A couple of years ago, I did a tier point status run to earn British Airways Gold. It was one of the best travel decisions I've made (albeit tiring) — BA Gold grants Oneworld Emerald status, which comes with some genuinely brilliant perks: Oneworld lounge access across the globe, extra baggage, priority everything, and the ability to book reward seats in premium cabins before others get a look in. But like all good things, it comes to an end. My Oneworld Emerald status downgrades to Sapphire (the equivalent of BA Silver) in April 2026.
Rather than just let that chapter close and carry on, I decided to do something with the final months of Emerald status while I still had it: use it to status match into two other alliances and document the experience over the course of the year. So I've paid two separate fees and now hold Lufthansa Miles & More Senator status (Star Alliance Gold) and Air France Flying Blue Platinum status (SkyTeam Elite Plus). Here's the full story of why I did it and what I'm hoping to get out of both.
Fly Further on Rent: Turn Rent into Business‑Class Flights with Nuba
Paying rent sucks. Paying rent and getting a free flight to New York out of it? That’s a different story.
For most Smart With Points readers, rent is the single biggest monthly expense – £1,500, £2,000, sometimes more – and it currently earns nothing. With Nuba, that same rent suddenly becomes the engine behind your next business‑class redemption, luxury hotel stay, or “surprise, we’re going to Rome” weekend.
What this campaign unlocks
Imagine a typical reader paying £1,500 in rent each month on a strong rewards card via Nuba. In 4–5 months, that’s £6,000–£7,500 of extra card spend, purely from rent. At 1.5–2 miles per £1, you’re looking at roughly 9,000–15,000 extra miles just from rent, before you even count your normal spending. That’s enough to:
Top up for an off‑peak return to Europe in economy or even short‑haul business.
Get you most of the way to a one‑way long‑haul premium cabin with a good fare sale.
Push you over the line on a chunky sign‑up bonus that unlocks 60k–80k+ points in one hit.
Stretch that to a full year of rent and you’re in “I paid my rent and now I’m flying flat to the States” territory.
How it works (without annoying your landlord)
You sign up to Nuba and tell us your rent and who you pay.
You pay rent via Nuba using your existing rewards credit card; your landlord still gets paid into their bank account, on time, as if nothing changed.
Your card sees a normal transaction, you earn rewards as usual, and we handle the boring bits: routing the payment, verifying it’s real rent, and keeping things compliant.
No awkward “can I pay by card?” conversation. No weird hoops for your landlord. Just your fattest bill quietly feeding your points balance every month.
Why this campaign is different
Most points tips are about optimising the 20–30% of your spend that’s discretionary: meals out, shopping, the odd treat. This campaign goes after the other 70–80% – the unavoidable, non‑sexy spend – starting with rent.
Together, Smart With Points and Nuba are giving readers a new lever:
Use 4–5 months of rent to hit those painful minimum‑spend targets without buying random stuff you don’t need.
Turn a year of rent into a serious stash of miles you can point at business‑class flights or aspirational hotels.
Keep all the control: your landlord sees bank transfers, you keep your favourite cards, and Nuba quietly makes the two talk to each other.
For a points‑obsessed audience, this is the closest thing you’ll find to “free” miles: no manufactured spend, no gift card gymnastics – just redirecting cash you already burn every month into the rewards engine you’ve built.
Why I Did Both at the Same Time
My thinking was fairly simple: Oneworld is brilliant, but it's the one alliance I already know well. Once BA Gold drops to Silver in April, my Oneworld Sapphire benefits are genuinely useful but decidedly less exciting. If I was ever going to explore Star Alliance and SkyTeam with proper elite treatment, now was the time — when I still had the status credentials to match into both.
Between both matches I've spent roughly £380 all in. That might sound like a lot for status you haven't earned through flying, but when you weigh it against what each status delivers, I think it's genuinely good value — especially for someone who travels regularly and wants to document the real-world experience for readers here.
Match #1: Lufthansa Senator via Miles & More
The Lufthansa Miles & More status match for BA Gold members is one of the cleanest status match offers I've come across. For a one-time fee of €99 (approximately £83), BA Gold holders can match directly to Senator status in the Miles & More programme, valid until February 2026. No challenges, no qualifying flights — just your existing status, the fee, and proof of your current tier. You can apply at lufthansa.statusmatch.com.
Senator is the full Star Alliance Gold tier, which is the meaningful one. Lufthansa's lower Frequent Traveller tier doesn't include Star Alliance Gold, so if you're a BA Silver member looking at this match, the proposition is quite different — you'd only get benefits specifically within the Lufthansa Group rather than across the whole alliance. For BA Gold members matching to Senator, however, you unlock Star Alliance Gold benefits on every Star Alliance carrier: United, ANA, Singapore Airlines, Thai, Air Canada, SWISS, Austrian, and the rest. That's access to over 1,000 lounges worldwide whenever you're flying on any Star Alliance carrier.
The one I'm most immediately curious about is the Lufthansa Senator Lounge at Heathrow Terminal 2. I've spent a lot of time in BA lounges at T5 over the years, so I'm genuinely interested to see how Lufthansa's offering compares, especially after the lounge underwent a significant refurbishment. If you fly through T2, you can check out the lounge details on Airport Lounge List before you travel.
Match #2: Flying Blue Platinum via Air France
The Air France Flying Blue status match for BA members was the one that really caught my attention. The offer matches your BA tier directly: BA Gold (and Gold Guest List) maps to Flying Blue Gold or Platinum — the highest earning tier before the invite-only Ultimate level. You get SkyTeam Elite Plus status, which covers the whole SkyTeam alliance including Air France, KLM, Delta, Korean Air, Virgin Atlantic (via their own alliance membership) and others. You can apply at flyingblue.statusmatch.com/ba.
