Update Oct 21: My Status Match was approved in just 3 days! I received this:
Thank you for subscribing to our Volare loyalty program and for sending us your request to join the Status Match campaign.
We are happy to inform you that your request has been approved and we are welcoming you to the new ITA Exclusive Club. Your tier status has been recognized as: Premium.
Now – does anyone know what tier benefits come with Premium? 😉
ITA-What?? ITA is the “new” version of Alitalia in Italy, after Alitalia was allowed to go bankrupt.
Now, as of now, ITA isn’t in any alliance and they did not purchase the remnants of Alitalia’s MileMiglia. However, that doesn’t mean they won’t eventually in a roundabout way. You see, the terms of the airline’s formation don’t allow it to buy MileMiglia, however it’s possible a third party could – and then flip that to ITA.
Meanwhile, the “new” airline, ITA Airways, is offering new members both 10,000 miles and a status match. In classic Italian airline style, some pages don’t load, the match will take as long as 2.5 months to complete, we have no idea what tiers match where, and we don’t know if ITA will wind up in SkyTeam or another alliance.
As for the 10,000 miles, it seemed to be a freebie, but the link to register didn’t work. Now I think that requires a flight, as all I can find now is this: “Register by November 15, 2021: an exclusive welcome bonus of 10000 Points is waiting for you and you will be credited to your account by December 31, 2021 if you buy an ITA ticket starting from October 15 to fly by December 31, 2021.”
Still, why not match, right? The match will be valid for a year.
You’ll first need to sign up for Volare, the frequent flyer program.
Then for the Volare status match, they state to:
Send an email to [email protected] with the following characteristics:
- Email subject: “program of origin” – “status of origin”
- Body text: Name; Surname; “program of origin”; “status of origin”
- Attach a legible copy of your current valid Frequent Flyer Card (digital or physical) and a copy of your ID card1 (pdf format, jpg)
Your request to match your membership status will be reviewed and you will be sent an email to confirm that your status has been recognized by December 31, 2021.
I kind of love how organized that all is, since it will probably be auto-imported into a CSV file, and given how disorganized the rest of this seems.
But still, a free status match is a free status match – and who knows where it may lead in a year…. perhaps to another match 😉
Thoughts?
Let me know below in the comments, on Twitter, or in the private MilesTalk Facebook group. And don't forget to follow me on Instagram for all sorts of tips on miles, points, credit cards, and travel.
If this post helped you, please consider sharing it!
You can find credit cards that best match your spending habits and bonus categories at Your Best Credit Cards.
New to all of this? My “introduction to miles and points” book, MilesTalk: Live Your Wildest Travel Dreams Using Miles and Points is available on Amazon and at major booksellers.