Oct 20, 2014, 8:06 am
Last edit by: Snacky
This is the WIKI for the Aegean Airlines (A3) / Olympic Air (OA) Miles+Bonus frequent flier program. Please read all about it on their homepage: http://en.aegeanair.com/milesandbonus/
Please note that A3 is a Star Alliance (*A) member airline, OA is not.
If you have questions not answered in this WIKI or you can't find an answer on the A3 Miles+Bonus website, ask in the thread below.
Tiers (clicking on them takes you directly to the respective tier's Miles+Bonus benefits webpage)
BLUE
SILVER
GOLD
Miles
Miles are classified into two categories, tier miles and award miles.
Tier Miles determine the tier of the program to which the member belongs. These are miles that each member collects from qualifying flights with A3, OA and *A airlines in order to move through the membership levels to Silver and Gold, and then to retain those levels. They expire at the end of each membership year - any 'excess' miles beyond the Tier qualification do not carry forward into the following year.
Award Miles are miles that every member collects in order to redeem for redemption flights or other products and services. Award miles are accumulated from flights with A3, OA, *A member airlines and products and services of the program partners and do not expire provided the account remains active by crediting flights.
Tier advancement
Tier advancement is constantly evaluated and measured along a rolling 12 month period. This means your account will be upgraded as soon as you hit the requirements at any time, counting backwards within the last 12 months. A few days after a new tier threshold has been reached, there will be a "Card upgrade" transaction in your transactions overview.
SILVER
The BLUE member that accumulates 12K tier miles, including at least 2 flights with A3/OA, or a total of 24K tier miles regardless of *A airline, within 12 consecutive months, will be upgraded to the SILVER tier.
Upon the upgrade to the SILVER tier, the required 12K tier miles+2xA3/OA flights or 24K tier miles will be consumed instantly and the year start/end date will be reset. Any tier miles beyond the threshold will remain in your account for 12 months, and will therefore count towards any subsequent upgrade to Gold. All segments flown in qualifying for Silver will be reset to zero, so a further 4 segments will be required to qualify for Gold under the combined segment/miles option.
NOTE: In a scenario where you accumulate the required A3/OA flights some time after you already have accumulated more tier miles than what's required in the combined tier miles plus flights threshold (12K), but have not yet accumulated enough tier miles to reach the tier miles only threshold (24K), you will be instantly upgraded to the SILVER tier and your year start/end date for your subsequent GOLD upgrade will reset, but also be set to less than 1 year ahead in time (in effect the date of the first possible opportunity to reach the upgrade threshold for the GOLD tier), the date depending on when the last consumed tier miles for the SILVER upgrade were originally accumulated. A lesser amount of tier miles, equal to the difference between the remaining leftover tier miles and the qualification thresholds, will then be required for upgrade to the GOLD tier. BUT, be aware that tier miles expire after 12 months, and therefore expiration of older tier miles will continue all through your new membership year, meaning that in this scenario the "until"-date and qualification thresholds will change as time passes and more tier miles expire. Therefore, you'd be wise to check your account statement continuously and your transactions records rather accurately, to follow on which dates you previously accumulated your tier miles, AND when they expire, to plan your subsequent upgrade to the GOLD tier in the most effective way.
GOLD
The SILVER member that accumulates 24K tier miles, including at least 4 flights with A3/OA, or a total of 48K tier miles regardless of *A airline, within 12 consecutive months from the last tier upgrade/retention, will be upgraded to the GOLD tier.
Tier retention
Tier retention is only evaluated at the end of each membership year (on the "until"-date in your account statement).
SILVER
The SILVER member that accumulates 8K tier miles including 2 flights with A3/OA or a total of 16K tier miles regardless of *A airline, within a period of 12 consecutive months from the last tier upgrade/retention, his/her status will be automatically extended for 1 year. If the member does not manage to accumulate the above within the determined time, then he/she will be downgraded to the BLUE tier.
GOLD
The GOLD member that accumulates 12K tier miles including 4 flights with A3/OA or a total of 24K tier miles regardless of *A airline, within a period of 12 consecutive months from the last tier upgrade/retention, his/her status will be automatically extended for 1 year. If the member does not manage to accumulate the above within the determined time, then he/she will be downgraded to the SILVER tier.
