Fly American or Delta? You Can Get United Lounge Access And Free Bags Thanks to TAP Air Portugal

Regular American Airlines and Delta customers can get free lounge access and checked bags on United Airlines, thanks to a new status match offer from TAP Air Portugal. TAP is a Star Alliance partner of United Airlines, Air Canada, Lufthansa, etc. and their status confers benefits with traveling across the alliance.

• They will match to both Silver and Gold. Most of you won’t care about silver. Status is valid for 12 months. Those who are matched will also earn double status miles for 30 days up to 10,000 status miles. (Silver renews with 30,000 status miles or 25 TAP flights; Gold renews with 70,000 status miles or 50 TAP flights.)

• Status match costs 49€ for Silver and 199€ for Gold.

• You need to have a European address on your TAP Air Portugal account to be eligible. They reserve the right to ask for proof of address. I wouldn’t be surprised if they check IP address when applying for the match, so I leave to you whether you think a VPN is a good idea. And if you have multiple statuses, consider using a European one to match against. For instance I have Air France KLM Flying Blue Gold (from Bilt Platinum).

• In addition to American and Delta elite status they will also match against Air France KLM, BA, JetBlue, Finnair, LATAM, Royal Air Maroc, and WestJet to name a few.

The offer pairs nicely with TAP’s U.S. credit card, which helps wiht status and bear in mind that both Capital One and Bilt are TAP Miles & Go transfer partners.

The Portuguese government has relaunched a privatization process for TAP. It aims to sell up to 49.9% of the company’s share capital (44.9% to external investors, and 5% earmarked for employees).

Air France KLM may be the most likely buyer, though IAG (which owns British Airways and Iberia) has expressed interest and Lufthansa has the scale to do it as well. So it’s unclear that TAP has an independent future, or even which alliance the airline stays in. November 22 is the deadline for expressions of interest. I certainly don’t expect a deal close and transition for the airline and loyalty program any time within the year-long validity of status.

I don’t especially want to fly TAP, except perhaps when they run one of their business class sales (which haven’t impressed the way they used to when they were private until the pandemic). But their status can be quite useful if you’re not a regular enough Star Alliance flyer to earn it on your own.