Star Alliance member TAP Portugal is known for its reasonably-priced Business Class fares between North America and Europe. (The airline is also known for having poor customer service and a decent, but not great, on-board product!) Although you don’t necessarily have to credit those TAP Portugal flights to TAP’s Miles & Go program, this article will explain why you might just want to…
Firstly, TAP Miles & Go is offering a double status miles promotion. You must:
- BOOK your travel between February 10th and 14th, 2022
- FLY before September 30, 2022
(you will also earn double the number of redeemable miles)
You can read about this promotion by clicking here.
Status Match
If you currently have elite status with a Oneworld or Skyteam program, you can status match to TAP Miles & Go and receive one year of Star Alliance Gold status.
Full details can be found on the Miles & Go website – click here.
You must be a new member of Miles&Go (or have signed up since 2020). If you have an older account, you might want to forget your login details and start over with a new account.
The process is pretty simple.
How Does it Work?
Miles & Go will notify you within 30 days whether your match has been accepted.
However, that’s not the end of it. You will then have merely 10 DAYS to do ONE of the following:
- Purchase at least 4,000 Miles&Go miles
- Join Club TAP Miles&Go at one of the four membership levels
Club Basic is the cheapest option at €99. (approximately $112)
I can’t emphasize this enough! Do NOT sign up for Club TAP Miles & Go before your status match application is approved!
Within 15 days of your sign-up to Club TAP Miles & Go, your account should finally be updated to reflect your new level of status.
What Do I Get With Club TAP Miles&Go Basic?
- Registration bonus miles – 2,000
- Monthly bonus miles – 1,000
- Monthly status miles – 50
- Renewal bonus miles – 4,000 (double registration).
- Additional Bonus Miles credit on TAP flights (percentage calculated on the number of miles accumulated and credited to the flight in question, this credit excludes the value of miles earned as a status bonus) – 15% up to a maximum of 5,000 bonus miles during the duration of the plan.
In fairly simple terms, you’d receive 2,000 miles for signing up and 1,000 miles per month thereafter. In essence, 14,000 miles for your $112. (be careful to turn off the automatic renewal)
Renewing Your Star Alliance Gold Status
To renew your Miles & Go status, you have 12 months to:
- Earn 25,000 status miles
- Fly 4 times on TAP Air Portugal (miles-earning fares)
Stacking the Double Status Mile Promo with the Status Match
As mentioned above, you need to earn 25,000 status miles within 12 months to renew your status for another year. But if you book your flights this weekend, you would potentially only need to fly half as far.
A single Business Class return trip from North America to Europe – connecting in Lisbon or Porto – should easily get you over the 4 flight and 25,000 status mile hurdle. Provided you book this weekend and fly before the end of September…
You might need to do some fancy footwork, however. You would have to:
- Sign-up to TAP Miles & Go today
- Book your flights this weekend
- Apply for the status match
- Wait until approved, then sign up for Club TAP Miles & Go
But this could potentially get you two years of Gold status with the Star Alliance, which would get you:
-
- Lounge access when flying in any cabin (in major hubs, you might find that the Star Alliance Gold lounge is not quite as nice as the Business Class or First Class / Senator lounges)
- Extra baggage
- Fast track security and boarding
- Priority check-in (i.e. Business Class check-in desks)
Bottom line
I wouldn’t normally recommend TAP Miles & Go for earning and burning miles – the award chart is very poor – but if you can earn 2 years of Star Alliance Gold status with a single return trip to Europe, it might just be worth attempt this stacked travel hack…
