A3 525
DME-SKG
Airbus A320-200
SX-DVK
Seat 12A
COACH
Flight #62 of 2019

I am no longer Star Gold, as I switched loyalties from UA to AA a half a decade back. As such, I try to stick to OneWorld carriers as much as possible. However, when traveling around Europe, and especially Greece that's not always an option. I end up on Aegean for 2-6 legs pretty much every summer. In the air they are one of the most comfortable carriers in Europe, but most of their phone agents and their IT systems are laughably bad, which can be frustrating.

A3 has implemented a "bid on upgrade" system. In the run up to this flight, I bid what I thought was a very reasonable 95Euro/person on the upgrade for the Moscow-Thessaloniki flight. A few days before the flight, A3 sent me an email saying they had declined my request. I tried to call in to see how much it would be to upfare to biz and pay the difference, but was told that it's not possible to do that, and the ONLY way to go from coach to biz is to bid on an upgrade. The agent suggest I bid...I told her I had already bid and it had been rejected, I was willing to pay the fare difference, but again...impossible.

I figured i'd give it a shot at the airport. We got to DME early. The guy at the A3 counters said there was only 1 biz seat left, so going into the specifics of how and if an upgrade could be done became a moot point. He then said he wanted to weigh our hand luggage. We travel all over the world with this luggage without issue, but some agents want to be difficult. He tried to tell my gf she had to repack her luggage or check it and pay like 60 euros. Since we already had our BPs, we told him we were going to repack the bags and return...then we just proceeded to security. Later nerd!

Security and immigration had almost no lines, it was one of my most painless exits from Russia. Also of note, we went to the Priority Pass Lounge in Sector A near Gate 1 and it was MUCH better than expected. It was bright, airy, had tons of seating and even a decent buffet. On previous visits, I had remembered every lounge at DME as being horrible, so this was a welcome surprise.

Things continued getting better from here. After boarding was completed, we found that no one had selected the aisle seat in our exit row, so my gf slid from her middle to the aisle and we had our own virtual eurobiz with even MORE legroom, for less $. Thanks for letting me keep the $ I was trying to give you for that upgrade A3! I'll crush some ouzo on you! On top of that, while BA does not even give coach passengers water, A3 served a FULL HOT MEAL on a short intra-Europe flight! What is this, 1955? There was a babaganoush starter, a main of orzo with chicken in tomato sauce, a piece of cheese with a warm roll and cookies. Of course there was also beverage service with the meal and tea and coffee after. LOL @ BA.

The flight was very empty and quite pleasant. Soon we were descending into Thessaloniki to start our three week adventure in Greece.