oneworld airline Royal Air Maroc is offering a very broad status match opportunity. If you have status in most Star Alliance, SkyTeam or major non-aligned programs, they will match your status like-for-like and this status lasts through March 2023.
- You can receive oneworld sapphire status for your current mid-tier status and higher, which is nice for free checked bags and priority check-in and boarding on airlines like American, Alaska, British Airways, and more.
- It entitles you to lounge access with oneworld airlines including American and Alaska – even when flying coach on a oneworld airline domestically. And at American this includes Flagship business class lounges at New York JFK, Miami, Dallas, Los Angeles and soon-to-reopen Chicago O’Hare.
The match costs 49 euros. There’s just been one hitch. Many American readers have had huge problems trying to sign up for the Royal Air Maroc frequent flyer program. For most it simply errors out when you submit your registration.
Commenter DealRaider flags that Royal Air Maroc on the back-end is requiring a P.O. Box for U.S. addresses, but you aren’t given the opportunity to enter one during the signup process. Since this is a required field, your registration errors out.
However if you enter your nationality as American but list yourself with a United Kingdom address your registration should process. And when you’re logged in you can go and update your address (country) in your profile right away.
In fact, many non-U.S. choices for country will work. However not all do.
Really dumb question that I should know after 35 years of flying. If I have an AA domestic flight w my Aadvantage number on it how do I get in Admirals Club? Already One World elite through AA so that is on ticket but I know that doesn’t get me in domestic lounges.
Do you download the Royal Air app and bring that up showing your status? There has to be a way to prove One World stays w a foreign carrier and this would be easiest IMHO. Also do AA agents at Admirals Club (and Flagship Lounge) understand this and admit you or will it be a continued hassle?
A hack!
The problem now is that they are no longer doing a status match to their Gold level, only their Silver level, which only confers Oneworld Ruby status. “Important Note: Gold Status Match is no longer available. If you proceed, you will be applying for Silver Safar Flyer status.”
Might be expired. Just tried this and right before they ask for a credit card, they say ‘Important Note: Gold Status Match is no longer available. If you proceed, you will be applying for Silver Safar Flyer status” – which I interpret to mean it matches to Oneworld Ruby, not Sapphire. Which means no lounge access. Is that correct?
Well, it was matching to Gold last night when I did it for my own account and wrote this. Inflight wifi not working well enough to dig into what’s happening well enough to post update but thank you for flagging.
I just tried a variety of random top tier statuses and they all only matched to silver so it appears gold is off the table at the moment. I was trying yesterday all day to create a Safar # but it errored out every time. I even called and managed to talk to a tech support person and was told that yesterday was the day they had tons of accounts with points expiring and this caused an overload of traffic on the site and that i should try tomorrow (today). The UK trick would have been nice to have yesterday!
Ugh- waiting on the ITA match to finish, but looks like I won’t be able to get to Gold. Lesson learned – if there is any status match opportunity, take advantage of it! You never know what you might be able to match to down the road!
Looks like the UK address thing isn’t working anymore either. :<
@Retired Gambler, You have to book the ticket using your Royal Air Maroc flyer number. If you use your AAdvantage number, no lounge benefits. You will then be earning RAC credit for the flight instead of AA credit, but paying for it with your AA credit card will get some of the credit towards American status. American doesn’t care because they get paid for your lounge visit by RAC. Whether RAC gets enough frequent flyer benefits from the ticket purchase to pay for lounge access is their problem.
@John H – thanks for the info. That kills it for me. No way I am earning miles on an airline I will likely never fly. Figured there was a catch and you couldn’t just show up w a domestic AA ticket and get in.
Had Admirals Club access for years but dropped it when I retired. Have Amex Platinum so plenty of lounge options. Not really missing anything in Admirals Club and not based at an airport (CLT) w a Flagship Lounge.
Hard pass on this (sounds like dead anyway since a number of people have posted now only matching to a status that gets you One World Ruby which doesn’t include lounge access
American Airlines is no longer a choice.
@John H – I have Qantas Gold > Oneworld Sapphire and travel domestically on AA using AA points once per month or more and cash approximately the same number of times. I always hit the AA lounges and have never been turned away when using points or cash. I just show my Qantas card in Apple wallet and my boarding pass. I dont suspect it would be any different for RAM gold but i could be wrong.
And why does Maroc insist on a P. O. Box if you live in America? Is there a quid go pro DeJoy (who is actually (joyless) set up to increase postal revenue? I wouldn’t put anything past that toadstool like he signs a big contract to supply new mail vehicles (for billions) from a company he has “interests” in and the cherryon top said company is importing everything from China.
All they have to do is snap it together. WTF!!??
Of course there was an American company offering to actually build the things in America from America parts but he said “they were too small!” Thats how American companies get bigger, they get bigger contracts! He is a trump appointee so you know corruption is expected. Oh, and I thought trump was supposed to bring all the jobs back from China!!?? Promises made, Americans not kept…..
@JorgeGeorgePaez – make sure you wear your tinfoil hat so the black helicopters don’t find you!! SMH
Can I borrow yours?
Come on retired gambler (another name for broke) you can do better than that!
It’s Friday night!
No longer matching to gold. Too bad! I have AA Platinum but could have used the lounge access
Bumping this Royal Air Maroc post up to ask a general question.
How bad does an airline have to be before they are kicked out of Oneworld?
I have an existing return ticket LAX>CDG coming up in March (the airline is not relevant for this question) and I am looking at booking a separate CDG>RAK return ticket for a visit to Marrakech after I arrive at CDG. I am Exec Plat with AA and so I figured it makes sense to book Oneworld partner Royal Air Maroc for the CDG>RAK trip. Until I read the reviews of Royal Air Maroc.
I have a homespun method of assessing reputation/quality. I look at TripAdvisor and I divide the number of “Terrible” reviews by the total number of reviews for a hotel or restaurant or airline. For example if a hotel has 1,000 total reviews of which 100 rank the hotel “Terrible” then that ratio is 10%
As of today, here are some Airline ratios (Terrible rating as a percentage of Total reviews at TripAdvisor)
Japan Airlines 4.3%
Singapore Airlines 5.9%
Air New Zealand 6.7%
Emirates 8.1%
Delta 11.1%
Qantas 12.1%
British Airways 17.4%
United Airlines 21.2%
American Airlines 24.6%
Iberia 28.7%
Royal Air Maroc 42.5%
This is hardly a perfect metric for quality but it’s not a bad rule of thumb. BTW I never book a hotel with a ratio over 10%.
Based on a sampling of the reviews I’ve read on Royal Air Maroc and their ratio above, I will not be flying with them. I will book with Iberia even though it means a layover in MAD or BCN or Air France for nonstops even though they are outside of my alliance.
Which brings me back to my opening question.
How bad does an airline have to be before they are kicked out of Oneworld?