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British Airways Silver and Gold members can get a rare Lufthansa status match

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If you are an elite member of British Airways Executive Club, I hope you’re feeling the love.

Not from BA, of course, but from Virgin Atlantic Flying Club (see here), Flying Blue (see here), easyJet Plus (see here) and now Lufthansa’s Miles & More programme, all of whom want you and your business.

Miles & More has launched a status match for Silver and Gold members of British Airways Executive Club. Elite members of Iberia Plus can also participate.

A €99 administration fee is payable.

Lufthansa Miles & More offering British Airways status match

British Airways Executive Club Silver members will get Frequent Traveller status in Miles & More. This only offers lounge access with Lufthansa, SWISS and Austrian and only in directly run lounges. This includes the newly refurbished lounge in Heathrow Terminal 2 which we covered here. The full list of Frequent Traveller benefits is here.

British Airways Executive Club Gold members and above will be offered Senator status. This gets you Star Alliance-wide lounge access. The full list of Senator benefits is here.

Whichever level of Miles & More status you get, it will stop your existing Miles & More mileage balance from expiring as the three year ‘use them or lose them’ rule is suspended.

How long will your status last?

You will receive status until 28th February 2026.

To requalify you will need to meet the standard qualification requirements by the end of 2025.

Lufthansa uses a system similar to the existing British Airways one. The only criteria are whether your flight is short haul or long haul, and what travel class you are in. It’s simple.

50% of the points needed for qualification must be earned on Miles & More airlines. You cannot earn or renew status purely by flying on other Star Alliance carriers.

I won’t go into requalification in detail because each person will have a different mix of travel – short haul vs long haul, economy vs business and Lufthansa Group vs other Star Alliance carriers. If you qualify for status under the current British Airways system you should be OK under the current Lufthansa system.

Note that Lufthansa only adopted its current status model this year so major revenue-based changes are unlikely in the medium term.

Lufthansa Miles & More offering British Airways status match

Is it worth it?

This page of the Miles & More website compares the benefits of Senator and Frequent Traveller status. You should study it before applying for a match.

Senator (from BA Gold) – definitely worth it

If you have British Airways Gold status or higher, this is an excellent opportunity to get top tier status, including lounge access, across all of Star Alliance.

You will also get fast track security and priority boarding across all Star Alliance carriers.

Frequent Traveller (from BA Silver) – maybe, maybe not

Silver status has fewer benefits – fewer than you get with your British Airways Silver status.

You only get access to lounges operated by Lufthansa Group airlines and NOT the broader Star Alliance. If your Star Alliance travel only takes you around Europe on Lufthansa, SWISS and Austrian then you’ll be fine. On other carriers, less so.

You can access Business Class check-in desks irrespective of which Star Alliance airline you fly, but that is about it in terms of benefits with TAP, United, Singapore Airlines etc.

You do not get fast track security or priority boarding with anyone, whether you are flying Lufthansa Group carriers or not.

How to apply

The website you need is here. Remember that there is a €99 fee. As per the comments below, do not send a photograph of your BA membership card as it will be rejected. It must be be a screenshot from the BA app.

PS. You may want to think about timing. My best guess is that Lufthansa will repeat this offer next year as people face up to losing their Executive Club status on 30th April 2026.

If you match now, you won’t be able to match again next year. Do you want to leave BA now or wait another 12 months to maximise your existing Silver and Gold benefits?

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Category

British Airways and Avios, Iberia and Club Iberia Plus, Lufthansa and Miles & More

Comments (76)

This article is closed to new comments. Feel free to ask your question in the HfP forums.

  • AndreasJ says:
    28 Feb28 February 06:09

    Strange that BA Silver and IB Oro are not aligned…

    • daveinitalia says:
      28 Feb28 February 09:52

      Oro means gold so someone who doesn’t understand oneworld status levels presunably thought it was equivalent to BA gold.

  • Nick says:
    28 Feb28 February 06:26

    The divorce was so very easy, on the grounds of unreasonable behaviour. The new love is great, something missing for years!

  • Doc says:
    28 Feb28 February 06:50

    Very easy to do. Already cancelled my J booking with BA to Buenos Aires earlier in the year and booked a mixed J/F with LH on the 747 in the sale!!
    So this status match was a no brainer and sorted within 12 hours. Did this 2 days ago. Just waiting for the status to appear on the account, which can apparently take 10 working days.
    Lets see if the grass is indeed greener on the other side!!!

    • JDB says:
      28 Feb28 February 08:05

      Buenos Aires (and most of SAm is where OW excels, even if very limited F opportunities) in terms of frequencies and travel time.

