Cathay Pacific has created a website that allows members to submit a request for a status match, but immediately after it went up, the airline decided to pull it again for some reason.
Cathay Pacific has accepted requests for status matches on an individual basis, but this time the company designed a landing page though it’s unclear what exactly they intend to do with it.
Cathay has recently revamped their loyalty scheme which used to be a two-tier system of Asia Miles and Marco Polo Club.
Long-standing Cathay members may have been part of the Marco Polo Club. Last year, they “enhanced” the membership program by combining Marco Polo Club with Asia Miles program, creating a single unified membership structure.
And now this ill-fated project with the status match page that admittedly hasn’t been publicized or pushed by Cathay (it was reported by the Executive Traveler earlier).
You can access their landing page with the status match request form here (now displays an error).
A Cathay Pacific spokesperson told the Executive Traveller team that the online status match application form has been only “temporarily removed.”
There wasn’t really any official campaign attached to this site, according to the spokesperson, it was simply a surface to request a match based on existing tier levels with other loyalty programs.
You could still do the same through the regular channels, simply write to member services of Cathay Pacific Asia Miles. Of course there is no guarantee that they are going to approve it.
Typically (in the past) they granted a match of one level below the one you’re matching from so one would end up with either Asia Miles Gold or Silver.
Since this wasn’t a campaign with fix parameters, the landing page said
… ”If you’re a frequent flyer member with another airline, you may be eligible to match your membership account to Cathay membership and enjoy a range of respective status benefits, like priority check-in, lounge access and extra baggage allowance.” …
So members could submit pretty much any airline’s status for review and see if it gets accepted. There are no guarantees, of course.
Conclusion
Maybe this Cathay Pacific status match will come back at some point in some official form. I’d prefer when there are firm terms & conditions that members can rely on. To claim that acceptance of a match is subject to some individual review just leaves the door open to trouble.
Cathay Pacific still operates with a limited capacity on their worldwide network. Even though they are now bringing back flights, including some aircraft with First Class the airline is still a shadow of its former self. Hopefully, Cathay Pacific will come back strong, a status match campaign would make sense to scoop up more customers but of course, you also need the seat and route capacity to serve them.