United Airlines is offering a status match opportunity for 2026, allowing you to temporarily match your elite status from another airline to United. Then, after meeting a set of reduced requirements within a 120-day period, you can extend your United status through the remainder of the program year.
This year, United is allowing top-tier elite members of other domestic airlines to match all the way up to United’s Premier 1K status. As far as I can remember, this hasn’t been possible in previous years’ versions of this offer.
The Deal
- United MileagePlus is once again offering a status match challenge. If approved for the challenge, you’ll get instant MileagePlus status for 120 days with the chance to extend that status through the end of the 2026 program year with the following activity:
- Premier Silver: Fly 5 Premier Qualifying Flights (PQF) and earn 1,700 Premier Qualifying Points (PQP) on flights operated by United or United Express
- Premier Gold: Fly 10 PQF and earn 3.400 PQP on flights operated by United or United Express
- Premier Platinum: Fly 15 PQF and earn 5,000 PQP on flights operated by United or United Express
- Premier 1K: Fly 20 PQF and earn 7,500 PQP on flights operated by United or United Express
Airline program status match examples
Terms and Conditions
- Offer is not valid for members who have participated in the MileagePlus® Status Match program within the last 3 years or received a Premier Status Exception within the last 5 years.
- To request a MileagePlus Status Match, a participant must be an authenticated member of MileagePlus and hold an active account with an eligible airline and have an eligible elite level valid for the current calendar year.
- Members who have qualified for their current elite level with the other airline due to meeting published criteria or lifetime status awards are eligible for the Status Match program.
- Members who hold elite status because of a trial, temporary or promotional elite status in the other airline program, are not eligible for the MileagePlus Premier Status Match program.
- Members who have recently enrolled in MileagePlus and have not yet authenticated their account may not be eligible to participate in this offer. United reserves the right to request supplemental documentation from participants to determine Status Match eligibility.
- Members who have successfully submitted the required documentation and who have met the eligibility criteria to participate in the Premier Status Match offer must complete an Activating Flight before being granted Premier Silver, Premier Gold or Premier Platinum status. Such status will become effective within five to seven business days after completing an Activating Flight. An “Activating Flight” is a flight operated by United or United Express® that is completed within 90 days after the documentation that you submit for this offer is approved and the flight is posted to the member’s MileagePlus account.
- Members who do not complete an Activating Flight in the required time period, will no longer be eligible for the Premier Status Match offer, and are not eligible to again submit for a Premier Status Match in the same calendar year.
- Complimentary Premier status will be effective for 120 days starting from the date of the Activating Flight (“Challenge Period”).
- If during the registration process, the member identifies themselves as having flown on a United or United Express flight(s) in the past 30 days, that has already posted to their MileagePlus Account and has a flight date on or after January 1, 2026, we will complete a one-time review, and if eligible, we will consider it the Activating Flight. If a member has more than one United flight in the past 30 days, we will consider the earliest flight flown as the Activating Flight. This request may only be made at the time of document submission.
- Offer only valid on flights operated by United and United Express. Not valid on United-marketed codeshare flights operated by other carriers.
- Flights must be posted to the MileagePlus account in order to qualify. PQP earned for the base fare and carrier-imposed surcharges count toward this offer. PQP and PQF earned from United and United Express travel on MileagePlus Award tickets or where members have selected Money + Miles as their payment option are eligible towards this offer. PQP earned from Economy Plus seating, preferred seat purchases, MileagePlus Upgrade Award co-pays, paid upgrades do count towards this offer. PQP earned from Economy Plus subscriptions, promotional PQF or PQP, PQP earned from conversion of other currencies, and/or credit card PQF or PQP do not count toward this offer. Basic Economy tickets earn PQP but do not earn PQF.
- Through this offer, members will not be able to qualify for a higher Premier status level than the one they are matched to in MileagePlus, even if they fly more than the qualifying travel requirements during the Challenge Period. However, members will be able to qualify to a higher status level if they reach one of the published qualification thresholds for Premier status.
- Earned 2026 Premier status is valid through January 2028. The MileagePlus status is valid through January 2029 for customers who earn Premier status through this offer on or after January 1, 2027.
Quick Thoughts
United has again brought back its annual status match challenge, with the same thresholds as last year. The temporary status doesn’t begin until after your first post-registration flight (referred to as the “activating flight”), and it’s then valid for 120 days from that point.