      You do ask the very pertinent question though! Will it be greener? While people may now gain status in another programme that BA is putting out of reach, can one earn enough miles/points in those programmes for good redemptions when the non flying earning opportunities are generally so much less for UK residents.

      • Ken says:
        28 Feb28 February 08:37

        People will just have to get used to mentally separating miles and redeeming them from status.

        I’m not sure what the massive rush to move is when people have status for another 14 months.
        The direction of travel (dynamic pricing / status by spend) seems likely to continue though – don’t think I’d be building a big balance in any program.

        • MikeL says:
          28 Feb28 February 09:15

          What’s the rush ? My thoughts too. Will be interesting to see the offers this time next year when many of us will be on the verge of losing BA status.

      • Throwawayname says:
        28 Feb28 February 09:04

        Oneworld is especially weak in South America, their southernmost hub in the Americas is MIA!

        • JDB says:
          28 Feb28 February 10:25

          Does it really matter where the hub is? For any European based traveller Iberia’s South American network is unparalleled in number of destinations and frequencies and the geographic location of Madrid makes connecting journey times much more attractive than say flying to SAm from London via Frankfurt which is also not such a good connecting airport and if one wants a stopover, Madrid is a great place for that.

          • Throwawayname says:
            28 Feb28 February 13:18

            Of course the hub location matters, in fact it’s basically the only thing that matters, after all you could take Turkish Airlines to virtually every country in the world and not worry about alliances at all.

            Most of us who have elite status with an alliance or another will sometimes take suboptimal routings to maximise miles and/or benefits, but I don’t think that you will find many people who are loyal enough to an alliance so as to take a detour via Miami in order to fly between Brazil and Argentina.

        • Simon Jones says:
          28 Feb28 February 11:04

          It is not weak especially from Europe, there is Hub at Madrid for SA flights with Iberia.

  • Tony says:
    28 Feb28 February 06:51

    Brilliant…one in the eye for BA. Good for LHR-CPT/JNB on the 747….

  • TeflonMan says:
    28 Feb28 February 06:52

    As a former LH Sen and current BA Gold I would have jumped on this were it not for M&M’s move to revenue based redemptions announced this week.

  • UncleTravellingMed says:
    28 Feb28 February 07:11

    Silly question but does this mean once you apply for status match you lose existing BA status?

    “ Do you want to leave BA now or wait another 12 months to maximise your existing Silver and Gold benefits?”

  • Tom says:
    28 Feb28 February 07:13

    Fantastic! MATCH DONE! Seeya BA!

  • Toppcat says:
    28 Feb28 February 07:29

    A bit weird to run this article and not even refer to the negative changes in the scheme on the redemption side, no? You ran an article on those changes just this week.

    • Rob says:
      28 Feb28 February 07:39

      Status does not equal miles, and there is still no good feel for what the mileage changes will be. For most of our readers 90% of miles are not earned from flights.

      • Ken says:
        28 Feb28 February 08:30

        Difficult to see 90% of miles and more currency not being earned from flights though for most readers…

        • Rob says:
          28 Feb28 February 08:35

          The new Business Plat offer is 120,000 Avios equivalent as a bonus. A BA Silver would need £15,000 of post tax spend (so around £20,000 of business class or £30,000 of economy flights) to earn the same amount. You’d need to spend £3k on BA economy flights just to earn 10% of the Bus Plat bonus.

          In reality 90/10 is probably overgenerous for many readers. I’ve only taken 3 cash Virgin flights in 30 years (none paid for by me) and have earned well over 1.5m miles.

          • Ken says:
            28 Feb28 February 08:48

            And this helps with Lufthansa how ?

            How are UK readers going to earn piles of Miles and More easily?

            I’d say 80% ( and probably more) of readers want 1 pot of miles that are easily redeemed for premium flights.

            Not small pots of Avios , Virgin, Miles and More , Emirates etc
            And not with airlines who gut their redemption charts.

          • Rob says:
            28 Feb28 February 09:09

            Keep earning Avios via card bonuses, shopping etc. No change.

            Earn a small M&M pot from flights for the occasional trip where Avios has no seats.

            By definition if you are spending a huge amount on flights you won’t be leaving BA.

          • Td8 says:
            28 Feb28 February 08:50

            100% of my avios come from flying (maybe 10% from bonvoy via ba shopping)

    • Throwawayname says:
      28 Feb28 February 09:06

      You can always use M&M status benefits while collecting miles and/or building status with another *A carrier.

This article is closed to new comments. Feel free to ask your question in the HfP forums.

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