Originally Posted by
NWIFlyer
... If you want to ascertain the number of miles, you'd have to check against each partner airline. Using the link below, select the airline from the dropdown, click on it, then "How to Redeem", and finally select the "Seat Upgrade" tab.
https://en.aegeanair.com/milesandbon...ine&flag=spend
As an example, using UA from Europe to Hawaii would be 150k miles for a straight redemption in J. An upgrade from Y to J using miles would be 60k, so it's fairly intuitive as to why upgrades aren't possible from all Y fares.
2 corrections: Aegean's redemptions and upgrades are still based on "region charts", so there's a simpler way of finding out how many miles you need for an upgrade by having a look at the redemption's chart by selecting any partner, it always includes all possible Awards, regardless if the specific partner only serves a handful of them.
And if you want to check out which booking classes are eligible in the first place, then you need to click the link to the full terms and conditions and check out the table that's near the end of
chapter 13 there...
The other correction I have for you is that the price in miles for purchasing an award ticket from the get go is for a return trip, a one-way to Hawaii would cost 75k in business class, not 150k. Confusingly enough, the price for upgrading a booking to a higher class with miles is only for a one-way upgrade! So it's 75k vs 60k and "taxes only" vs "a very expensive fare, minus some tier and award miles that will get credited" and this makes miles upgrades even more an absurdity than one would have thought.
It's exactly like you said, unless one already has a ticket, that's somehow booked in one of the few and absurdly priced booking classes that are actually eligible (so paid by someone else), or unless you managed to grab a once in a decade offer like some months ago, when Turkish Airlines had a great deal on a long-haul return trip in booking class B
and you simultaneously do manage to find award space on your flight (which is how upgrading with miles is supposed to work), there is no point in intentionally planning to book eligible fares in order to upgrade with miles. To me personally, Aegean's "upgrade chart" is totally useless (and apart from a couple of upgrades on Aegean's very own flights, which is the only case where the upgrade "costs" are far less) I have never used it (to upgrade any ticket on a *A partner).