For at least the past couple of years, United has only allowed matches up to MileagePlus Premier Platinum. This year, it’s allowing Delta Diamonds and AA Executive Platinums to match all the way to United’s Premier 1K status, then extend that all the way through January 2028 by flying 20 PQF and earning 7,500 PQP. Atmos’ Titanium status isn’t listed, but United has all of Alaska Mileage Plan’s old tier names in the chart; my assumption is that it would allow for a match to Premier 1K, along with Delta and AA top-tier members.
Given that, you’d want to time your match request to a period when you anticipate flying the number of United cash fares you’ll need to complete the challenge. You can only do it once every 3 years, so I would only recommend going after this challenge if you anticipate being able to make good use of the benefits during the 2026 program year.
While United publishes the table above to indicate which statuses from other airlines correspond to the various United MileagePlus status levels, the chart is a “partial list.” In other words, if you have status with an unlisted airline, you aren’t necessarily out of luck.
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Does anyone know: If you conditionally match to a higher tier based on your current status with another carrier, can you complete the requirements for a lower tier for your ongoing status? In otherwords, if I match to 1K bc of my AA Executive Platinum Status, but can only complete the requirements for UA Gold, would I achieve that tier?
[…] United launched its 2026 status match opportunity, and for the first time in a decade, you can match to 1K. Status is valid for four months and includes reduced tiers to maintain status.Generally Star Alliance Gold is a valuable status to hold especially for lounge access, but less so on United. (Thanks to FM) […]
How does United know or verify this? I’m asking because I’ve read where others have used a promotional match to then qualify for another more desirable status challenge.
Sadly, United uses very outdated Alaska status info, before Alaska added 100K two years ago, then changed last year to Titanium (my status), both of which are equal to AA EP. We are United Million Milers, so we get Lifetime Gold as a minimum. Platinum isn’t worth the effort, but returning to 1K status would definitely be worth my time and money on a status challenge.
The United website says:
“Offer is not valid for members who have participated in the MileagePlus® Status Match program within the last 3 years or received a Premier Status Exception within the last 5 years.”
Is it not every 3 years then? Unless United offers you a Premier Status Exception.
Yep, that’s correct. Previous versions have been 5 years for both Status Match or Exception, but United has now separated them out into different time frames. I updated the post accordingly.
Could you use a basic economy ticket as your activation flight?
I have this same question! Any answer? Terms for activation flights says “Flights on tickets that do not earn Premier qualifying credits do not qualify for meeting the requirements of this offer”….are “qualifying credits” referring to Premier Qualifying Points (PQP) or Premier Qualifying Flights (PQF)? Basic earns PQP’s but not PQF’s…SO CONFUSING
Reply
[…] United has a status match to Silver, Gold, or Platinum, and an accompanying challenge running through June 30. The match is good for 120 days once it’s activated; but to activate it you have to take a United flight within 90 days of the match approval. You can retain status through the program year (through January 2027) with some Premier Qualifying Flights (PQF) and Premier Qualifying Points (PQP) earning. Status is most useful for free checked bags, economy plus seating, and lounge access on international itineraries. In theory you can only match every five years, but also in theory: (1) communism works, and (2) the colors of gummy bears are evenly distributed. (Thanks to FM) […]
Just got my new ITA Executive card yesterday in the mail, good for a year. Got it through status match from AA EXP. I’m hoping they change to Star Alliance quickly so I can get *A Gold for a while.
I’ve been waiting over half a year for that, is there any way to follow up with them?
Not to the best of my knowledge. Honestly I’m shocked that this arrived. It was mailed from Italy (at a cost of 20 Euro) in December. I did my status match many months ago. I suspect that with the new Lufthansa ownership and eventual change to Star Alliance, sending these out will stop. I hope yours is on the way.
There is or was a free match to Lufthansa Senator for ITA Exec (even via the old status match)… So you should already be Star Gold!
Lufthansa wanted to see my account activity before matching. I had none so I didn’t get the match.
That was the original match through LH direct….. there is a new one through https://lufthansa.statusmatch.com/
and they mailed the card from Germany with leather luggage tags!!
So they get an easier match than the ones who already hold it with United. What a joke United has become.
Just applied to match my AA Platinum. The system approved the request instantly.
What did you provide if I may ask ? The screenshot I am providing from my desktop is not going through
Just a screenshot of AA membership when I login to their website from a desktop browser.
United rejected my screenshot showing AA Platinum status. I have lifetime Platinum, so it doesn’t show an expiration date.
How is “authenticated” enforced?