TAP Air Portugal’s Miles&Go frequent flyer program offers quite a few promotions to earn miles and elite status. For quite a while now, TAP Air Portugal has been offering a generous status match promotion, which is particularly useful if you’d get value out of Star Alliance status. I wanted to post a reminder of this offer, as it continues to be available in 2022.
In this post:
TAP Air Portugal status match promotion
TAP Miles&Go offers a status match campaign, making it easy for members to earn either Silver or Gold status, which corresponds to Star Alliance Silver or Star Alliance Gold status.
This promotion is available to both new Miles&Go members, as well as those who have signed up for the program recently:
- If you’re a new member you must register and attach a copy of your frequent flyer card for the program you wish to match from; the copy must include a complete image of the card and include the cardholder’s name, the card number, the expiry date, and the status
- If you have been a member since January 1, 2020, just send a complete copy of your frequent flyer card to [email protected]
You’ll then need to complete one of the following two challenges to receive your status within 10 days of of being notified that your application has been validated:
- Sign-up for Club TAP Miles & Go, which starts at $122 per year
- Purchase TAP Miles&Go miles, which can potentially be done at an even lower cost
Which programs are eligible for the TAP Air Portugal status match?
You can match status from most non-Star Alliance programs. You can find a full list of programs that TAP will match from here, along with corresponding status you’d receive with TAP.
How long is TAP Air Portugal status valid for?
Your status match will be approved within 15 days of completing all eligibility requirements, and then the status will be valid for a minimum of 12 months. You’ll even be able to extend it beyond that with reduced requirements, as follows:
- Maintain Silver status with 10,000 status miles and two flights on TAP Air Portugal
- Maintain Gold status with 25,000 status miles and four flights on TAP Air Portugal
What are TAP Air Portugal elite benefits like?
If you decide to match to TAP Air Portugal status, what kind of benefits should you expect?
TAP Air Portugal Miles&Go Silver status offers:
- 25% bonus miles
- Priority check-in, security, and boarding
- Free seat reservations
- Lounge access when traveling on international TAP flights
- Star Alliance Silver status
TAP Air Portugal Miles&Go Gold status offers:
- 50% bonus miles
- Lounge access whenever traveling same day on a Star Alliance flight (even on domestic flights within the USA you receive lounge access
- The ability to nominate a companion to Gold status (however, this isn’t available to those who have matched)
- Free Economy Xtra seat assignment
- Increased checked baggage allowance
- Star Alliance Gold status
The benefits here could potentially be valuable, especially with Star Alliance Gold status, which even gets you extra baggage and lounge access when flying other Star Alliance airlines. For those in the United States who fly United frequently, this could be a great opportunity, since you could access United Clubs even when traveling domestically.
Are TAP Air Portugal miles valuable?
To be honest, Miles&Go miles as such aren’t particularly valuable. TAP miles can be redeemed on all Star Alliance airlines, as well as select other airline partners, like Emirates. However, redemption rates tend to be high, and the airline does have carrier imposed surcharges on award tickets.
That being said, just because the miles as such aren’t particularly valuable doesn’t mean that there isn’t a lot of value to be had with having status in the program.
Bottom line
TAP Air Portugal’s status match promotion is one of the best out there for Star Alliance status (though Singapore Airlines KrisFlyer also has an interesting Star Alliance Gold opportunity). Your status will be valid for at least 12 months, and while you do need to make a small purchase, there’s otherwise no flying requirement.
The only flying requirement is if you want to extend your status beyond a year, in which case you can requalify based on reduced criteria. This is an easy path to Star Alliance Gold status, which can get you lounge access on all Star Alliance itineraries, even domestic ones within the United States.
Is anyone taking advantage of this TAP Air Portugal status match promotion?
I think this has ended? The link for the status match on the TAP website no longer works.
Been impossible to check out via their site to purchase a club membership. Good news is a representative got it done for 99 euros, saving me $22USD.
Great article, thanks.
I am moving to Portugal and am currently United 1K. Does it make any sense for me to match on TAP? Is there any advantage to that vs just adding my 1k number to all TAP flights. Looking for the pros and cons. I already have United Club access through the United Club Credit card.
U cannot match from a Star alliance partner.
There is one important restriction: you must have joined AFTER January 1st, 2020 (or you are not part of the program yet).
Stupid restriction if you ask me, because you are leaving your frequent flyers out and attracting the ones who will never fly with you... No wonder TAP is under huge financial pressure.