On reaching the retention criteria, the member's year-end date will not change, and the member's retained status will extend for 1 year from the year-end date (e.g. if the year-end date was 24th November 2015, the member's status will extend to 24th November 2016). The extension will however not be shown in your online statement until your status has been renewed (at the year-end date or immediately after). Also note that for retentions, any leftover tier miles exceeding the retention thresholds will be expired by the next time retention is evaluated, so thereby there are effectively no rollover tier miles helping you retain your status more easily.
Qualifying flights
For the purposes of accumulating either two (for SILVER) or four (for GOLD) A3/OA flights, the metal travelled on counts. So if A3 marketed, but another *A airline (or non-*A partner airline) operated the flight(s), they do not count. If another *A airline (or non-*A partner airline) marketed, but A3/OA operated the flight(s), they should count (might be subject to the online retro-claim procedure). Also note that there are some non-earning fare buckets on OA flights; these are not believed to count (if this happens to be the case, someone is bound to learn this the hard way; we'd very much like to hear your reports).
Tier and Award miles purchase (new)
SILVER and GOLD members may top up their accounts by purchasing additional tier miles in order to upgrade to the next tier or to retain their current tier. The maximum amount of tier miles that can be bought, are 1000 for SILVER members and 2000 for GOLD members (in increments of 500) priced at 10 eurocents/mile (€50 per 500 tier miles).
Award miles are also available for purchase, even for BLUE members. The maximum amount of award miles that can be bought is 50000 (in increments of 1000), priced at 2.5 eurocents/mile (€25 per 1000 award miles).
NOTE:All miles purchases are credited to your account immediately and are non-refundable.
Together Account (new)
SILVER and GOLD members may activate a together account and add up to 5 members (family, friends etc.), regardless of their tier. All the award miles earned by each member will then be automatically transferred to the together account, letting the head member of the together account make full use of the collective award miles balance for redemptions. There is also a setting in "Manage my together account" where you can allow or disallow members to see the transactions in the together account and to redeem miles on their own. Please note that all the members of the together account will still continue to receive their tier miles to their own personal accounts, in order to be eligible for status tier upgrade or retention.
Happy Miles (new)
Happy Miles is a unique service that allows you to spend up to 30% fewer miles on specific flights throughout the Aegean Airlines and Olympic Air network. Simply login to Miles+Bonus, select “Request award ticket” from the navigation list of your account menu and pick a happy mile flight. Keep checking in to find out about new destinations to come as happy miles flights are updated every three months.
Please note that A3 is a Star Alliance (*A) member airline, OA is not.
If you have questions not answered in this WIKI or you can't find an answer on the A3 Miles+Bonus website, ask in the thread below.
Tiers (clicking on them takes you directly to the respective tier's Miles+Bonus benefits webpage)
BLUE
SILVER
GOLD
Miles
Miles are classified into two categories, tier miles and award miles.
Tier Miles determine the tier of the program to which the member belongs. These are miles that each member collects from qualifying flights with A3, OA and *A airlines in order to move through the membership levels to Silver and Gold, and then to retain those levels. They expire at the end of each membership year - any 'excess' miles beyond the Tier qualification do not carry forward into the following year.
Award Miles are miles that every member collects in order to redeem for redemption flights or other products and services. Award miles are accumulated from flights with A3, OA, *A member airlines and products and services of the program partners and do not expire provided the account remains active by crediting flights.
Tier advancement
Tier advancement is constantly evaluated and measured along a rolling 12 month period. This means your account will be upgraded as soon as you hit the requirements at any time, counting backwards within the last 12 months. A few days after a new tier threshold has been reached, there will be a "Card upgrade" transaction in your transactions overview.
SILVER
The BLUE member that accumulates 12K tier miles, including at least 2 flights with A3/OA, or a total of 24K tier miles regardless of *A airline, within 12 consecutive months, will be upgraded to the SILVER tier.
