Question: Do I Get Status Perks If Someone Else Booked The Ticket?
Our question of the week might not be that common, but it’s a good one: Do you get status perks if someone else booked the ticket? Imagine you have elite status with an airline, but someone else books your flight using miles. Will you get all of your upgrades, free checked bags, etc.? Here’s the low-down on using your status after someone else booked your ticket using points & miles.
The Question
Our question of the week comes from Shumayl in our Facebook group:
If I earn medallion status and someone else uses their skymiles to book flights for me, would I still be eligible for upgrades/any other medallion benefits still? Thank you!
Shumayl mentions Delta Medallion status, but this applies to all programs.
Here’s How It Works
When making an award booking, many programs allow you to choose someone else as the passenger. Proceed as normal with finding the flights and then fill out the passenger who is actually flying.
Now that there’s a ticket in your name, it may or may not be associated to your frequent flyer number. Different programs handle this in different ways, but we won’t really care. We can still accomplish what we want.
Take your reservation number and go to the airline’s website. Find an option like “my trips” or “manage my reservation”.
From here, you can find the reservation and add it to your frequent flyer account. Assuming that you are flying on one airline but want to use your number from a partner for status reasons, the process is still the same. Take your reservation number, go to the website of the airline you’re actually flying on, and add your personal details.
Note that you won’t earn miles on this flight, since it’s an award booking. However, you should be eligible for the perks associated with your status (or perks under the agreement with partners, if you’re flying a partner flight).
Final Thoughts
Just because someone else booked the ticket doesn’t mean you can’t enjoy the perks of your status. With a few simple steps, you can add the ticket into your profile, associated with your frequent flyer number. Now, you should be eligible for the perks that your status level offers.
And if all else fails, just sent a private message to the airline on Twitter. We’ve had a lot of success with airline Twitter teams.
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Another Delta question: If P2 books both for both P1/P2 flying together, but P1 has the status. Would you both get the perks?
Bart – depends on your status level to determine which benefits apply only to you and which apply to people on your same reservation. If you dig into the details here – https://www.delta.com/us/en/skymiles/medallion-program/medallion-benefits – you should at least get the free checked bags & priority check-in lane, at a minimum. Just ensure your SkyMiles number is on the reservation (Delta makes it easy to add this for all passengers) and you should be set.
My question is for the opposite scenario. The person generous enough to book a flight for me has – in this case, Delta – status, but I do not. Will I still get first bag free and upgrade possibilities?
No. You would get the free checked bags if traveling together on the same reservation as that person, but not if you’re traveling alone.
Thanks for the quick response, Ryan!
A bit more tricky when booking on a partner airline. For ex if someone else books you an AA flt on BA using their Avios.
Pam – How so? You still can load the reservation number from the airline into your own frequent flyer account.