $149. Of course in my infinite FF nutjob perks greed :D, be interesting to see their reply to a request for an extension of the valid date due to my inconvenience and embarrassment ;) of being turned away from AA Club at JFK last week. Never hurts to ask, worst they can do …

(On new/correct card it’s easier to recognize European version of date with day/month due to Oct 19th valid date, vice Oct 6th.)

https://cimg4.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.fly...05c1fe82cc.jpg

Today VFTW is reporting a Oneworld Royal Air Maroc status match.

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Additional research today revealed many references stating recent RJ match was terminated so quickly due to “overwhelming demand”, a few references of another airline “going ballistic”, 1 non-reproducible reference of Etihad being annoyed (as it was competition for their match) and the reference above to “a US airline’s strong reaction”.

It got pulled same day. Very entertaining that the second-tier Oneworld carriers keep making the same mistake (i.e. not realizing that US flyers will match and leave the airline on the hook for Flagship/Admirals Club/Alaska Lounge access fees).

I suspect that this match will be the last one open to US residents. Oneworld's HQ is co-located with AA's in Dallas, and I'm sure there's an AA executive standing over the shoulder of a Oneworld executive right now, writing a memo:


TO: All Oneworld Member CEOs

SUBJECT: NO MORE ONEWORLD SAPPHIRE/EMERALD MATCHES FOR US RESIDENTS!!!

Thank you for the update.

Maybe correct, but mainly sad. Having taken advantage of BA match 1-2 years ago and the RJ match a month or 2 ago, I fully appreciated and made excellent use of the matches which saved me many $$$ in lounge access and/or membership fees.

Another lesson from the FF (nutjob, myself most definitely proudly included) lecture “Strike While the Iron is Hot”*.

(* “’Strike while the iron is hot’ means to take action or make a decision immediately while the opportunity is favorable. The idiom advises against hesitation, encouraging you to act quickly before a good chance disappears. It originates from blacksmithing, where a blacksmith must hammer iron when it is hot and malleable, as it becomes difficult to shape once it cools.”)

Wow took me this long to realise there's a status match masterthread.

I'm sure you guys have seen the TAP one, but for those who haven't and want an easy way to *A Gold. For most Europeans.
https://tap.statusmatch.com/

It's the date format used by most of the world, not just Europeans. Ideally, they should some explicit date format like "5 Oct 2026" or the ISO format "2026-10-05".

199 EUR for *G feels like a steal! Specially that TP wants 899 EUR for their club subscription with *S

Hey all, I'm in the process of matching BA Silver to TAP Gold. I'm stuck because they're asking for identity verification, but the link they sent me seems dead and just loops me back to the OG page. Has anyone had this problem and found a solution?

I tried to match my LH Senator -> KQ Gold Elite Plus and got almost immediately declined but no email notification. I emailed them to see what's up. LH Senator was matched as well from ITA back then, but I have flight history. Paid with a US credit card but have my region as Germany; wondering if that's why?