rewrite rule for the contact page

Hi everybody! I've successfully writen a RewriteRule for the contact "thank you" page, from /subfolder/contact/?status=thanks to contact/thanks/ . Then, I've changed the link produced by the contact page when someone submit the form, to match the pattern, from header("Location: " . BASE_URL . "contact/?status=thanks"); to header("Location: " . BASE_URL . "contact/thanks/"); Now I don't understand how the thank you message keeps displaying, since it's placed in the following conditional <?php if (isset($_GET["status"]) AND $_GET["status"] == "thanks") { ?> <p>Thanks for the email! I&rsquo;ll be in touch shortly!</p> <?php } else { ?> How can it now works if I removed the GET variable from the link? Thank you all!