Fly 10K miles or less to be Continental elite

Continental (CO) now has a published status match via a challenge. According to the policy, they will match your Elite status in any other airline (most probably not in Star Alliance) to an equivalent status on CO for 90 days. In order to maintain the status after the status match window, you need to satisfy the following challenge:

Silver	Fly 10,000 Elite Qualifying Miles or 15 Elite Qualifying Segments to retain Silver Elite status
Gold	Fly 17,500 Elite Qualifying Miles or 22 Elite Qualifying Segments to retain Gold Elite status
Platinum	Fly 35,000 Elite Qualifying Miles or 40 Elite Qualifying Segments to retain Platinum Elite status

Normally it is not a good idea to go for status match unless you know you can complete the challenge and keep your status. Even then it is risky because this will make you ineligible for a future status match with the airline. However, with CO you have nothing to lose! The airline will be non-existent in 2012. And I doubt United (UA) will take this status match into account if you later try to do a status match into UA sometime in the next 5 years.

So, if you have flights coming up on CO, why not enjoy the extra bonus miles and other perks of status like complimentary upgrades? In fact, if you can fly at least 10K EQM/15 segments, this is a golden opportunity for you to have CO Elite status until Dec 2011.

This leads to an interesting possibility for those with no status and got into the (now dead) BMI instant Silver status offer. I have not done this myself but may be worth a try for some of you.

CO will not match your BMI Silver status since it would be considered poaching within the alliance. However until 3/31 Air France/KLM will match BMI Silver status to Silver on Flying Blue. To place your status request, follow this LINK* and enter your BMI Diamond Club number. Take a screen shot of your BMI Silver status (I am assuming you don’t have your cards yet) and attach it with the Flying Blue status match request. If they do not ask for your mileage balance, you should be Silver Elite on Flying Blue. And then you can come back with the Flying Blue Silver status get a Silver Status with Continental. Such a convoluted route, but with a few flights, you will reap the gain!

Happy Elite Experience.

– The Nomad

* Note: If you don’t have a Flying Blue account yet, open an account first when you open the link for status match. To do this, first click on “Benefit from membership at and equivalent level with Flying Blue”. Then on the status match page, click on the link to register. After registering, come back to enter your status match request.

“Edit: User Aleks points out that another way to get the Continental status without really flying is by transferring Membership Reward (MR) Points to Delta. Delta has a promotion for 50% bonus and 25MQM for first tranferring 50K MR Points. The MQM gives you instant Silver status on Delta. This silver status can be matched to Continental Silver status. Thanks Aleks”