Old Mar 9, 2015, 6:33 am
FlyerTalk Forums Expert How-Tos and Guides
Last edit by: Gnopps
*** MOD NOTE: Please do not remove ***

A friendly reminder that Flyertalk is not a marketplace, and nothing may be offered (or solicited) for sale or barter within the general forums - which includes offering vouchers for free. For those with sufficient posts and length of membership, trading/exchange is allowed solely within Coupon Connection, and then only in accordance with the specific rules of that forum.

Please do not attempt to solicit, sell or trade upgrade vouchers within this forum. Posts will be deleted and the members concerned potentially subject to disciplinary action. **Please note that this includes directly using the PM system to do so without first posting in Coupon Connection**. Thanks for your co-operation.
A3 provides all Gold members with four vouchers for upgrade from Economy to Business. Silver members get two upgrade vouchers.

Criteria
  • You must be travelling on A3 or OA metal - codeshares are not included.
  • The original ticket must be issued on either A3 (390) or OA (050) ticket stock.
  • Only revenue (paid) tickets, in fare classes other than U, P & T on a GoLight fare basis, can be upgraded, but not redemption tickets.
  • All flights on the ticket must be on A3 or OA metal.
  • There must be award availability in I-class for the upgrades to clear. You can check this by logging in to M&B then going to https://en.aegeanair.com/milesandbon...t/spend-miles/ The results page will initially be a calendar. To see Business availability, you have to click through to the next step. (You can also use a free or paid tool such as ANA website, UA website (looking for saver award space), Aeroplan, AwardNexus or ExpertFlyer to check for availability.)
  • One coupon per person per journey leg is required - so, for example, TXL-ATH-SKG and return via the same route would require four coupons per person.
  • Anyone can be upgraded using the coupons - you do not have to be travelling on the same booking or even the same plane.

Procedure
  • Call A3 to request the upgrade. The phone numbers are listed at https://aegeanairlines.custhelp.com/ (most of them should go to the same call centre in Greece).
  • If successful, a new ticket will be issued (with a new number). The PNR will remain unchanged.
  • You are liable for any extra taxes applicable to Business Class (e.g. APD from the UK). Sometimes this gets charged, sometimes it doesn't - if it's due and you're not charged because the agent forgets, you've just been lucky.
  • If there's no immediate I-class availability, you can ask to be waitlisted for upgrade. The ability to waitlist was reported to have been removed in August 2016, but was again possible in September. Check with the agent - option available on May 2018.
    • in case you requested to be waitlisted for upgrade and want to check if the customer care agent made the changes on your booking you can check the reservation on checkmytrip.com (click here), the leg you requested the upgrade will be shown here as Waitlisted.
  • If you wish to upgrade one segment of a multi-segment trip (e.g. XXX-ATH-YYY) and there is availability on the leg you wish to upgrade, you may still have to be waitlisted due to married segment issues. The process of clearing the waitlist is somewhat confusing and may result in frustration due to the availability seeming to disappear but in reality, this may mean that the segments have been "unmarried" and the availability has been allocated to your reservation. See post 2272 and the update in post 2294 for more details.

Benefits
  • No matter what the fare basis of the original ticket, you receive full Business Class benefits after upgrade.
  • This includes lounge access (useful if you're upgrading someone other than yourself who has no status, or if you've run out of Silver lounge vouchers) and full baggage allowance (it applies for first leg as well, in case you are upgraded only on the 2nd leg of your trip - confirmed on the etix).
  • Because the ticket books as a redemption, the free car hire is not included.

Mileage/segment earning
  • You will earn at the underlying rate of your purchased ticket in economy, not at a business class rate. Because status miles are awarded, this also counts as a segment for re-qualification purposes.
  • The flights may credit automatically, but may take longer to credit than tickets that have not been changed. They may also credit as 0 miles, and later change to the correct rate. If the flights have not credited properly after a few weeks then calling A3 will rectify this rapidly.

Expiry
  • The vouchers expire at the end of your membership year - they do not carry over, even if status is retained. A new set is issued every year.
  • It is the date when you use the voucher that matters. It can upgrade a flight that takes place after expiry as long as you apply the voucher before.
  • On upgrade from Silver to Gold, any remaining Silver upgrade coupons expire, but they are replaced by four Gold ones which expire at the end of the Gold membership year.

