In late January I wrote about a shady website selling airline elite status, with the URL airlinestatus.com. Shortly after my story was published, a new website was created with the URL joindeluxe.com, selling exactly the same elite status at exactly the same prices. It seems pretty clear what’s going on here. Below you can find the original post, though I’ve added references to joindeluxe.com as well, since it’s a website people should be cautious about.
In this post:
Buy airline elite status with airlinestatus.com & joindeluxe.com
The website airlinestatus.com (and joindeluxe.com, but let me focus the examples on airlinestatus.com) claims to be selling airline elite status. The website is selling elite status with American AAdvantage, Delta SkyMiles, Hawaiian Airlines HawaiianMiles, JetBlue TrueBlue, Southwest Rapid Rewards, and United MileagePlus.
The website operates with a 100% satisfaction guarantee, promising that “if you don’t receive a status upgrade within the specified time you’ll receive a full refund.”
There are a variety of status tiers being sold, and there’s generally a “one time set-up fee,” and then a fee every three to four months to maintain the status.
For example, you can score Delta Platinum status for a one-time fee of $300, plus a $99 fee every three months.
Meanwhile you can score United Premier 1K status for a one-time fee of $500, plus a $299 fee every four months.
You can also score American Executive Platinum status for a one-time fee of $600, plus a $299 fee every four months.
So, how is this all possible? According to airlinestatus.com, the company is selling corporate travel benefits for situations where companies have excess status nominations:
“Due to inaccurate demand forecasting, many companies overestimate the corporate travel benefits they need. Rather than letting them expire, these companies allow us to acquire their benefits packages and make them available on our platform. This approach results in massive savings which we are able to pass on to you. We only collect a small fee for facilitating this service to frequent fliers all over the world.”
We don’t know a whole lot about who is behind the company, and conveniently the company’s “About Us” page is blank. There are some other things that are pretty shady. For example, the website shows five star reviews from Trustpilot…
…yet when you go to Trustpilot, there are no reviews listed for the website.
Caution: this violates airline rules
Let’s take what airlinestatus.com claims at face value. Yes, some companies do get elite status to gift as part of a corporate travel agreement. However, without exception, selling this elite status to a third party violates the terms of airline frequent flyer programs. Period. So even if we take what’s being claimed at face value, that already violates the rules.
For example, here are the relevant terms & conditions of Delta SkyMiles:
The sale or barter of mileage credit, vouchers, Award Tickets, Medallion Status, Pay with Miles tickets or any other benefit by SkyMiles Members, or the attempt of any of the foregoing, is prohibited. Delta will terminate or deduct mileage from the account of any Member who violates this rule. Award Certificates, Award Tickets, or Pay with Miles tickets obtained through prohibited sale or barter transactions are VOID, invalid for travel, and will be confiscated. Persons trying to use such tickets will not be permitted to travel unless they purchase a ticket from Delta at the applicable fare.
I see some people on Reddit discussing airlinestatus.com, and claiming that airlines wouldn’t punish people acting in “good faith” by buying airline status from a company that claims to be legitimate. I absolutely wouldn’t follow that line of thinking. Is it possible you get away with it? Sure. Is it possible you end up with your frequent flyer account suspended, with no recourse? Absolutely.
Now, the other question is whether we should take what airlinestatus.com is claiming at face value. As much as I’d love to test this out and see how they operate, I don’t want to jeopardize any of my own accounts, so I won’t do that.
I will point out a few things, though:
- Interestingly the amount of time for which you receive status coincides with the publicly available status challenge lengths that programs offer; Delta’s status challenges last for 90 days, while American’s status challenges last for 120 days, just as is the case here
- While I’m not suggesting that airlinestatus.com necessarily does this, some people do try to start status challenges with doctored credentials, which isn’t too hard to do nowadays with how easy it is to change the text on websites
- Someone on Reddit claims that after purchasing the status through airlinestatus.com, they received an email from Delta stating that the carrier is looking into the status match request, and will get back to them soon
Now, what I can’t wrap my head around is how airlinestatus.com can extend status beyond the initial three to four month trial period, without some sort of travel requirement. Just about all status challenges (whether directly through an airline or through a corporate agreement) require some amount of activity to maintain the status after that period.
