Status matching is an opportunity to start new again, without having to feel like a newbie. It’s a chance to keep the perks you enjoy with your current loyalty program, but turn over a new leaf, one that perhaps offers greater benefits too. TAP Portugal is the Star Alliance airline making quite a name for itself, with aggressive expansion, free stopovers in Portugal en-route and now, a bonafide loyalty program worth paying attention to.
They’re offering status matches, bonus opportunities and miles when you get started too…
TAP Portugal is offering flyers an opportunity to match into its Miles & Go loyalty program, with matches as high as Star Alliance Gold.
For all travelers that’s great, but or US based travelers, that would mean lounge access on domestic flights, and of course whenever flying TAP Portugal or Star Alliance elsewhere in the world.
To match, you must currently hold elite status with an airline. You do not lose your status with that airline, you simply use it to show that you fly frequently enough to deserve some incentive to make a potential switch. Matching is pretty simple, and goes like…
| Airline / Alliance | Status | TAP Miles&Go Equivalent Status |
|---|---|---|
| Azul | TudoAzul Diamante | Gold |
| Emirates | Emirates Skywards Platinum | Gold |
| Emirates Skywards Gold | Gold | |
| GOL | Smiles Diamante | Gold |
| oneworld | oneworld Emerald | Gold |
| oneworld Sapphire | Gold | |
| SkyTeam | SkyTeam Elite Plus | Gold |
According to TAP, there’s two ways to register.
If you’re already a TAP Miles&Go member, you can participate in the Challenge by sending an email to promo@tapmilesandgo.com, with your name and TAP Miles&Go Client number, as well as your Customer Card from another eligible Miles Status/Program that proves you have a status that is the equivalent of the TAP Miles&Go status you are applying for.
If you’re not already a Miles&Go member, you can provide your Customer Card from another eligible airline Status/Program that proves you have a status of equivalent to the TAP Miles&Go status you are applying for.
Once you complete either action, you’ll need to either join Club TAP or buy some miles to complete the status challenge.
There’s no minimum to the number of miles you buy to satisfy this requirement, and the Miles & Go Club can provide excellent value with cheap miles via a subscription service. You must purchase miles or a Club subscription by March 31st, 2020.
The kicker? Once you have Gold, you can nominate a second person, so you’re effectively getting it for two!
TAP notes that you’ll hear the result of your match by or before April 20th, 2020 and the match lasts until September 2020, though actually flying 25,000 status miles would renew Star Alliance Gold.
Hot tip: TAP Portugal offers free stopovers in Lisbon or Porto, in either direction when you fly on one of their services, which makes it easy to turn any US-Europe trip into a 2 in 1 trip.
Full details for everything can be found here.
Obviously, one of the hardest things for an airline is convincing travelers to enter their first name, last name, date of birth and email address to join their loyalty program and become yet another blip in their inbox.
To help incentivize flyers, TAP Portugal is throwing in 1,000 miles upon registration to get you started. Even better, you can get up to 5,000 miles (1,000 per friend) when you refer a friend. Use code Birthday01 to get your 1,000 miles on registration here.
On top of all the other news, TAP is offering a bonus on mileage purchases for its lucrative Miles & Go Program, as well as a redemption campaign on the spending miles side of things…
The airline is offering discounts of 25% off destinations in the USA, Europe, Brazil, Azores and more, and all the offers can be found here on the TAP Miles & Go offers page. Most of the discounts apply to economy class travel.
For those hoping to buy miles, TAP is offering up to 5x on mileage purchases, so a 20,000 mile purchase for $870 would give you 100,000 TAP Portugal Miles & Go Miles.
Good Stuff, TAP Portugal!
This is a great foray into loyalty from TAP Portugal and one that I think many people will find great value out of. With TAP’s fleet of new Airbus A330-900neo aircraft featuring the latest and greatest in flat beds for business class and nice seats for economy, many people will be thrilled to discover a great option between the US and Europe, particularly with the 2 in 1 trip element via the fantastic stopover program. Great stuff, TAP…
So I already had a TAP account, open prior to Jan 1 2020… am I eligible? I’ve sent the email, will I still need to buy miles?
Eligible yes, need to buy miles or join one of the clubs, also yes.
So, the answer is no! I just received a response from TAP: ”We verified that your registration was made on the date 10/04/2018, hence, it’s not possible to attend your request.”
So this really is for very new accounts… I’m going to try to close my account and open a new one.
The answer – in my case – is yes. Registered yesterday and TAp answered directly that I have to buy miles….
Hold on.
My new account was credited 4x miles, 80,000 instead of 5x 100,000 on my 700 euro purchase.
Maybe the 20,000 base miles come later.
However, the 80,000 miles expire end of March 2021 and would cost far more than the original purchase price to extend for an additional 3 years.
Another minus, I received 200 miles for joining not 1000.
I smell a rat.
I’d contact TAP for clarification, but the websites are pretty clear that you’ll get 5x etc.
The 5x glitch has been fixed. The missing 1000 sign on bonus hasn’t.
More importantly, it behooves you to point out to your readers that the purchased miles expire a year from purchase.
Also only got 200 miles for registering
Is there any possible way for you to please make it so that your entire articles open in feedly, instead of having to click multiple times to get to the website to read? Other blogs I follow all are able to do this, I was wondering if you can please try to do this as well as it makes it a lot more readable.
I’ll look into it Lisa, I don’t deal with that end of things, but very happy to inquire!
Like Skippie687, I too received only 200 miles for using the “Birthday01” code — is there a different code for the 1,000-mile “gift?”
I’d imagine they’re having IT issues with the demand. I’ll check with the airline and suggest you do the same. Cheers!
hi,
all other article said after apply. wait for TAP to confirm them buy miles. But here said to get TAP confirm need to buy miles?
I’m BA Silver (for another week or so), so how do I prove that to TAP? I have a card, do I scan it (surely people could photoshop that to bits)?
Hi guys,
I enrolled new to TAP and sent my Oman Air Gold Card. Time passed and I got an E-Mail stating to sent a photo of the physical card. Then I got the reply that I will need to purchase 2000 miles which I did. Now again an E-Mail stating that my application was accepted and that I will receive another E-Mail along with the card by April 20.
Great news!