Star Alliance Gold status on the cheap in Europe

Marriott Bonvoy and Singapore Krisflyer announced an “enhanced partnership” this week whereby members of both programs can link up their loyalty accounts. Members with elite status in either program can enjoy a fast track to meaningful status in the other program. Since I have Marriott Platinum status (and I imagine many readers do given the relative ease in achieving it), I can’t help but imagine how I could end up with Star Alliance Gold status on the cheap. I wouldn’t actually do this….but I still kinda want to.

Marriott Bonvoy / Singapore Airlines status match tiers

From the press release:

Members will be able to enjoy elite status match according to the elite tiers of both programmes. Solitaire PPS Club, PPS Club, and KrisFlyer Elite Gold members will receive a status match to Marriott Bonvoy Gold, while Marriott Bonvoy Platinum, Titanium, and Ambassador members will receive a status match to the KrisFlyer Elite Silver tier. Marriott Bonvoy Elite status benefits may include room upgrades, late check-outs, bonus points, welcome gifts, and more. KrisFlyer Elite status benefits may include bonus miles, complimentary seat selection for customers flying with Singapore Airlines, complimentary lounge access, priority check-in and boarding, additional baggage allowance, and more.

In practice, here’s how the status match works:

Marriott Bonvoy Gold, Lifetime Gold, Lifetime Platinum

• Accelerate to KrisFlyer Elite Silver Status: Earn Singapore Krisflyer Silver status after 2 flights on Singapore Airlines within 6 months of registration

Marriott Platinum, Titanium, Ambassador, Lifetime Titanium, and Lifetime Ambassador

• Get instant Singapore Krisflyer Silver status for 12 months.
• Earn Singapore Krisflyer Gold status after 4 flights flown on Singapore Airlines within 6 months of registration

The fast track to Krisflyer Gold (Star Alliance Gold) is what’s intriguing)

Frankly, Singapore Krisflyer Silver status doesn’t carry any meaningful benefits. I’m sure there is an instance where it will be valuable for someone, but free Krisflyer Silver status is not the main attraction here.

Singapore Krisflyer Gold status may be worth chasing since it provides Star Alliance Gold status. Some of the benefits of Star Alliance Gold status include:

• Priority airport check-in
• Extra baggage allowance
• Gold Track (Priority Security & Immigration)
• Airport lounge access for you and an accompanying guest who is travelling on the same day and on the same flight (Star Alliance Gold lounges, including United Clubs when flying domestically in the US on United)
• Priority boarding
• Priority baggage handling
• Priority reservations waitlist
• Priority airport stand-by
• Complimentary upgrade to Business First Class on the Heathrow Express

Singapore also has partnerships with Virgin Atlantic and Virgin Australia where you’ll get lounge access when flying those airlines (though that does not extend to any accompanying guests when traveling on Virgin Atlantic). Read more about Singapore Krisflyer Gold elite benefits here.

The ability to get United Club lounge access when flying domestically on United would be the main draw for most folks. United elite members do not get club lounge access at United Clubs as a status benefit, but those who hold Star Alliance Gold status with a foreign partner do get United Club access even when flying domestically on United (note that this extends to whichever lounges are labeled “Gold” lounges, which won’t include Polaris lounges to my knowledge but rather the simpler “United Club” lounges). Note that you do not need to be crediting your flight to Singapore to get lounge access — with Star Alliance, you simply need to show proof of your Star Alliance status to gain entry (they’ll look up your membership number).

As a family traveler, the extra baggage allowance also appeals to me given the fact that I haven’t had a United credit card for several years and the occasion when I fly United is usually because I’m flying on an award ticket booked with partner miles or because I’m flying a cheap fare class with United Travel Bank credit that probably doesn’t include checked bags. We almost always check a bag / bags, so I’ll take what I can get in terms of baggage allowance. I have also found Gold fast track security and immigration useful on occasion. At Chicago O’Hare a year or two ago, I discovered the Gold fast track security line all the way at the end of the terminal where there was wait time at all for security (at the time, I didn’t have CLEAR).

But to be clear, Star Alliance Gold status isn’t wildly valuable unless you’re flying Star Alliance carriers often enough to make good use of the lounge access and other airport benefits. Still, I was intrigued by how easily someone could get to Gold.

The easy path to Star Alliance Gold

Marriott Platinum status is relatively easy to obtain. While you would need to stay in Marriott hotels for 50 nights a year if you played the game without any credit cards, those who leverage the perks of credit cards will find it much easier.

That’s because the Marriott Bonvoy Brilliant American Express card offers complimentary Marriott Platinum status. The card has a very high annual fee, but I imagine that someone could open that card, get Marriott Bonvoy Platinum status, link accounts, and be off to the races.

Alternatively, if you have any number of Marriott consumer credit cards, you get 15 elite night credits per year. If you have any number of Marriott business credit cards, you also get 15 elite night credits per year. Therefore, if you have one or more consumer cards and one or more business cards, you get 30 elite night credits each year (note that you do not get multiple sets of elite night credits for having multiple consumer cards — the only stack here is with a consumer card and a business card). Since I have several Marriott consumer cards and a Marriott business card, I start each year with 30 elite qualifying nights. I only need to spend 20 nights in Marriott hotels to earn Marriott Bonvoy Platinum status. For more on shortcuts to elite status, see our Marriott Bonvoy Complete Guide.

As fate would have it, I haven’t spent 20 nights in Marriott hotels this year in addition to my credit card elite nights (I’m currently at 42 nights with credit card elite nights)….and I haven’t yet decided if I’m going to try to get the last few nights in. I don’t really want to waste the money or points on a mattress run, but I do have some stays next year where having Platinum status would be nice and I’m two years of Platinum and about 150 nights short of Lifetime Platinum status….so a few nights this year would lock up one of those years, leaving me one more year to have to get to 50 nights and then I can let my credit cards ride me out to the 600 nights for Lifetime Platinum). At any rate, I had to at least imagine doing this Singapore Gold status run this year since I may not have Platinum status next year.