It seems airlinestatus.com has only gotten attention within the past few weeks, so I’m not sure anyone has actually faced what happens after that initial trial period. I’d be very curious to see what happens when someone tries to renew their status for a second period of three or four months.
Personally I’d be shocked if airlinestatus.com is up in its current form a month from now.
Bottom line
A spiffy-looking website named airlinestatus.com is selling airline status, claiming that it’s acting as the middle man between consumers and companies with too many corporate status nominations.
While I can’t say with certainty how airlinestatus.com is attaining these status matches, what I can say is that buying airline elite status (even through a third party) violates the terms & conditions of virtually all airline loyalty programs.
The amount of time status is valid is also suspiciously similar to how long public status challenges are valid for, which makes you wonder. If you do decide to purchase status from this website, you’ve been warned…
There’s now a new website with the URL joindeluxe.com, which is doing exactly the same thing, at exactly the same cost, with exact the same graphics. The website was set up shortly after my previous story on this shady practice, so I think it’s obvious what’s going on.
What do you make of airlinestatus.com and joindeluxe.com?
Any updates on this in the last year? Seems like the sites are still at it.
Anyone know about getting status on Virgin Atlantic?
Thanks
I have a friend who purchased the American one and said he has used it and been upgraded on 80% of his flights so far. Im thinking of trying the united one.
Several of the airlines seem to have fallen off, United, notably.
Ben...thank you for this article however its a lesson learned by me to late. As the saying goes...if its too good to be true...it is"
I fell victim to this scam. In Dec 2022 I saw an advertisement on social media from airlinestatus claiming 1 full year of platinum status with delta for $499. I reviewed their website and it all appeared legit. Therefore I paid the fee for the upgrade and within a few...
Ben...thank you for this article however its a lesson learned by me to late. As the saying goes...if its too good to be true...it is"
I fell victim to this scam. In Dec 2022 I saw an advertisement on social media from airlinestatus claiming 1 full year of platinum status with delta for $499. I reviewed their website and it all appeared legit. Therefore I paid the fee for the upgrade and within a few days I received confirmation from Delta that I had Platinum status. However, on April 1st 2023 my status was downgraded (3 months later). I reached out to Airlinestatus to find out what happened and have emailed the company multiple times w/o any response and their online chat has been offline. Lesson learned...
I wouldn't go anywhere near them after reading their terms of service.
https://joindeluxe.com/terms-of-service/
If it is too good to be true, it probably is.
A Fool and his money.........
How do they downgrade your status if you do not maintain paying them?
Tried it. Had 1 reply from an email but then they ghosted so I charged back via Amex 6 weeks after card was charged.
Fwiw Billing company was elite travel llc but they didn’t answer their phone either.
Don’t bother.
As for how they extend status, I suspect that they don't. You pay the $399 up front for DL Platinum, they set up a status challenge with forged credentials, bill you for another $99 at the end of the challenge and then (maybe, if they haven't just absconded with the money) refund you the last $99.
Take the money that you would pay under this scheme and buy a lounge membership.
is it possible that it’s not actually tied to YOUR account, but rather a random one created in your name and submitted for a bogus match? In other words, does it say anywhere that they take your actual account and get you elite status, or simply that you will get elite status? It would be a big loophole if you can’t earn miles on your own account, but mechanically, it would be a lot easier to pull off.
Ben, this blog update is a perfect example of when we say we are confused and you need to highlight what exactly the update is. Other than stating that there's now a second website doing the same thing, from what I can tell/remember it appears to be the exact same blog from January.
@ pstm91 -- Sorry if it wasn't clear, my intent was to make it obvious in the introduction to the post. The website joindeluxe.com is doing exactly the same thing as airlinestatus.com, and if I had to guess, the two sites are related.
I agree @pstm91 - I am always confused when old articles are rehashed with vague updates intermixed within. It would be preferable that for a repost/update the article title reflect that with something like "UPDATE: " and that a clear section be added to the top of the original article outlining what the update is, some kind of delineation, followed by the original untampered article posted below that. Otherwise it becomes a big guessing game...