BEWARE
  • Once you have upgraded your seat, your ticket will be reissued. Suddenly, this ticket may be VERY expensive to change. If, for instance, you later decide to travel on a different date, you will probably be required to rebook into Business, even if Economy was available for new bookings. A3 will charge you the difference from your original Economy fare to a NEW Business fare. Plus fees, taxes and whatnot. Update 18/08/2021: this appears to no longer be the case, as an upgraded ticket was changed and the underlying Economy fare was used for the upgraded segments. The coupon was "removed" from the old dates and "reapplied" to the new dates.
  • Coupons will not be returned/reinstated. Once a coupon is applied, it is gone for good (the T&Cs printed on the coupons allow for date and time changes, but not route changes).
  • If you want to provide your coupons to upgrade a friend's travel, it is advisable to call in yourself. Your friend can call in if they know your name, birthdate, M&B-number and the email address associated with your account. That means: Anyone who knows these particulars can use your coupons without your knowledge. They do NOT need the coupon numbers.
  • Crediting upgraded segments to another program will likely fail, as it will be reported as I-class. It may be possible to retro-claim the miles.
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Seat upgrade coupons

Old Sep 28, 2015, 9:10 am
  #691  
Community Director
 
Join Date: Jan 2009
Location: Norwich, UK
Programs: A3*G, BA Gold, BD Gold (in memoriam), IHG Diamond Ambassador
Posts: 8,448
It's revenue protection, so that you can't just rely on the upgrade vouchers to get into the J cabin - otherwise everyone would just buy the cheapest Y ticket they could, and we'd end up with a system like the US where Elites flood the F cabin for nothing (although there's some efforts from the US airlines to change this and move closer to the European model).

There's a discussion on almost exactly this point over at the BA forum:
http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/briti...st-failed.html

So A3 is not exactly unique in Europe in managing its seat inventory this way.

In other words, if you want to guarantee J, you have to pay for it.
NWIFlyer is offline  
Old Sep 29, 2015, 5:37 am
  #692  
 
Join Date: Jan 2014
Posts: 236
I understand revenue protection. A3 wants to keep it random where you can use the voucher, even if the J-cabin is empty. But my guess is, that they just expected a good load on this flight, which didn't happen and they didn't bother to manually clear the voucher at a later stage. I think so, because they were blocking I-class with a clear pattern the days and weeks before my flight.

If this was really a case of random/clever blocking due to revenue protection, then fair play.
aflo is offline  
Old Sep 29, 2015, 10:30 am
  #693  
FlyerTalk Evangelist
 
Join Date: Nov 2002
Location: Chilling with penguins
Posts: 13,043
I wouldn't advocate A3 giving the seat away for "free" unless it was oversold in Y and there were free seats in J; but it's not really revenue protection anymore when the seat is actually going to fly empty and someone is willing to surrender an upgrade voucher (since that is what they are paying with).
YOWkid is offline  
Old Sep 29, 2015, 10:36 am
  #694  
 
Join Date: Feb 2013
Location: Paris, France
Programs: A3*G, Accor ALL Gold
Posts: 597
My idea is that one should :
- check availability, I class
- make the booking
- call Aegean right away to secure business upgrade
KATERGOO is offline  
Old Oct 1, 2015, 5:47 am
  #695  
 
Join Date: Jan 2014
Posts: 236
I-class availability at booking time is pretty low in my priority list, when I am choosing a flight date
aflo is offline  
Old Oct 1, 2015, 9:16 am
  #696  
 
Join Date: Feb 2013
Location: Paris, France
Programs: A3*G, Accor ALL Gold
Posts: 597
Originally Posted by aflo
I-class availability at booking time is pretty low in my priority list, when I am choosing a flight date
Maybe you should re-consider your priorities if you can. 😊
KATERGOO is offline  
Old Oct 2, 2015, 2:45 pm
  #697  
 
Join Date: Mar 2015
Location: GVA
Programs: A3 *G, LX *G, AF *S
Posts: 760
Unhappy Upgraded flights don't post

I thought this was solved - but a relative had now flights booked in class S, with voucher upgrade to I, and the miles haven't posted.
Tried to do retro-claim with the original ticket number, but the response was "the booking class doesn't earn miles".

