United status match offering up to 18 months of Star Alliance Gold status

If you already have Gold or Platinum status with Qantas, Virgin Australia or any other non-Star Alliance airline, here is your chance to get a status match to United for up to 18 months.

The benefits of Gold status

As United is part of the 26-member Star Alliance group, your elite status is reciprocal when flying any of the other airlines in that group, including Singapore Airlines, Air New Zealand, ANA, THAI, Lufthansa, Asiana and Turkish.

You can enjoy the following perks:

• Lounge access*—this is the BIG one!
• Extra baggage allowance (usually one extra checked bag)
• Use of Business Class check-in counters (saves time lining up at Economy check-in)
• Expedited security and passport control lanes (at some airports)
• Priority boarding
• Priority standby lists

*Note that United members with Gold status cannot access US lounges when travelling domestically, however, they can access all United Club and Star Alliance lounges within the US when travelling internationally, and outside of the US when travelling domestically or internationally.

Step 1: Match your current elite status with another airline for instant 90-day United status match

If you have elite status with any airline outside of the Star Alliance group, such as with Qantas or Virgin Australia, you will be matched to the equivalent Gold or Platinum status with United. However, we have received reports that while Qantas Gold will be matched to United Premier Gold, Velocity Gold is only matched to United Silver.

This upgrade is very useful for those that already have travel booked with any Star Alliance airline in the next three months.

All you need to do is upload a screenshot or photo of your current elite status card with a visible expiry date. As you can see, most oneworld (e.g. Qantas), SkyTeam (Delta) and non-aligned airlines (Virgin Australia and Etihad) are included.

Step 2: Take enough flights with United within those 90 days to extend your status for up to 18 months

The challenge United has set is to fly at least 6 PQFs + 2,000 PQMs (Premier Qualifying Flights, and Premier Qualifying Miles) to maintain Gold or 10 PQFs + 3,000 PQMs for Platinum within those three months.

You could achieve the Gold requirement with a return paid Economy Class flight between Sydney/Melbourne and Los Angeles/San Francisco/Houston, (all served by United’s latest 787 Dreamliner) plus at least four separate domestic segments within the USA booked in any United fare class other than Basic Economy.

Timing is key

It pays to wait.

If you earn status through this promotion before the end of June 2020, your Gold status will only be extended to January 2021, but if you fly from July 2020 onwards, it will be valid for another year, until January 2022.

You can set your preferred challenge start date up to two weeks into the future.

This promotion is especially useful as the three major US carriers—United, American Airlines and Delta—regularly run challenge promotions but often only match status earned with one of the other US airlines, not international ones. Having United status can open the door to future status matches with AA and Delta.

My experience

I applied for and completed this status challenge in mid-2016, gaining Gold status right through to January 2018 but, as per the terms, I cannot apply for my next status challenge for five years.

Even though I already had status with Star Alliance through Turkish, I applied for this United status match promotion as it never hurts to have more options up your sleeve. However, I timed my application carefully. Why?

Because I already had an upcoming trip with the necessary PQPs on United booked (note that there was no PQF segment requirement at this time), with the last leg of that trip to be completed on 16 September 2016. If you subtract 90 days to complete the challenge from that (which I like to use the timeanddate.com date calculator for), I wanted my challenge to start on 18 June.

As United allows you to set your challenge start date two weeks ahead of time, it made sense for me to wait until at least 5 June (giving a day as a buffer) to apply for this status match.

2 ½ hours after submitting my application, United approved my status match in the email below, although it can take up to ten business days. Note that the asterisk said that if I completed this travel from July 2016 onwards, I would have my status extended to January 2018 instead of a year earlier.

How to apply

Go to the United status match promotional page and log in to your MileagePlus account. (If you do not have an account, you can sign up for one for free).

Summing up

While this seems to be an ongoing promotion, United do tend to close it late in the calendar year once they’ve hit a certain target of applicants. I would recommend applying as soon as it makes sense for you and your travel plans, keeping in mind when you have your Star Alliance flights booked in the upcoming months.

Don’t have elite status? Here are our tips to get Gold frequent flyer status—and keep it for as long as possible.

And note that if you have the American Express Platinum Charge, you can fast-track to KrisFlyer Gold status.