Upon the upgrade to the SILVER tier, the required 12K tier miles+2xA3/OA flights or 24K tier miles will be consumed instantly and the year start/end date will be reset. Any tier miles beyond the threshold will remain in your account for 12 months, and will therefore count towards any subsequent upgrade to Gold. All segments flown in qualifying for Silver will be reset to zero, so a further 4 segments will be required to qualify for Gold under the combined segment/miles option.
NOTE: In a scenario where you accumulate the required A3/OA flights some time after you already have accumulated more tier miles than what's required in the combined tier miles plus flights threshold (12K), but have not yet accumulated enough tier miles to reach the tier miles only threshold (24K), you will be instantly upgraded to the SILVER tier and your year start/end date for your subsequent GOLD upgrade will reset, but also be set to less than 1 year ahead in time (in effect the date of the first possible opportunity to reach the upgrade threshold for the GOLD tier), the date depending on when the last consumed tier miles for the SILVER upgrade were originally accumulated. A lesser amount of tier miles, equal to the difference between the remaining leftover tier miles and the qualification thresholds, will then be required for upgrade to the GOLD tier. BUT, be aware that tier miles expire after 12 months, and therefore expiration of older tier miles will continue all through your new membership year, meaning that in this scenario the "until"-date and qualification thresholds will change as time passes and more tier miles expire. Therefore, you'd be wise to check your account statement continuously and your transactions records rather accurately, to follow on which dates you previously accumulated your tier miles, AND when they expire, to plan your subsequent upgrade to the GOLD tier in the most effective way.
GOLD
The SILVER member that accumulates 24K tier miles, including at least 4 flights with A3/OA, or a total of 48K tier miles regardless of *A airline, within 12 consecutive months from the last tier upgrade/retention, will be upgraded to the GOLD tier.
Tier retention
Tier retention is only evaluated at the end of each membership year (on the "until"-date in your account statement).
SILVER
The SILVER member that accumulates 8K tier miles including 2 flights with A3/OA or a total of 16K tier miles regardless of *A airline, within a period of 12 consecutive months from the last tier upgrade/retention, his/her status will be automatically extended for 1 year. If the member does not manage to accumulate the above within the determined time, then he/she will be downgraded to the BLUE tier.
GOLD
The GOLD member that accumulates 12K tier miles including 4 flights with A3/OA or a total of 24K tier miles regardless of *A airline, within a period of 12 consecutive months from the last tier upgrade/retention, his/her status will be automatically extended for 1 year. If the member does not manage to accumulate the above within the determined time, then he/she will be downgraded to the SILVER tier.
On reaching the retention criteria, the member's year-end date will not change, and the member's retained status will extend for 1 year from the year-end date (e.g. if the year-end date was 24th November 2015, the member's status will extend to 24th November 2016). The extension will however not be shown in your online statement until your status has been renewed (at the year-end date or immediately after). Also note that for retentions, any leftover tier miles exceeding the retention thresholds will be expired by the next time retention is evaluated, so thereby there are effectively no rollover tier miles helping you retain your status more easily.
Qualifying flights
For the purposes of accumulating either two (for SILVER) or four (for GOLD) A3/OA flights, the metal travelled on counts. So if A3 marketed, but another *A airline (or non-*A partner airline) operated the flight(s), they do not count. If another *A airline (or non-*A partner airline) marketed, but A3/OA operated the flight(s), they should count (might be subject to the online retro-claim procedure). Also note that there are some non-earning fare buckets on OA flights; these are not believed to count (if this happens to be the case, someone is bound to learn this the hard way; we'd very much like to hear your reports).
Tier and Award miles purchase (new)
SILVER and GOLD members may top up their accounts by purchasing additional tier miles in order to upgrade to the next tier or to retain their current tier. The maximum amount of tier miles that can be bought, are 1000 for SILVER members and 2000 for GOLD members (in increments of 500) priced at 10 eurocents/mile (€50 per 500 tier miles).
Award miles are also available for purchase, even for BLUE members. The maximum amount of award miles that can be bought is 50000 (in increments of 1000), priced at 2.5 eurocents/mile (€25 per 1000 award miles).
NOTE:All miles purchases are credited to your account immediately and are non-refundable.