The fee structure has changed slightly since I originally wrote about it — it's now tiered rather than a flat £99, so check the current pricing before applying. But even at the higher end, this is a remarkable offer for BA Gold holders. Flying Blue Platinum delivers SkyTeam Elite Plus benefits for 12 months, including lounge access across the alliance, priority services, extra baggage, and waived change fees on reward bookings.
But the benefit that really sold me on this match? The ability to redeem Flying Blue miles for La Première — Air France's legendary first class product. That access is exclusively reserved for Flying Blue Platinum and Ultimate members, with only one award seat released per flight. More on that below.
The La Première Dream: London to Dubai via Paris
I'll be completely honest here — the La Première angle is a huge part of why I pulled the trigger on the Flying Blue Platinum match. Air France's first class is genuinely considered one of the finest in the world: four private suites on a Boeing 777-300ER, each featuring both a seat and a separate chaise longue (a proper lie-down bed area), ground escort services at CDG, and some of the finest catering in the skies. It's the kind of product that, when you read about it, you file under "one day."
The route I've had my eye on is London Heathrow to Dubai — which, via Air France, means flying LHR to Paris Charles de Gaulle (CDG) first, and then CDG to Dubai (DXB) in La Première on the 777-300ER. La Première currently operates on the CDG-DXB route, so this is a viable real-world itinerary rather than a fantasy.
In terms of award cost, La Première redemptions for Flying Blue Platinum members typically come in at around 200,000–250,000 Flying Blue miles one-way plus taxes. That's a lot of points, but when you consider that the cash price for a La Première ticket can regularly be north of £10,000–£15,000, the maths starts to look very different. The challenge is actually finding the seat — only one award seat per flight is released, and availability can be sporadic. I'll be tracking this throughout the year and reporting back.
If you want to search for Air France award availability yourself, Award Travel Finder is a great tool for tracking down seats across multiple programmes. You can also use Roame.Travel to search Air France award space and set up alerts for when seats open up.
Earning Flying Blue Miles as a UK Collector
One of Flying Blue's real strengths as a programme is how transferable it is — American Express Membership Rewards transfers to Flying Blue at a 1:1 ratio, which makes it one of the most accessible currencies for UK collectors. If you hold an Amex Platinum, Gold, or one of the business cards, your Membership Rewards points can become Flying Blue miles fairly painlessly. You can see the current welcome bonuses via our personal Amex referral link or business Amex referral link.
For business owners, my Capital on Tap card earns Virgin Points which can be used to book flights that are both part of the broader Air France-KLM points network. For a comprehensive view of the best UK cards for accumulating points, check out our best Avios-earning credit cards guide and best business credit cards guide.
Flying Blue also runs monthly Promo Rewards — discounted award fares on selected routes — which can significantly cut the miles required for a given journey. Keeping an eye on those each month is well worth it.
What I'm Looking Forward to Experiencing
Beyond La Première, there's a lot I'm genuinely excited to experience with both statuses throughout 2026:
On the Star Alliance side with Lufthansa Senator: I want to properly experience the Lufthansa Senator Lounge at LHR T2, then compare it to the Star Alliance Gold lounge experience at other hubs — Singapore, Frankfurt, and Zurich in particular. I'm also curious whether the Star Alliance Gold priority services (especially boarding and baggage) compare favourably to what I've grown used to with Oneworld.
On the SkyTeam side with Flying Blue Platinum: Air France is opening a brand-new lounge at Heathrow Terminal 4 in spring 2026, which I'm quietly excited about. In the meantime, I'll be experiencing the CDG lounges when I pass through Paris — Air France runs some excellent lounge facilities there. I'll also be watching La Première availability closely, and I'll share an honest update on whether award seats are genuinely achievable for UK-based collectors or whether it remains largely theoretical.
A Note on the Oneworld Emerald Downgrade
I want to be transparent about this: Oneworld Emerald via BA Gold has been exceptional. The lounge access alone — both the Galleries First and the ability to use Cathay Pacific and Qantas lounges when flying on any oneworld carrier — has delivered tremendous value over the past couple of years. If you're thinking about whether it's worth going after BA Gold, I'd say absolutely yes. The status run I did to achieve it remains one of the best investments of travel time and money I've made.
The downgrade to Sapphire is simply the natural lifecycle of earned status — I haven't done enough qualifying flying this year to renew it organically. So rather than dwell on it, I'm channelling that energy into exploring what the other two major alliances have to offer. Oneworld Sapphire (BA Silver) is still a very good status in its own right, and the matches mean I now hold three alliance elite statuses simultaneously for a period, which is a fairly unusual position to be in.
I'll be updating you throughout the year on how both statuses perform in practice — from the lounges and priority services to whether I manage to track down that La Première award seat. If you want to follow along, make sure you're subscribed and follow us on Instagram where I'll be posting real-time updates when I travel.
Quick Summary
Lufthansa Senator match: BA Gold → Star Alliance Gold, €99 fee, valid to February 2026. Apply at lufthansa.statusmatch.com. Full details in our Lufthansa status match guide.
Flying Blue Platinum match: BA Gold → SkyTeam Elite Plus, tiered fee (Gold - £149, Platinum - £249). Unlocks La Première award access. Apply at flyingblue.statusmatch.com/ba. Full details in our Air France status match guide.
More from me as the year unfolds. If you've done either of these matches and have thoughts, I'd love to hear about it in the comments below!
Jack