Alaska Airlines Offering 90 Day Status Match, Ability To Extend With Challenge (Now Comes With Oneworld Status)

Back in February Alaska Airlines offered a status match opportunity for Delta, United and Southwest elite members. That offer ended in April, but their ongoing status match/challenge is still available and could be even more appealing now that Alaska Airlines is part of Oneworld.

The Deal

• Match your existing airline status to Alaska Airlines for 90 days, then complete the following challenge to maintain it:
  • MVP status — fly 5,000 miles on Alaska
  • MVP Gold status — fly 10,000 miles on Alaska
  • MVP Gold 75K status — fly 20,000 miles on Alaska
• Direct link to registration.

Key Terms

• The status match offer is a one-time only offer; a member may only receive one status match for the lifetime of their account.
• Offer subject to change without notice.
• A status match is only offered to members who have achieved elite status through actual flight miles or segments in another program. Status granted based on credit card activity, transferred points, or any other promotional offer is not eligible for a status match.
• Members who receive MVP Gold 75K status as part of this status match offer are not eligible for the 50,000 bonus miles associated with qualifying for MVP Gold 75K status.
• Please allow up to 4 weeks for verification and approval. You will receive a welcome email once the status match is approved, or you can also check your status in your account at alaskaair.com.
• Offer valid only for legal residents of the United States and Canada.
• In order to keep your status after the initial 90-day period, you’ll need to fly on flights marketed by Alaska Airlines and operated by Alaska Airlines, Horizon or SkyWest during that initial 90-day period. Codeshare flights operated by other airlines, flights on Alaska Global Partners, award travel, and bonus miles do not count toward keeping your status.
• In order to keep MVP status, you must fly 5,000 miles; in order to keep MVP Gold status, you must fly 10,000 miles; and in order to keep MVP Gold 75K status, you must fly 20,000 miles.
• Gold Guest Upgrades, Lounge Day Passes, and MVP Gold 75K MVP nominations will be available after the member has met the flight requirement during the initial 90-day period for the respective elite status.
• If your status is matched before June 30 of a calendar year, and the flight requirement is met during the initial 90-day period, you will keep your status through the end of the applicable calendar year. If your status is matched between July 1 and December 31 of a calendar year and the flight requirement is met during the initial 90-day period, you will keep your status through the end of the next calendar year.

Quick Thoughts

As mentioned earlier, this Alaska Airlines status match/challenge is their standard offer and so isn’t something new. However, it could be of particular interest now that Alaska Airlines is part of Oneworld and so your match also provides Oneworld Ruby, Sapphire or Emerald status depending on which Mileage Plan MVP level you match to.

There are some important things to note with this status match/challenge though. For starters, you’re only able to match once for the lifetime of your account. If you’re not likely to be flying much for the next year, it might be better to hold off on matching until a more opportune time. It might also make more sense to wait until you’ll be booking some paid Alaska flights to apply for a status match so that you can also hopefully fulfill the terms of the status challenge within 90 days.

The terms also state that you have to have earned your status the hard way (i.e. by flying) rather than by other routes like other status matches, credit card spending, etc. I’m assuming they’re strict with that seeing as your screenshot proving you have status also has to show your flight activity, so anyone recently matching to, say, Frontier status from their recent status match promotion presumably can’t parlay that into Alaska Airlines status. Having said that, if you can submit a screenshot with both your status and some flight activity, perhaps that’d be sufficient if they’re not too careful when checking your application.

In theory the best time of year to apply for this match is on July 1. That because if you apply before June 30 of any given year, completing the status challenge only maintains your status through the end of that same year. However, if you complete the challenge from July 1 to December 31 and complete the challenge, the status you receive will be valid for the rest of that year and through to the end of the following year too.

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