Together Account (new)
SILVER and GOLD members may activate a together account and add up to 5 members (family, friends etc.), regardless of their tier. All the award miles earned by each member will then be automatically transferred to the together account, letting the head member of the together account make full use of the collective award miles balance for redemptions. There is also a setting in "Manage my together account" where you can allow or disallow members to see the transactions in the together account and to redeem miles on their own. Please note that all the members of the together account will still continue to receive their tier miles to their own personal accounts, in order to be eligible for status tier upgrade or retention.
Happy Miles (new)
Happy Miles is a unique service that allows you to spend up to 30% fewer miles on specific flights throughout the Aegean Airlines and Olympic Air network. Simply login to Miles+Bonus, select “Request award ticket” from the navigation list of your account menu and pick a happy mile flight. Keep checking in to find out about new destinations to come as happy miles flights are updated every three months.
New Program Details for M&B
Nov 26, 2014, 2:54 pm
#466
Join Date: Mar 2009
Location: ZRH/SFO
Programs: A3*G - AZ CFP- HH DIA
Posts: 3,666
Nov 26, 2014, 9:06 pm
#467
Join Date: Feb 2003
Location: San Francisco
Programs: Marriott Titanium, HH Diamond, A3-Gold
Posts: 204
I was finally able to sign in and find the "claim missing air miles" function. However, after filling it in correctly, an error message informed me that the the airline I flew, LH, doesn't fly that particular route. Perhaps it would be best to wait another week before trying to deal with this.
Nov 27, 2014, 3:25 am
#468
Join Date: Jun 2006
Posts: 5,885
No you will be rebooked into I class bucket but will get miles based on your original booking. ( Unless some error happens ) Now this should credit auto or you may need to retro credit.
Nov 27, 2014, 3:36 am
#469
FlyerTalk Evangelist
Join Date: Mar 2008
Location: Netherlands
Programs: KL Platinum; A3 Gold
Posts: 28,697
Whether or not the tier Miles are deleted from your account when you are promoted to Silver (and I'm beginning to think that they will be, as none of my Tier Miles from the past 12 months remain in my account after the "upgrade to new GOLD" event that occurred on 24 November) doesn't really matter.
It is clear that the tier miles, and segments (if applicable), that got you to Silver status CANNOT BE USED AGAIN to obtain Gold status.
Once you reach Silver, you effectively start with a clean slate, and are provided with a new 12 month period, looking forward and not taking any of your previous, silver-achieving miles and segments into account, in which to either a) retain Silver, or b) go up to Gold.
Nov 27, 2014, 11:11 am
#470
Moderator, Finnair
Join Date: May 2011
Location: MMX (CPH)
Programs: Eurobonus Diamond, QR Gold, AY+ Platinum, A3*G, Nordic Choice Lifetime Platinum, SJ Prio Black
Posts: 14,167
Yes, I understand that now, after seeing some more account balances IRL.
It is strange since it breaks some of the core logic in the old program.
And keeping tier miles alive for 12 months while at the same disqualifying some of them before they were older than last promotion date is even wierder. The purpose of tier miles is only to determine tier. Why create a double disqualifying rule, when the 12-months expiry works to well on its own?
It is strange since it breaks some of the core logic in the old program.
And keeping tier miles alive for 12 months while at the same disqualifying some of them before they were older than last promotion date is even wierder. The purpose of tier miles is only to determine tier. Why create a double disqualifying rule, when the 12-months expiry works to well on its own?
Nov 28, 2014, 5:13 am
#471
Join Date: Dec 2009
Location: GB - LONDON
Programs: Star Alliance Gold, BA Silver, HHonors Diamond
Posts: 150
Any update if anyone had any success of using the seat upgrade vouchers if you are Gold*? I saw my 4 certificates on Tuesday but since then these are no longer available when logging into my Miles and Bonus profile.
I phoned them today and was informed that I should try next week to try to use them as the system do redeem and process these seat upgrade vouchers are not in place yet.
Please post any success stories.
I phoned them today and was informed that I should try next week to try to use them as the system do redeem and process these seat upgrade vouchers are not in place yet.
Please post any success stories.
