If you have silver or gold status with a oneworld or SkyTeam airline, Star Alliance carrier TAP Air Portugal is offering a status match for as little as $87.
TAP Air Portugal is aiming to increase U.S. membership in its TAP Miles & Go program with several new initiatives during the month of March.
Earn Star Alliance Silver Or Gold Status With TAP Status Match
TAP Miles & Go is offering status matches to up to top-tier gold status. While it is not matching elite members from other Star Alliance programs, it will match other programs including oneworld, SkyTeam, and non-aligned carriers like Azul and Emirates.
Rather than offer a flight challenge to secure the matched status, you’ll need to open your wallet. You can secure the status for one year by either buying miles or buying into Club TAP Miles & Go.
Miles start in packages as little as $87. This month, TAP is offering a sizable bonus when purchasing miles, which I will discuss below.
Club TAP Miles & Go is a subscription add-on to the TAP Miles & Go loyalty program. For an annual fee, you will receive a sign-on bonus plus a monthly allotment of miles. That program starts at $122/year and goes up to $887/year.
If you are already a Miles & Go member, you can request a status match here. Otherwise, there is a status match box to upload your proof of status when you join the Miles & Go program:
TAP is offering a 1,000 bonus miles just for signing up. Use promo code BIRTHDAY01.
Once you sign up, you’ll have to verify your email in order for the sign-up to go through:
Once you confirm your email, you will receive this message:
Your newly matched status will be valid for six months. You’ll need to fly the following to maintain status through the end of 2021:
- Earn 25,000 qualifying miles to keep Gold
- Earn 10,000 qualifying miles to keep Silver
If you hold Gold status, TAP also allows you to nominate a friend for Gold status.
Huge Bonus Offer When Buying Miles
As part of its March campaign, TAP is offering a bonus on purchased miles:
- Receive quadruple (4x) miles when you purchase up to 18,000 miles;
- Receive quintuple (5x)miles when you purchase 20,000 miles
You can buy miles here. Unlike some other programs, this is not an airline to stock up miles on, as the award chart is not at all attractive.
Earn Triple Miles With Club TAP Miles & GO
If you do join Club TAP Miles & Go, you’ll earn triple miles on TAP flights from March 9th – 31st.
Reduced Redemption Prices, But…
TAP will offer 25% off select routes this month when redeeming miles.
That said, the award chart is generally pretty bad. I’ll discuss sweet spots this week, but a business class ticket between the USA and Europe is generally a good barometer of value. The cost is 160,000 miles r/t and TAP does add fuel surcharges to many partners. First class is 230,000 miles r/t. Compare that to ANA or Aeroplan and you really have a poor value proposition.
That said, with the quintuple bonus miles offer, you need only buy 32,000 miles for a business class ticket to Europe, which may mitigate the higher surcharges. Right now you are capped at buying 20,000 miles at a time. I have not tried to see if you can buy 20,000 and then return and buy 12,000 more.
CONCLUSION
This is an interesting offer. If you hold mid-tier or top-tier status on another airline, consider that you can request a status match, pay the $87, and enjoy United Club access when traveling domestically on United for at least six months. It’s a decent deal that I am considering…
I’m sure there is some value to Miles & Go and I look forward to unpacking it.
I’m assuming gold members via TAP will be permitted to access United Clubs when flying domestically.
There’s gonna be a huge swell of members this year.
For sure. That’s a key benefit…the only thing that makes this interesting for me.
How can I request the status match? I Will buy miles not sign the club
Thank you
If you’re platinum with United and star gold do you believe they would accept a status match, or are other star carriers completely disallowed?
What happened to doing a post about sweet spots?
It’s coming.