I’m probably not the first person to mention this. But this post made me think, I find it peculiar and a bit funny how almost all of the European Star Alliance airlines have frequent flyer programs named “Miles & ___”. Like Lufthansa Group has Miles & More, Turkish (since they’re based on the European side I’m counting them) has Miles & Smiles, Aegean has Miles + Bonus, and TAP right here has Miles & GO....
I’m probably not the first person to mention this. But this post made me think, I find it peculiar and a bit funny how almost all of the European Star Alliance airlines have frequent flyer programs named “Miles & ___”. Like Lufthansa Group has Miles & More, Turkish (since they’re based on the European side I’m counting them) has Miles & Smiles, Aegean has Miles + Bonus, and TAP right here has Miles & GO. SAS is the only exception I know of, since their program is called EuroBonus. Why is this the case? Did everyone just copy Lufthansa (I’m guessing they were the first one)? Seems kind of annoying and it would be nice if someone got more creative. I don’t believe there is another example of this kind of repetition in any other part of the world.
TAP used to call their program Victoria until recently. I honestly don't understand why their marketing team thought renaming it as any other Eurpean airline's FFP was a good idea.
TAP must be one of the worst airlines for customer service and like their Star Alliance peers their miles soon expire if not used, I.e. it’s hard to save them up for that big trip
Are there any experiences by people who already did this match once in 2020 and would like to do it once more now?
Hi Lucky.
Do you know how the TAP Miles&GO Gold free Economy Xtra seat assignment works in practice?
I did the status match and am now Gold, but I searched Google and not one site explains how it actually works (including TAP). I've even tried to book a dummy reservation and am unable to select an Economy Xtra seat assignment for free when booking anything less than Classic (which I believe already includes an Economy...
Hi Lucky.
Do you know how the TAP Miles&GO Gold free Economy Xtra seat assignment works in practice?
I did the status match and am now Gold, but I searched Google and not one site explains how it actually works (including TAP). I've even tried to book a dummy reservation and am unable to select an Economy Xtra seat assignment for free when booking anything less than Classic (which I believe already includes an Economy Xtra seat).
Sorry, but am I missing something?
Lucky.
Your paid or otherwise pop up videos are a pain in the ass. Half the time I click the x or closure button, it takes me to the advertisers website.
I call Bullshit... still enjoy your blog though.
4,000 TAP miles are sold for $174. Isn't the $122 Club Tap the cheaper option? Are there frequent discounts/sales on the miles?
This sounds potentially like a very interesting route to *Gold.
Questions (I could not easily find the answers on the status match site you linked):
1. What is the cheapest / best value way to complete the status match?
2. What is the cheapest price at which you've seen TAP points available on a reasonably frequent basis (say, once a year)?
3. What does "a minimum of 12 months" mean? Does it mean 12...
This sounds potentially like a very interesting route to *Gold.
Questions (I could not easily find the answers on the status match site you linked):
1. What is the cheapest / best value way to complete the status match?
2. What is the cheapest price at which you've seen TAP points available on a reasonably frequent basis (say, once a year)?
3. What does "a minimum of 12 months" mean? Does it mean 12 calendar months from approval and then you can requalify? Or does it mean the rest of the current calendar year and all of the following year?
4. To requalify for Gold, can you earn status miles by crediting other flights (such as United domestic flights) to TAP? How quickly / easily can you accrue those miles?
5. To requalify for Gold, the four flights have to be paid, not award flights, correct? Is that four segments, four one-ways, or four PNRs? Do they need to be booked through TAP, or just credited to TAP? Do they have to be on TAP metal, or do codeshares count?
The irony of the TAP Air status match is by the time they respond your matching status has expired. Then you realise that Star Alliance Gold means absolutely nothing.
It's been 3 weeks since I signed up for the status match with TAP and still not received any further communication.
Be patient, they will likely send you a confirmation shortly. In my case, I signed up in late May 2021 and I received the confirmation email in October 2021 with an apology for the delay in responding. So it only took about 5 months to respond which while in usual times is terrible, it was actually helpful because I now have status later through 2022 and with international travel still logistically challenging due to flight...
Be patient, they will likely send you a confirmation shortly. In my case, I signed up in late May 2021 and I received the confirmation email in October 2021 with an apology for the delay in responding. So it only took about 5 months to respond which while in usual times is terrible, it was actually helpful because I now have status later through 2022 and with international travel still logistically challenging due to flight cancellations and covid tests it was actually a welcome surprise.