I agree @pstm91 - I am always confused when old articles are rehashed with vague updates intermixed within. It would be preferable that for a repost/update the article title reflect that with something like "UPDATE: " and that a clear section be added to the top of the original article outlining what the update is, some kind of delineation, followed by the original untampered article posted below that. Otherwise it becomes a big guessing game trying to find the updates in an article I don't care to re-read in its entirety again.
Lol y’all expect too much from precious Ben, he just wants to republish old articles, like HUUUGE ALASKA BONUS.
The webpage is already down with a message that gives an email contact address.
I am a lowly Silver Medallion and was looking at getting Platinum in order to get Comfort Plus upon booking and the chance of getting upgraded more frequently. After doing some digging, I decided it was a really bad idea and I wouldn’t want to chance getting all my frequent flyer perks revoked from Delta if they somehow found out. Additionally, the nail in the coffin for me was when I reached out to their...
I am a lowly Silver Medallion and was looking at getting Platinum in order to get Comfort Plus upon booking and the chance of getting upgraded more frequently. After doing some digging, I decided it was a really bad idea and I wouldn’t want to chance getting all my frequent flyer perks revoked from Delta if they somehow found out. Additionally, the nail in the coffin for me was when I reached out to their “customer support team” to ask if it was even possible to get Platinum if I already had a level of status. Low and behold, I never got a response. If I couldn’t even get a response about a simple question, I seriously doubt they are refunding unsatisfied customers even with their money back guarantee.
Taylor, let's look at the math. There's a $300 set-up charge. Then, it's $400 per year. You're at $700 for year one. What if you took that $700 and put it towards upgrading yourself to Comfort Plus?
The math works in favor of purchasing the status. Why pay 700 for comfort plus, when you can upgrade to platinum and get complimentary 1st class upgrades on all flights domestic. You also get baggage benefits, and accrue miles at an increased rate (regardless of how deprecated the miles are these days)
I saw Delta, Alaska Air and various hotel status for sale on Ebay.
My question is how can the companies give them the unused status since it is tied to someone's account? That's proably a lie. I would not want my name and personal information tied to such suspicious behavior since the ramifications of losing points or status or future use of the airline's loyalty porgram is bigger.
It's honestly a gray zone. It's legal & nobody gets in trouble with the airline as far as I know but the way they do it is shady.
I worked for a startup that tried to do the same thing but eventually ran out of funding. The sales team sits there and does cold outreach to a list of companies who have business accounts with Delta, United, & other major airlines. In your article you...
It's honestly a gray zone. It's legal & nobody gets in trouble with the airline as far as I know but the way they do it is shady.
I worked for a startup that tried to do the same thing but eventually ran out of funding. The sales team sits there and does cold outreach to a list of companies who have business accounts with Delta, United, & other major airlines. In your article you referenced Delta's ToS but you should look up "delta corporate traveler program" or "united corporate preferred" to learn more.
Most of them operate in the same exact way. You get X travel benefits for your employees and you have a way to assign them since employees come and go.
Whenever a company does layoffs, like right now with the tech industry, you will see the market flooded with companies willing to sell excess status. Of course, companies like Google or Fortune100 won't even bother. Our sales team would acquire about 90% of it from the medical device sales industry and consulting companies.
Not an endorsement of AirlineStatus.com but just sharing my experience in the industry and how some of this works. I am definitely surprised to see them grow so quickly since inventory is a huge constraint in the space.
I bought Star Alliance Gold from a guy on ebay and after 3 months lost it, so when I complained he sent me to these guys to get it rolled over for another 3 months. So yes they are just using challenges and taking advantage of the fact airlines don't check or control status challenge applications. Delta are the worst!!! Their call centre approved a picture of my dog as evidence of status!!!
Is this George Santos’ new company?
"We may terminate or suspend Your access immediately, without prior notice or liability, for any reason whatsoever, including without limitation if You breach these Terms and Conditions. Upon termination, Your right to use the Service will cease immediately."
Time to speak to the back of my sack, Bryan
Hi Ben. I have seen this site brought up on Reddit in the UA forum a few times now, and got curious so started pulling at threads. I found the reddit account of the owner of the site, who has a history of posting in r/startup, r/entrepreneur, and various other business, web design, etc subs. The owner often deletes his posts, but I have a few screenshots of his past posts, including when he admits...
