My Status Journey So Far
If you know me, you know I love flying. And when it comes to flying, one of the biggest rabbit holes you can go down is the loyalty and status side of it. Which airline, which alliance, which program, how to earn, how to use it. I've touched on this before on the blog in one of my previous post, What’s the Deal with Airline Status?, but I've never written about my own status journey specifically. So here it is.
Background
My parents flew Japan Airlines when I was young, then switched to ANA, and Star Alliance became the default. Middle school in New Zealand meant Air New Zealand, high school and university in Canada meant Air Canada.
During high school I signed up to Air Canada's Aeroplan and soon enough earned Air Canada Elite status, the middle tier of three at the time. It came with upgrade points or certificates, and upgrades happened often on the Narita (NRT) and Vancouver (YVR) route in both directions, both from status and the occasional involuntary upgrade too.
Lounge access came as part of the status as well, though being underage in Canada meant staff occasionally weren't keen on letting me in. Needless to say those were golden times as a teenager, lounges and upgrades between Tokyo and Canada on a regular basis.
Air Canada Maple Leaf Lounge at London Heathrow Airport Terminal 2
2017: Back in Japan, Back in Asia
After graduating, returning to Japan, and starting work in summer 2017, things felt different from a travel perspective. Having left Japan for New Zealand in middle school and then Canada for high school and university, I was now back and based in Japan and Asia, a region with a vastly different aviation landscape compared to North America.
The sheer number of airlines and options is on another level, and you find widebody aircraft on routes that in North America would be a short regional hop.
It also meant thinking seriously about my own status. Until then I had been relying on a supplementary card under my mum's ANA Super Flyer Card. The Super Flyer Card is ANA's lifetime status of sorts, reach ANA Platinum status once, sign up for the credit card, and you keep it as long as you keep renewing, effectively keeping Star Alliance Gold for life. Issuing a supplementary card to a family member gives them Star Alliance Gold as well.
Convenient, but not my own. And as someone who had spent so much of my formative years flying Star Alliance, I was quite tempted by JAL and oneworld on the other side. Japan having both ANA in Star Alliance and Japan Airlines in oneworld meant there were real options. I started thinking about doing a status run in 2018.
2018: Status Run Year
I made a JAL card in January 2018 and that kicked things off. Not long into the year I also decided to go for ANA's Super Flyer Card in parallel, so I was chasing both Japan Airlines Sapphire status and ANA Platinum status simultaneously, splitting domestic runs between both airlines and mixing internationally too.
I hit Japan Airlines Sapphire mid-year, which as the name suggests lines up with oneworld sapphire. It was also around this point that things started to feel refreshing. Having spent my formative years almost entirely on Star Alliance, getting into oneworld sapphire and genuinely trying different oneworld carriers for the first time really did open up a new world.
2018 was also when I came to love Cathay Pacific and its lounges, and I still think Cathay has the best lounges within oneworld.
Cathay Pacific Lounge at Tokyo Haneda Airport
Back then, Japan Airlines Sapphire qualified you to apply for JAL Global Club with a JAL card. JAL Global Club was akin to ANA's Super Flyer Card in that sense, achieve Sapphire once, apply with your JAL card, and you keep it for life. The scheme has changed since then, and now it's actually lifetime status in the way you earn it, accumulating Lifetime Status Points through flying, card spending, and other JAL services over the course of your life, with points that never expire.
At that point I had a choice: chase higher Japan Airlines status that equates to oneworld emerald, or British Airways Gold which also sits at oneworld emerald. Both land you in the same alliance tier.
oneworld emerald is worth going for. It's the only top-tier status across the three major alliances that includes First Class lounge access across the network, among other benefits. I've written about this in more detail in the previous post, Star Alliance vs oneworld vs SkyTeam: The Global Airline Alliances in 2025, but it's a meaningful difference.
I went with British Airways. Before it moved to a revenue-based model and before JAL introduced its lifetime status point structure, British Airways was the more practical route to lifetime emerald.
The trip that clinched British Airways Gold came in January 2019, flying ANA to Kuala Lumpur (KUL), Malaysia Airlines business class to Kathmandu (KTM), then Qatar Airways business through Doha (DOH) back to Tokyo. It was also my first time in Qsuite, on an A350. So I like to say I achieved British Airways Gold in 2018, in style.
2019 to 2022: A Different Pace, Then COVID
2019 was a year of flying with purpose rather than chasing status, but also very much about reaping the rewards of what I had earned in 2018. It was my second year in motorsport and I was spending a lot of time at the circuit. Work trips, family trips, picking whatever made sense for each journey.
That said, I did make good use of oneworld emerald along the way, getting into oneworld First Class lounges across Asia for the first time. Cathay Pacific's The Pier First Class Lounge and The Wing First Class Lounge in Hong Kong (HKG), Japan Airlines' First Class Lounge at Haneda (HND) and Narita (NRT), and the First Class section of Malaysia Airlines' The Golden Lounge in Kuala Lumpur (KUL).
Those were a proper introduction to what oneworld emerald actually unlocks.
Then COVID stopped everything. Just before it did, I had squeezed in a trip to Kuala Lumpur (KUL) for a Sepang test, followed by a personal trip to Australia and New Zealand on Qantas, which included my first visit to the Qantas International First Lounge in Sydney (SYD). That was literally about two weeks before both countries shut their borders for the next few years.
What I didn't expect after that was British Airways keeping Gold extended through the pandemic. I held onto it far longer than anticipated.