But having Marriott Platinum status is only half the battle: then you need 4 flights flown on Singapore Airlines within 6 months of registration. Award flights and codeshare flights do not count. All fare classes except for “G” (group fares) qualify.

After reading through the terms, I see no other exclusions, so I expect that fifth freedom flights will count.

For those of us based in the United States, this makes Singapore’s Fifth Freedom route between Barcelona and Milan pretty interesting. That’s because fares on this route are reasonable enough at $107 on most days from Barcelona to Milan.

And it only costs a few dollars more in the opposite direction.

The deal gets even better round trip as it rings in from $189 whether starting in Barcelona or Milan.

The terms of the match say that you need four flights on Singapore Airlines, not four trips, so I assume that two round trips (at a cost of $378) would be enough to meet the challenge and end up with Singapore Krisflyer Gold for 12 months from the date of achievement.

Is Star Alliance Gold status for 12 months for $378 worth it? I imagine it certainly could be to someone who flies Star Alliance regularly — and it certainly represents one of the cheapest paths to Star Alliance Gold that we’ve seen in recent memory (that time during the pandemic when it was possible to get Singapore Gold by transferring enough points to Singapore aside as I don’t think we’ll ever see that again).

The biggest trouble for a mileage runner is that those $189 fares seem to require staying for several days. Not only are they not available on a same-day turn, but they aren’t even inexpensive on a next-day turn in most cases (I did find some for $215-229, but on other dates when the next-day return was available, fares were often $353 in my test searches).

That said, the timing of the flights might work out. Slight SQ378 from Milan to Barcelona arrives in Barcelona at 9:15am.

Then flight SQ3477 from Barcelona to Milan departs at 10:40am.

Again, you can’t book that as a same-day turn, but you could theoretically nest two separate round trips. I don’t know for sure whether this would work and/or what the cutoff times might be to show up to check in at the airport, but with an hour and thirty-five minutes between flights within the Schengen Zone, I imagine that maybe something like this could work:

Round trip #1 for $189:

• Sunday, May 12 (outbound)
  • Milan to Barcelona. Depart Milan at 7:40am, arrive in Barcelona at 9:15am
• Sunday, May 19 (return)
  • Barcelona to Milan. Depart Barcelona at 10:40am, arrive in Milan at 12:20pm.

Round trip #2 for $189:

• Sunday, May 12 (outbound)
  • Barcelona to Milan. Depart Barcelona at 10:40am, arrive in Milan at 12:20pm
• Sunday, May 19 (return)
  • Milan to Barcelona. Depart Milan at 7:40am, arrive in Barcelona at 9:15am

Those are are referred to as nested trips because one happens “within” the other. I separated them above by “round trip” as that’s how you would book them. However, put in chronological order, it would look like this:

• Sunday, May 12
  • Milan to Barcelona. Depart Milan at 7:40am, arrive in Barcelona at 9:15am (outbound trip #1)
  • Barcelona to Milan. Depart Barcelona at 10:40am, arrive in Milan at 12:20pm (outbound trip #2)
• Sunday, May 19
  • Milan to Barcelona. Depart Milan at 7:40am, arrive in Barcelona at 9:15am (return trip #2)
  • Barcelona to Milan. Depart Barcelona at 10:40am, arrive in Milan at 12:20pm. (return trip #1)

As you can see, you’d need to spend about 5 hours on two separate dates mileage running to make this happen. I picked Sundays to show that it’s possible on a weekend (non-work) day, but you could probably build something similar on other days of the week that are at least a few days apart. If you were willing to commit half a day on two separate days to this, you could get Gold status pretty cheaply.

It’s unfortunate the the timing on nesting trips doesn’t work out so well when starting in Barcelona (you’d have to stay in the night in Milan before the turn both times) because East Coast cities like New York and Boston (and I believe Washington Dulles) frequently have economy class award availability on Iberia for 17,000 Avios and about $85 one-way. If you catch a transfer bonus, that could be a cheap way to position for this if you’re starting in Barcelona. That said, Air France / KLM Flying Blue Promo Rewards pretty frequently make it possible to get to Europe for even fewer points (and fewer yet with a transfer bonus). And don’t forget Virgin Atlantic for flying on Air France and KLM — I see some dates for 12,000 Virgin points and about $170 (though you might find a cash fare that’s even more attractive depending on dates).

I should be clear that I don’t know for sure that the same-day nested trips would work. This could perhaps be especially problematic when there is a significant flight delay. I expect both flights would end up delayed by the same amount of time, but I don’t know for sure that you wouldn’t have a problem if you miss the scheduled check-in cutoff time at the airport (though neither do I know for sure that you would even have to go to the check-in counter for flights entirely within the Schengen zone? I haven’t tried a same-day turn in Europe before). All that is to say that it’s worth doing more research before you try that move. If you have the time and/or desire to see both cities, nested trips a day or days apart should be no problem at all.

Bottom line

I doubt that many people would seriously consider positioning to Europe in order to get cheap Star Alliance Gold status. That said, I could see some people who already have a trip planned to either Milan or Barcelona finding enough value in four cheap flights to make it worth getting Singapore Gold status. Maybe. And even those who aren’t wildly interested in Star Alliance Gold status might find this intriguing for the possibility of parlaying Singapore Gold status into meaningful status with some other airline as part of a status match down the road, though that type of opportunity is far from guaranteed. I probably won’t pursue this one, but I love thinking about the game even when I’m not playing it.

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