Hi Ben. I have seen this site brought up on Reddit in the UA forum a few times now, and got curious so started pulling at threads. I found the reddit account of the owner of the site, who has a history of posting in r/startup, r/entrepreneur, and various other business, web design, etc subs. The owner often deletes his posts, but I have a few screenshots of his past posts, including when he admits in a post that his site violates airline TOCs. The owner is now scheming of a new site which has to do with airline points. Happy to share details via email, I don’t want to drop his username here. Cheers.
Hello,
I'm a Corporate Travel Manager and figure that I would chime in since it's been referenced a few times here.
It's true that companies get status nominations to hand out per year. I used to be able to gift up to Global Services for UA, Concierge Key for AA, and Delta 360 for DL. We receive these as contract benefits in exchange for premises to spend certain amounts with certain airlines on certain routes.
...Hello,
I'm a Corporate Travel Manager and figure that I would chime in since it's been referenced a few times here.
It's true that companies get status nominations to hand out per year. I used to be able to gift up to Global Services for UA, Concierge Key for AA, and Delta 360 for DL. We receive these as contract benefits in exchange for premises to spend certain amounts with certain airlines on certain routes.
The status nominations are good for one year and can be renewed even if a traveler hasn't flown at all.
We also get access to status matches above and beyond those offered to the general public. The airlines verify employment by checking email domains, so a Travel Manager in on this would just use their email to secure a match.
Regardless of whether or not the traveler fulfilled the status match conditions, the Travel Manager can renomoninate the person for elite status using one of their contract gifts.
But you would not sell anything you have "in excess" to some random company, right?
Not if I still wanted a job.
I'm going to add, the airlines might not even verify.
As as long as the company is spending what is promised, status are given.
Depending on the agreement, it's possible to give the status challenge or annual status as often as you like.
Your personal account with gmail.com would still work.
Some companies don't even care because the airline sales team are the one offering to steal your business. So they just take the nominations,...
I'm going to add, the airlines might not even verify.
As as long as the company is spending what is promised, status are given.
Depending on the agreement, it's possible to give the status challenge or annual status as often as you like.
Your personal account with gmail.com would still work.
Some companies don't even care because the airline sales team are the one offering to steal your business. So they just take the nominations, sell them, and don't have to care about violating terms or relationship for next year.
>Now, what I can’t wrap my head around is how airlinestatus.com can extend status beyond the initial three to four month trial period, without some sort of travel requirement.
My guess would be that they can't. But since you got your initial 3/4 months, you can no longer claim the 100% satisfaction guarantee. Noticed that they charge a much more heftier initial setup fee? You won't get that back, but you might be able to...
>Now, what I can’t wrap my head around is how airlinestatus.com can extend status beyond the initial three to four month trial period, without some sort of travel requirement.
My guess would be that they can't. But since you got your initial 3/4 months, you can no longer claim the 100% satisfaction guarantee. Noticed that they charge a much more heftier initial setup fee? You won't get that back, but you might be able to get your next recurring payment back, maybe.
I signed up for Unobtanium Elite with DynamicAir, and DiamondPlatinum Royalty with Baltia. I'll let everyone know how it works out, fingers crossed for this one!!
https://whois.domaintools.com/airlinestatus.com
375 days old
Created on 2022-01-16
Expires on 2024-01-16
Updated on 2022-01-16
domain is just over a year old
This is great for when I book my flight on gotogate to visit my timeshare.
“Services” like these have been around in other parts of the world for a long time. My friend in China used to send me similar listings from Taobao to ask if they are legit (they are obviously status challenges). I’m surprised that it took this long for an English language site that offer these to show up :P
I saw this on Reddit too but the original user had posted it because he was trying to sell the technology behind the business. I was intrigued so I messaged him. Turns out it is a 16 year old kid in high school. He has multiple sites like this. He also sells on eBay.
Yo, this is spot on. I can corroborate seeing this kid posting in various subreddits trying to sell his 'profitable' business
Thanks for addressing that, and some good comments in there as well! I keep getting targeted with their ads on social media and have been wondering.
My opinion only: I believe they are lying on the website. Broken links to nonexistent testimonials were my first (no, sorry, second. oops, no sorry, twentieth) clue. Perhaps the reason the About Us" page is blank is that it hasn't had final approval from the parent company, Baltic Airways.