Well - I guess another call to our friendly Aegean call center is necessary...
Carpacchio is offline  
Old Oct 3, 2015, 11:23 am
  #698  
 
Join Date: Jun 2006
Posts: 5,845
Originally Posted by KATERGOO
My idea is that one should :
- check availability, I class
- make the booking
- call Aegean right away to secure business upgrade
Pretty much my theory the last two decades with most of my airline upgrades ^
DELLAS is offline  
Old Oct 6, 2015, 3:37 am
  #699  
 
Join Date: Apr 2012
Location: LON, ATH
Programs: A3*G, BA Gold, OA Gold (in memoriam), Hertz #1 Gold
Posts: 545
Is it really revenue protection if the seat flights empty eventually?
DrHalxx is offline  
Old Oct 6, 2015, 5:50 am
  #700  
 
Join Date: Jan 2004
Location: Heraklion, Greece
Posts: 7,557
Originally Posted by DrHalxx
Is it really revenue protection if the seat flights empty eventually?
It's NOT empty, even if not upgraded, you're still on board. Just think about it...
KLouis is offline  
Old Oct 6, 2015, 6:07 am
  #701  
Community Director
 
Join Date: Jan 2009
Location: Norwich, UK
Programs: A3*G, BA Gold, BD Gold (in memoriam), IHG Diamond Ambassador
Posts: 8,448
Originally Posted by DrHalxx
Is it really revenue protection if the seat flights empty eventually?

Yes, absolutely in airline terms.

The real aim is to make you pay cold, hard cash to sit Business Class - these vouchers can be seen as a 'try before you buy' incentive to create that appetite, but it's why space is limited. If everyone believes they can upgrade for nothing because there are spare seats there, they'll never pay up. It may be why sometimes additional I space is created, and sometimes it isn't - if your history shows no Business Class purchases, they're more likely to grant a discretionary upgrade than if you regularly travel in the cabin but have chosen to chance your arm on a voucher.

It's very common amongst the European airlines - to quote a specific example, BA offers something called an AUP (Airport Upgrade Price). This is typically (at least on longhaul) less that the difference if the higher cabin had been purchased at time of booking. However, they do not always offer these, and if you take too many each year you're denied an offer, whereas the person who asks immediately after you is given a price.
NWIFlyer is offline  
Old Oct 15, 2015, 11:01 am
  #702  
 
Join Date: Sep 2010
Location: EDKA, STR, ZRH
Programs: LH SEN, A3*G, IHG plat, DB Comfort, SPG gold
Posts: 964
Number of vouchers needed to upgrade connecting flights

The wiki states that

One coupon per person per journey leg is required - so, for example, TXL-ATH-SKG and return via the same route would require four coupons per person.
I cannot confirm this; I were booked DUS-SKG-ATH vv (not on the direct flights but with a 2hr overlay in SKG) and they only invalidated two of my four vouchers, although I would have expected that all four vouchers were needed to book such an upgrade.

Did they just make a mistake or can anyone confirm?
bruce80 is offline  
Old Oct 15, 2015, 11:09 am
  #703  
Suspended
 
Join Date: Jul 2014
Location: MAN,TLV
Programs: Silver:BA,VX,AB, QF. Gold:A3,RJ,AZ,GF, EY,SPG,Marriott,Choice, Carlson. Dia/Plat:HH,IHG,BW,Accor
Posts: 1,965
Originally Posted by bruce80
The wiki states that



I cannot confirm this; I were booked DUS-SKG-ATH vv (not on the direct flights but with a 2hr overlay in SKG) and they only invalidated two of my four vouchers, although I would have expected that all four vouchers were needed to book such an upgrade.

Did they just make a mistake or can anyone confirm?
I also had a mistake like that once. from TLV-ATH-LHR, & only 1 coupon used. but other times 2 got used. yes it is a nice Lucky mistake.
benberg2013 is offline  
Old Oct 15, 2015, 8:18 pm
  #704  
 
Join Date: Sep 2009
Location: YYZ
Posts: 222
Originally Posted by Carpacchio
I thought this was solved - but a relative had now flights booked in class S, with voucher upgrade to I, and the miles haven't posted.
Tried to do retro-claim with the original ticket number, but the response was "the booking class doesn't earn miles".

Well - I guess another call to our friendly Aegean call center is necessary...
Same for me for two flights I took in September using my upgrades. Has anyone been successful in getting missing miles posted by submitting a request through the customer relations online form (https://aegeanairlines.custhelp.com/app/ask), or do I need to call in?
laner is offline  
Old Oct 16, 2015, 6:03 am
  #705  
 
Join Date: Sep 2010
Location: EDKA, STR, ZRH
Programs: LH SEN, A3*G, IHG plat, DB Comfort, SPG gold
Posts: 964
Originally Posted by laner
Same for me for two flights I took in September using my upgrades. Has anyone been successful in getting missing miles posted by submitting a request through the customer relations online form (https://aegeanairlines.custhelp.com/app/ask), or do I need to call in?
Well, my miles (or at least the segments) did post for upgraded flights (P resp. V to I), but this took quite a while, almost two weeks in my case. However, the status meter is now displaying "0 miles including 0 flights to go".
bruce80 is offline  

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