Nov 28, 2014, 5:23 am
#472
Moderator: Aegean Miles+Bonus
Join Date: Oct 2009
Location: AMS / ATH
Programs: AFKL Plat, A3 Gold
Posts: 7,338
Nov 28, 2014, 7:59 am
#474
FlyerTalk Evangelist
Join Date: Mar 2008
Location: Netherlands
Programs: KL Platinum; A3 Gold
Posts: 28,697
Therefore, the rules of the "new" programme can, at times, work in a different way to those of the "old" ones.
It is not intended that the rules of the "new" programme also make sense in an "old", obsolete programme. You must stop thinking about how the "old" programme worked. It is not relevant, and at times (such as here) an obstacle in understanding the "new" programme.
The new programme is clearly designed in a way that each new level has to be earned "outright". They have set a fixed target (well, 2 fixed targets, one including A3/OA sectors) for all people to reach in order to move from Blue to Silver in any rolling 12-month period (though the "problem" doesn't apply here, as Blues only ever see Tier Miles deleted due to the one-year rule) and another fixed target (well, 2 targets) for all people to reach in order to move from Silver to Gold - you have to achieve the given number of tier miles (and possibly A3/OA sectors) in a 12-month period from reaching/maintaining Silver. There are no short-cuts for "jumping" between status levels, as could occur if Tier Miles were not removed "prematurely" at the time of status upgrades.
They have decided that EVERYONE has to accumulate 24 k Tier Miles AND 4 A3/OA flights, OR 48 k Tier Miles, within 12 months of attaining/maintaining Silver, in order to reach Gold.
If they did not delete all Tier Miles at the time that a Blue member was elevated to Silver, then all "new" silvers would start their Silver status with a balance of 12k tier miles AND 2 A3/OA flights, OR 24k tier miles - the balance that earned them Silver - remaining in their account. These tier miles are "old", i.e. not going to last for very much longer (well, it would depend on how quickly you had got your flying done to move from Blue to Silver). All new Silvers therefore would start from a position of automatically having half of the required "Silver to Gold" earning amounts already in their accounts, though the remaining validity of the Tier Miles would be different for everyone - some would be set to delete very soon, whereas others may have 11, 10 months etc before those miles are due to expire based on age. Those "new" Silvers who were able to complete their flying really quickly - i.e. before those 12k miles and 2 segments//24k miles expired due to age - would therefore get Gold, from Silver, for half price. Those "new" Silvers who were unable to accumulate the extra "half" within this shortened period, would instead end up having a full year from promotion in which to accumulate the full 24k&4//48k miles. There would be a disparity then regarding how many miles were earned to get from Silver to Gold, depending on how fast you could fly. Aegean does not want this disparity, and does not want this "short-cut to Gold" if you can compress an overall-lesser amount of flying into a relatively much-shorter time period.
Tier Miles have a maximum lifetime of 12 months - but this does not mean that all Tier Points will remain in your account for a full 12 months. When your Tier Point balance reaches a level where you are entitled to a Tier Upgrade, those Tier Miles that enabled your status upgrade will be removed from your account.
You cannot use the same Tier Mile(s) to obtain more than one status upgrade. Miles will be removed from your account when you go up a level, or when the mile is a year old - whichever happens first.
Last edited by irishguy28; Nov 28, 2014 at 8:13 am
Nov 28, 2014, 10:42 am
#475
Join Date: Sep 2012
Location: NW London and NW Sydney
Programs: BA Diamond, Hilton Bronze, A3 Diamond, IHG *G
Posts: 6,343
That's very well explained, irishguy28. intuition did write some excellent FAQs for the old programme, but I think these now need to be updated.
Nov 28, 2014, 11:08 am
#478
Join Date: Jan 2013
Location: CKH
Posts: 575
Nov 28, 2014, 1:23 pm
#479
Moderator, Finnair
Join Date: May 2011
Location: MMX (CPH)
Programs: Eurobonus Diamond, QR Gold, AY+ Platinum, A3*G, Nordic Choice Lifetime Platinum, SJ Prio Black
Posts: 14,167
Geez, thanks for setting me straight and teaching me how to think. No need to treat me like I'm stupid, just because I like to reason from another perspective than yours.