tryans's Travels

Last year I ended up doing an airline status match from my United Platinum to get Delta Platinum status. Most airlines offer this type of program to give you an equivalent status to a competing airline in the hopes of getting your loyalty away from their competition. Delta’s worked out well for me in 2025. I got complimentary upgrades multiple times already on some domestic flights, probably because SFO is not a Delta hub, so there are fewer elites, compared to say, United, where even with Platinum status I’ll often find myself number 50 on the upgrade list… and that’s on a plane with very few seats in “first” class.

How Do I Status Match?

Of the US airlines nearly all have one of these programs, and with most, you can do a status match every few years. They all have pretty similar requirements, check out their requirements here (they will always have the most up-to-date information): United, American Airlines, Delta, Alaska Airlines, JetBlue, and Southwest all offer status match to their competing airlines. Currently, neither Spirit Airlines nor Frontier have any type of equivalent offers available, but have been known to do so in the past. Also, you can’t typically use these programs if two airlines are in a partnership or alliance, i.e. American won’t status match with Alaska given they are both in the Oneworld Alliance, and vice versa, the same applies for United and JetBlue given their new partnership.

When Do I Status Match?

I’d say it kind of depends. Are you taking a one off trip to see the Northern Lights in Alaska and it just turns out your preferred airline is United and they have horrific flight times / prices, while Alaska or American maybe have way better options? Could be the time to do one, especially if you’re going to check a bag and you want to get the perks of oneworld status. It is important to note Alaska’s program is a once in a lifetime deal, so I’d tend to go for American.

The other case would be if you plan to fly a lot and your typical airline just isn’t working for you anymore, or even if you moved to a new city and you’re going to just end up flying a different airline based on your new city, perhaps you moved from a United hub city to a Delta Hub. Each airline has different requirements but they’ll give you complimentary status for a certain period of time, and during that time-frame if you fly enough, you’ll keep that status for longer.

I found Delta’s program offers a great deal, given that as soon as you meet their requirements you actually will keep that status until January of 2028, whereas with United they have a chart up. If you apply between Jan 8, 2026 and June 30, 2026 and meet the status challenge you retain that status only until January of 2027, which is when this status year ends. They haven’t published what happens after June 30th, but I’d hazard a guess that they’d give you the status until January of 2028. All airlines save for United and American give you a 90-day timeline to complete their challenge, while American and United give a 120-day time frame. Each airline allows you to complete a status match once every 1-4 years except Alaska which only allows 1 status match ever. 

These screenshots can help you see the various requirements of some of the airlines, but they are a bit long so to try and shorten it a bit here are some key points for each airline and you must wait up to 4 weeks for approval (information in here is true at the time of the writing of this article):

• United: They require both a number of flights and a spend threshold to meet their challenge.
• American Airlines: They only status match to Delta, United, Southwest, and jetBlue. It is simply required to earn a certain number of loyalty points for their program.
• Delta: The highest tier they offer is platinum for their program whereas the other airlines will allow you to reach top-tier status. Their program requires only spending on flights.
• Alaska Airlines: Requires reaching a certain number of Atmos points depending on which tier you’ve matched into. Though previously mentioned this program currently is a once in a lifetime deal.
• jetBlue: A bit more complicated in that they use their Mosaic Tile system where 1 tile = $100 on jetBlue flights, or 1 tile = $1000 of spending on one of their co-branded cards. Strangely, after meeting their status challenge, you must wait for the status they gave you to expire and it takes 4 weeks to get the retained status. 
• Southwest: Actually might be the simplest one, as you must simply complete 3 round trip flights or 6 one way flights and you retain status for a year. It does seem you are eligible to do this every 12 months their website currently states that you must apply by Dec 31, 2025.

American’s Program doesn’t really specify or even imply that if you did a later year status match they’d give you longer status, but also remember their program status runs through March of every year unlike most airlines.

My Experience With Status Match

I gave a brief overview of the status match I got having Delta match my United status above (you can read my review of my Delta One flight here), but I also wanted to mention a few other perks I got by doing it. I travel to Atlanta a fair bit for a convention every year, and sometimes it’s a convenient layover to visit family in the South. I don’t know how long Delta will keep flying the larger 767 plane type between SFO & ATL, but one of the benefits of Platinum status on Delta was that I got regional upgrade certificates, they were quite easy for me to use (you can see if they are available for use at booking). I was able to upgrade to a lay flat seat to Atlanta on more than one occasion, which really was nice despite the plane being older. While it is a domestic flight, it’s quite rare to be able to lay down for a flight like that. Not to mention I got to try the Shake Shack burger on that flight and it was delicious!

Basically I just had to prove to Delta that I had United Platinum status by sending in screenshots of my status. Most the airlines will say you cannot status match if you achieved status through a promotion. I.e. If I tried to then use my Delta Platinum status to match to AA or back to UA if I didn’t achieve it again this year, I’d likely be ineligible.

Delta sent me a nice e-mail here with a cool graphic and then the eligibility requirements I needed to meet in order to retain status.