No direct experience on when United's cut off date is, but some posts on the United forum suggest that it is October rather than July.

See for instance http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/Forum50/HTML/020957.html

Ms. Gulfcoast and I are both multi-year PM. Airtran recently sent each of us an e-mail comping to A-Plus Rewards Elite - stated cards will be mailed soon.

I took a US Gold comp - completed a 20/20 challenge in 60days and am now CP (US1).

UA comped Ms. GC to Premier Exec (1P) & entered her in a 50/50 challenge to reach 1K status in 6 months - she will reach it next week after completing a RSW-ORD-HKG-BKK-HKT-BKK-NRT-LHR-ORD-RSW business trip.

We both have over 100,000 MQM's on DL - will retain PM status in 2004 but will primarily shift business to UA/US and Airtran due to Skymile changes - major revenue loss to DL!

Platinum is the highest tier that can be reached from flying. Comping - pretty well the same as BA - comp is for big spenders only.

If you control a large travel budget, or are a politician or "bigwig", you'll probably qualify for invite-only "Chairman's Lounge".

Some discussion here: Platinum contact for Comp request

Greetings,

My comp f/DL to CO came in November of last year for all of this year. I've read on another thread something about Nov 1 maybe being a cuttoff for CO. I can't say for sure other than to say I received mine for the entire 2003 year in Nov of 2002 so best to ask first or wait till November.

Just my experience.

Anymore info on these challenges ? 20/20 ? 50/50 ? http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/confused.gif

Thanks
J



[This message has been edited by JohnG (edited 10-08-2003).]

[QUOTE]Originally posted by JohnG:
[B] Anymore info on these challenges ? 20/20 ? 50/50 ? http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/confused.gif

Thanks
J


John

US would not match my DL/PM status - offered a comp to USGold with a bump to Chairman's if I flew 20K miles or 20 segments in 90 days - I completed in less than 60 days. and was immediately elevated to CP status through 2/04.
Simply contact the US Dividend Miles Service Center to request - you'll need to fax current statement & elite card.

UA would not match DL/PM status - comped Ms. GC to PremExec and put her in a 50K mile or50 segment challenge over 6 months to reach 1K status - she'll reach it this month. It will be good through 2/05. Contact UA Premier Status Match in Tucson and fax request.

Good Luck!

Am in the process of trying to comp a CO gold elite over to a UA premier executive. Haven't heard anything yet (still early), but maybe they're either swamped with requests or are holding off to do the ones for 2004. Hope it comes through soon, as there's a trip or two in 2003 I might do with them if they do it right away.

Useful thread. http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/smile.gif

LX (Swiss) comped me Travel Club Silver status, against my AA Executive Platinum. They even faxed a letter to me so I could gain lounge access for an imminent trip. Now they're joining OW, a comp probably wont be so simple....

do you have the lx contact info 777? i have a lx flight comming up (zurich to tlv) and i would like to be able to use th elounge.
thanks

See The End of Swiss TravelClub FFP http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/frown.gif

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View from the Wing: A blog about Free Miles and Free Markets

Starwood will comp HH Diamond to SPG Plat; nothing else at all.

Sorry = since I am HH Diamond I cannot speak for the lesser levels, It was the easiest comp received so I assumed it went the same down the line

More info on HOTEL matches would br appreciated.

BTW, great thread thanks.

Starwood will comp to SPGold on DL/PM status or if you have an AMEX Platinum Card.

I was comped from US Gold to UA Prem Ex in Dec, 2003. The alliance was already in place, but things may have changed. I think anti-poaching would be formalized within *A when US joins.

The speed of matching was suprising. I faxed in my US statement late in the evening. The next afternoon I checked my UA account and I was Prem Ex. It may have helped that I was already UA Prem with 40+ k elite miles in my account.

Who has received a Status-Match to 2005???

I will be moving to the UK next year and was thinking of a status match with BA. I am SEN on LH, with just over 100K status miles in the past year - half of them are revenue C fare. Would BA match me or am I better picking a different ow carrier to get matched? AA? QF?

My flights will be back and forth to North America and also within Europe. Might be an Asia or a S. Pacific, but no guarantees.

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Friends don't let friends fly Air Canada.

Hyatt will match Hilton Gold (mid tier) with Hyatt Diamond (top tier)

Faxed my Hilton statement to 402-593-9449 in January.

Still haven't heard anything from United on my gold-to-PremEx comp request from CO. No changes on the Web, yet, either. Don't know if it's specific to my request or if they're just backed up. Any recent experiences with turnaround time? Am looking to book a dead-of-winter Europe trip for January.

[

Would BA match me or am I better picking a different ow carrier to get matched? AA? QF?

