Contents [Hide]
About This Match Offer
If you hold elite status with 15 airlines, 15 hotels, or 15 cruise lines, Frontier Airlines is now offering you a status match. You’ll get elite status through December 31, 2024. However, the match requires a $149 application fee. It’s nice to be able to do this at home without flying, though if you have upcoming travel, it may be worth considering.
Hmm, this setup feels very familiar. Frontier ran a similar promo earlier this year with Spirit, and the template is basically the same.
Status Match Rules
Fees
If you have elite status, you can status match from airlines, hotels, and cruise lines. The matched elite status lasts through December 31, 2024.
- The match requires a $149 application fee
- Anyone who has done a Frontier status match within the past 3 years is also eligible, but must pay an additional $50 fee
- Anyone who matches to 20,000 or 50,000 status will have the opportunity to upgrade to a higher tier for an additional fee (for example: a Hilton Diamond member matched to 50,000 can pay an extra fee to get 100,000)
Airlines
Airline elite members can match up to Elite 100k. But airline elite status usually requires either a lot of flying or a lot of spending, so the bar is pretty high. If you’ve already done Spirit elite status before, you can use it again this time.
Hotels
Hotel status only matches up to the 50k level; the top tier doesn’t qualify. But after looking through this chart, it’s much easier than airline status. Highlights below:
- Hilton Gold and Diamond both can match to 50,000 status, so Hilton Aspire cardholders will be thrilled
- IHG Platinum can match to 50,000 status; IHG Premier and legacy cardholders win big, with annual fees of only $49-$89
- Marriott Gold and above can all match to 50,000 status; anyone with a Marriott credit card can qualify, and even the Platinum card can gift a Gold status to someone else
- Hyatt Discoverist can match to 20,000 status, and having a Hyatt card is enough
If you have flights coming up, it may be worth getting elite status. It’s much better than getting hit with baggage fees and other charges.
Cruises
Cruise lines can also match up to the 50k level, but I’m not very familiar with cruise elite status, so I can’t really judge.
Buying Status
If you don’t have status at all, you can even just buy elite status directly. The cheapest option is only $299 for 20k status plus a Fall/Winter Pass.
I wouldn’t recommend wasting money on this, though. If you have a few credit cards, getting hotel elite status is very easy. And many hotel credit cards come with free night certificates, so it’s basically like holding the card with no annual fee.
It looks like the $299 option is sold out. If you hold a travel credit card, though, there are additional discounts:
- Buy Elite 20,000 status for $499, valid through December 31, 2024
- Buy Elite 20,000 status + GoWild Fall/Winter Pass bundle for $648 (status valid through December 31, 2024)
You need to enter your credit card number before purchase so they can verify whether it’s a travel credit card.
Frontier Elite Benefits
The elite benefits are listed below. The carry-on bag benefit that matters to most people starts at 20k, along with seat selection and priority boarding, but checked bags require 100k. If you’re traveling with family, the 50k family seating benefit is nice. Also, the 100k status benefits can be shared with family, and baggage, seat selection, and priority boarding are all pretty useful.
I haven’t flown Frontier myself, but based on the usual low-cost-carrier playbook, the fees are generally in baggage and seat selection. For example, overweight baggage fees can be very high. With these elite benefits, you basically don’t have to worry about getting nickeled-and-dimed by a budget airline. So if you’ll fly Frontier more than twice and you’ll have bags, rather than paying baggage fees, you may as well take advantage of this promo and get elite status at a low cost to avoid getting gouged.
Also, reportedly they have various fees that elite members can waive, which is basically skipping a lot of fee traps.