“ I believe they are lying on the website.”
Just like a Donald Trump fundraising page.
Willy, you mean this kid has a page to solicit money from dupes to pay for his aircraft repairs? Clever kid.
Look in the FAQ tab. All of the offers are status challenges. They probably (obviously?) just fake an OA status credential and match it to the airline. Then every 3-4 months when the challenge isn't met, they just rinse and repeat and that's why they don't ask for your FF#.
"We never collect any sensitive information like account credentials. We only need your first and last name, gender and date of birth. Because corporate benefits...
Look in the FAQ tab. All of the offers are status challenges. They probably (obviously?) just fake an OA status credential and match it to the airline. Then every 3-4 months when the challenge isn't met, they just rinse and repeat and that's why they don't ask for your FF#.
"We never collect any sensitive information like account credentials. We only need your first and last name, gender and date of birth. Because corporate benefits at United cannot be attached to existing accounts, we will create a new account for you. If you want to, you can merge it with your existing account once our process is done."
What I don’t understand is how they are accessing tiers that are not normally accessible through airline status match challenges.
As an example, their website allows you to “buy up” to United 1K, but if you were to do a United status challenge in the legitimate way, it is only possible to get a match up to Platinum. This is what threw me off in maybe it not just being doctored status images from other airlines, but would love your feedback Ben.
I think this is the "corporate" part. Corporate contracts may get these special challenges on top of nominations.
The part of the story I find hardest to believe is that corporations are frugal enough to sell the status every 3-4 months. It feels like a big corporation would just accept the loss and move on with life.
This story also opens the potential for them to provide the services for one billing period, and then say "sorry the corporation we bought from no longer has excess inventory, so we can't renew your subscription".
Some companies negotiate status challenges with airlines that don't require existing status and can be done even by people who had previously done a status match / challenge with the same airline. It's not impossible that this is what they're selling (though of course it's still against ToS and I'd personally be petrified of getting my account suspended).
Just for your information: If you check the FAQ for every status, you'll find that the website admits that every single status except the Hawaiian one are status challenges. So at least it's written somewhere. :)
Still doesn't explain how the promised extension will work if you don't make the challenge.
Interesting to see that the website shows trustpilot.com reviews from 2022 at the bottom, but without linking them.
If you open Trustpilot and check for airlinestatus.com, you'll find that they have exactly 0 reviews. Surprise, surprise...
I did a 30-second research about the lady shown on this page: https://airlinestatus.com/company
At least she knows what to wear at workplace... https://brunetteondemand.com/what-you-should-wear-at-workplace/
@ Daniel -- Great catch, thank you! I updated the post to reflect that, since I think that's an important point.
Hey Ben, I have come across this website many times over the past year on Reddit and have some information that shows how it evolved and how the 'founder' is pretty much scamming folks. Let me know if you want to know more about this website.
Luckily, i have an ITA status as well as a prestigious Starlux status. So I can just match my way to AA, DL und UA legally without paying exorbitant fees.
What a flex man.
Aside from the fact that the prices are exorbitant for what few benefits the sold status levels actually provide, it sort of seems a bit fraudy.
“sort of”?
“a bit”?
I have seen these offerings on eBay also. How about creating a completely new account after 3 months and then applying for the status match again? Maybe that is how they do it?
That's the okam's razor answer and my guess as well
They used to offer Alaska and stopped probably because they caught on
@Greg how is Occam's Razor relevant here? That's incredibly complex, wont work, and wrong.
Occam’s Razor is the simplest explanation is generally the most likely. That is what he was saying. You’re either being obtuse or aren’t half as bright as you think.
Not sure why you felt the need to be rude, @Robert. I'm fully aware of what he was saying, and disagreeing that it's simple. You cannot just create a new frequent flyer account when you already have one, or, if you for some reason don't care about miles(???) delete your old one and create a new one and just hope the airline doesn't notice (security? where?).
Idk... to me that doesn't sound simple. So, no, Occam's Razor does not apply.
The website seems to have changed since I last saw it (from an Instagram ad). I am close to positive that they used to overtly say that they'd create a new account every 3 months.