My flights will be back and forth to North America and also within Europe. Might be an Asia or a S. Pacific, but no guarantees.

[/B][/QUOTE]
It is my understanding that NO gets a status match from BA or QF!

It is my understanding that NO gets a status match from BA or QF!

[/B][/QUOTE]

Agree - BA don't match AFAIK. If you live in Oz I think it is Asia Miles anyway.

I sent in my fax a couple of weeks ago and united.com just showed me as PremEx as of last night (time to update the ol FT handle). It took so long I thought maybe they had rejected it. Then I realized that I've heard Oct 15th and after will go through next year - so maybe they were just holding on to it.

I'd confirm that I ended up status through Feb '05, but I'm not aware of any way to look up an expiration date online - so I'll just have to wait for the physical manifestations to arrive in the mail.

Unless you get a corporate account manager on your side and plan to spend around $100k (especially as a UK based member) forget about getting BA to comp you, which is the same as I said on page 1 if you had taken the time to read the thread http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/wink.gif

I sent a comp request to UA (from DL Gold) 2 weeks ago and still no word. My guess is that they are backed up with requests.

See my note above. It took more than a couple weeks to process my comp but it finally just cleared.

I wish that was true. I was comped from Hilton Gold to only Hyatt Platinum last year and they didn't even want to offer me a challenge for Diamond. Wonder what I did wrong...

Did it come thru as 2005?

My letter with the card was dated Oct 7th and the card said to end of Feb 2004

Cheers

Alan

However others further down the page mentioned that BA will comp status in certain conditions. In the past year about 50% of my flights are in paid J - including transcons. If I was a earned *G for $2K or less, I would expect nothing, but that is not my travel pattern.

And yes I did read your post, along with the others.

Mapleleaf, you have very clearly answered your own question. http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/smile.gif Even if you flew a 100% paid J your chances would be extremely slim, unless your corporate account manager was able to intervene on your behalf, 50% paid J will get you absolutely nothing on BA.Zero,zilch ,nada.

Try AA if you are interested in OW.

I'd disagree slightly.

Ask BA for the comp. See what they say. Report back to us. One more data point can help us all! http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/smile.gif

BA is not as tough as many of the above state in all countries. I do not know how tough they are in Canada, however in the US they are NOT as strict as the UK.

Was comped today from HH Gold to Hyatt Platinum -- valid through 2/2005

Anyone know of HH coming to Diamond?

We all know that airlines set their own policies and when you call/fax that's what you get, the standard policy.

To get more (and what you want) I see you need to do two things:

1. Prove a business case to the airline that THEY will benefit by giving you whatever status you want. Whether it be in miles travelled, a copy of your last years cc summary showing airline charges, routes your flying on a competitor, or whatever. Point being figure out what they want and then show them that you have the ability to give it to them. Make a compelling story!

2. Get to the right person who has the authority to overide policy, and make an exception based on a good business decision.

I'm sure they get a bunch of people trying to match status so they make their rules accordingly. And a bunch of them never come through.

I was comped AA EXP to UA 1K a few years ago. I was told no way, Prem Ex was it. I got hold of someone in the Marketing Dept, faxed by prior years AA statement showing almost 200K miles, explained why I want to fly UA (AC bought out CP and my family lives in Canada which is where I use my miles, and UA was partners with AC). I very easily could have stayed with AA, but they wanted my business. At the end he couldn't thank me enough for switching to UA and giving me 1K accomplished it.

That was a few years ago when revenue wasn't the deciding factor, today if you can prove you spend lots of money, have a great story, and get to that right person I'd be surprised if they won't make the right business decision.

bump because this thread offers a lot of great information

As far as timing strategy for both airlines and hotels matching request: Since it is relatively late in 03 and if you need the benefit of the matched status in 04 and 05, is it a better strategy to wait until 1/1/04 to request a matching level and get perhaps an extra year?

I think if you wait till 11/1/03 you're golden regardless of airline.

Some folks have reported on some airlines getting status for the following year by requesting 7/1.

Others have found on other airlines that the cutoff is 10/15.

So either ask and be sure or wait till November 1. I'm not aware of anyone getting a comp that was good for less than 2 months. But others will correct me here?

I finally get to do this...

BUMP!

This thread is awesome.

Well, the UA PremEx comp came through (from CO gold), but now that NW has made its fateful announcement they're unexpectedly back in the running. Has anyone been able to comp a CO gold over to NW? I have a feeling the only hope is to send some kind of PremEx documentation and if they don't see any miles on it they might turn the comp down.

If I can get status on NW (now that there's some certainty of no 50% EQM devaluation soon), I would go to them; if UA gives status and NW makes me start over, it's close.

[This message has been edited by RustyC (edited 11-03-2003).]