Qantas International First Lounge at Sydney International Airport
2023 and 2024: Soft Landing, Re-qualifying, and Eventful Travel
British Airways Gold finally soft-landed to Silver at the end of August 2023. It had been extended long enough that it owed me nothing.
Getting back to flying properly in 2023 was a reminder of how much I genuinely enjoy oneworld. It may not be the alliance with the most member airlines, but the quality across the carriers is consistently there. Cathay Pacific within Asia, occasional Japan Airlines, Qatar Airways to Europe.
By 2024, work travel had picked up and I decided to re-qualify for British Airways Gold. It was supposed to be a smooth qualification. It was not.
A planned itinerary built around British Airways segments fell apart when the London Heathrow (LHR) to Los Angeles (LAX) British Airways flight got cancelled, sending me onto United then Qatar Airways for the remainder. The minimum British Airways segment count wasn't met, and a later work trip to Europe and a Singapore (SIN) trip had to fill the gap.
But what's travel without a bit of trouble. I got there in the end, and the chaos came with some unexpected highlights.
United Polaris business class on a 787 from London (LHR) to Los Angeles (LAX) was genuinely impressive, a real step up from what I remembered of United from my student days in North America, admittedly mostly in economy back then. And getting bumped onto Qatar Airways meant flying Qsuite on the Los Angeles (LAX) to Doha (DOH) sector, which is Qatar's second longest route.
The Doha (DOH) to Cairo (CAI) sector being marketed as First Class also meant access to the Al Safwa First Lounge in Doha, which was a welcome bonus.
Qatar Airways Qsuite business class
2025: Conquering oneworld emerald
With British Airways Gold and oneworld emerald in hand, 2025 was the year to actually put it to work. One of my soft goals for the world tour was to visit as many oneworld emerald lounges as possible along the route.
That meant first visits to the Soho Lounge at New York’s JFK Terminal 8, Cathay Pacific's lounge at London Heathrow (LHR) Terminal 3, and Finnair's Platinum Wing in Helsinki (HEL). Revisits to Cathay Pacific's The Pier First Class Lounge in Hong Kong (HKG), the Qantas International First Lounge in Sydney (SYD), and the First Class section of Malaysia Airlines' The Golden Lounge in Kuala Lumpur (KUL).
To be fair it was also a bit of a swan song. oneworld First Class lounges are limited to key hubs, so there are only so many to tick off. And honestly, oneworld already has some of the best business class lounges in the world, so the step up to First Class access, while a genuine treat, isn't as dramatic a difference as you might expect.
Still, it was the trip that made all the status chasing feel worth it. Planning for my 2025 World Tour is covered in my previous post, My 2025 World Tour — The Long Story of How It All Came Together.
Where I Am Now and What's Next
Current portfolio: JAL Global Club (oneworld sapphire), ANA Super Flyer Card (Star Alliance Gold), and British Airways Silver (oneworld sapphire) having soft-landed from Gold again.
On the ANA Super Flyer Card front, the devaluation has now landed. ANA announced in April 2026 that from 2028, SFC will split into two tiers. Spend ¥3 million JPY annually on ANA cards and you keep SFC PLUS with lounge access and Star Alliance Gold. Fall below that and you drop to SFC LITE, losing lounge access and dropping to Star Alliance Silver. The first evaluation period runs December 2026 through December 2027.
For many long-term SFC holders who earned it as a lifetime asset, it's a significant change.
For me personally, I'm genuinely contemplating whether putting ¥3 million JPY a year onto an ANA card is worth it. oneworld has served me very well, and when I think about how much I actually fly these days, the answer is probably not enough to justify it anyway.
But there's also a broader feeling around Star Alliance Gold itself. With the number of member airlines and only two elite tiers, Star Alliance Gold feels increasingly overpopulated, and that shows up in the lounges. Lounge overcrowding is an issue across the industry, but it feels most pronounced at Star Alliance, even at domestic ANA lounges. So the question isn't just whether I'll spend enough, it's whether the product on the other end still justifies it.
The longer game for me is JAL Lifetime Status Points. I'm at 1,950 as of May 2026. The milestones I'm working towards are 4-star at 3,000 LSP, which stops Japan Airlines miles from expiring, then 5-star at 6,000 LSP, which gives me the right to pass JAL Global Club to a family member, and eventually 6-star at 12,000 LSP for lifetime oneworld emerald.
It's a long way to go, and unfortunately flights on oneworld partner airlines don't count toward LSP. No deadline on lifetime points though, so it's a long game.
Nowadays, with airlines shifting focus to credit card spending, the post-COVID travel rebound, and a geopolitical situation that just makes flying more expensive across the board, the airline loyalty landscape has changed. It used to be as simple as flying a modest amount on the right fare class. Now it's far more complex, more widely understood by the general public, and you can have people holding frequent flyer status purely through spending, without ever setting foot on a plane.
But none of that takes away from the beauty of travel and flying itself. Because at the end of the day, when I'm sitting in the Cathay lounge with a Cathay Delight in hand and a bowl of dan dan mian in front of me, none of the complexity matters. I can slow down, be present, and just enjoy that moment for what it is.
Cathay Pacific signature, Cathay Delight non-alcoholic drink and Dan Dan Mian
And that is also why I gravitate towards oneworld. It's one of those personal preferences that builds over time. The airline mix, the places I tend to frequent, the lounges which I find to be generally superior to what Star Alliance or SkyTeam offer. All of it just fits. But that's a story for the next post.
