How long for my A3*G card to arrive? [Timeline to "new" M+B transition]
 

To provide another data point, made A3*S on 26 December, and A3*G on 9 January. Today (in Australia), I received the gold package (a large flashy cardboard box which was mostly empty, except for a luggage tag and a very non-detailed program terms booklet. The actual card came stuck to the covering letter.

No *S card was ever received, so they obviously have some sort of lag time between achieving status and doing a sweep to generate new cards.

The card itself had an expiry date of 12/2013, no expiry on the luggage tag.

Moderator note: this thread has been created form the original M&B monster thread. This first post by arahlen appears further down the thread, but so succinctly summarises the experiences that I have moved it to the top of this thread for ease of access.

GoldCircle
A3 forum Mod
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I am just posting this to summarize my experience of the process and the time frame of achieving status and the physical card. This is in some parts repetitive from previous posts, but maybe of some interest anyway. I can also add some new knowledge to when batches are made.

1. A few days (in most cases 1 day) after your account have reached a qualifying level, there will be an account activity named "Card Upgrade" posted, and your new status will be shown.

2. A few days after your account shows your new status, it will be recognized in *A-system and will print on boarding passes. If you are in the middle of a trip, you may need to ask for re-registration of your FF# and/or boarding passes to be reissued to reflect status.

3. Cards seems to be manufactured in batches once a month. It is however not done on the last day of the month, more like last monday of month. If the "Card Upgrade" activity was posted in your account say 1 week before end of month, your new card should be manufactured in this month's batch. If not, it will be batched one month later.

4. Using the "Lost Card Reissue" function will not speed up the process, since reissued cards are also batched. In fact, the only thing you will accomplish is that you will probably loose your luggage tag, as the replacement card request will cancel the original card shipment (with luggage tag), if they are batched at the same time. Just be patient.

5. Cards are sent as regular mail, class B. Within Europe this means around 1 week of delivery time, worldwide this means several weeks of delivery time. Again, there is no way of speeding up this. So if you live outside of europe and just missed batch date, it can be close to three months before you receive your card.

6. Terms&conditions states that you need both the physical card and boarding pass with M&B status printed on it to enjoy benefits like lounge access. Several reports in this and other threads say that many lounges may let you enter even without the physical card as long as M&B *G is on the BP. Others report that a printed copy of your account page worked well in a discussion. YMMV, but please remember that it is actually not in the rules to let you enter without the physical card.

So they actually have credited my SIN-HKG UA Z flight really quickly now and ive reached *S on A3 now.

What you are saying is that I wont have to expect a *S card
Maybe it took them so long though because you live in Australia?

Does anyone know if I can expect getting a *S blue A3 card and together with that a luggage tag?

well... luggage tags usually dont have expiry dates do they?! : ) at least on LH FTL/SEN they dont have expiry dates.

Did anyone ever receive a *S card? I've read a few reports from people getting their *G cards from A3, mostly after quite some time, but don't recall anyone posting that they received a *S card. I'm travelling at the moment, but when I get home I'll have a look at the letter and envelope to see if I can spot any signs of when it was sent.

And correct - I've never seen a luggage tag (I also have TG, QF, DJ and AN luggage tags) and none of them have expiry dates - this was more of a point of fact instead of expressing any surprise on my part.

I have the A3 silver card, received it about one month after I achieved the status. Valid until Dec/2013. Now I've just qualified to gold, so I'm looking forward to receiving the new card and baggage tag.

I recieved my Blue status card today.

They dropped the first letter of my zip code when they mailed it, it's a wonder that it got here in the first place.

Undated letter, no postmark. The envelope has a stamp that said "Port Payé (French for prepaid) and "ΠΛΗΡΩΜΕΝΟ ΤΕΛΟΣ" (I know no Greek) and a very large B (second class mail?).

"Port Payé"

zzz
 

My account was upgraded to gold on April 14th, received my gold package in the mail yesterday (May 11th). The card doesn't expire till 12/14.

Pretty pathetic package...just comes with card, 1 luggage tag, welcome letter and information booklet. ZERO upgrade certificates or any other Aegean specific bonuses.

You got to *G faster than one can say "star alliance", and this status goes along with a validity of more than three and a half years. And you call pathetic the fact that you got no upgrade certificates! Check to see how many programmes do give some, and then start complaining. :confused:

Yeah 20k to get *G from scratch is a steal, considering that they give 2x/3x miles on J/F respectively on quite a few carriers. UG certs were never part of the promise on attaining *G with A3, so the card and tag seems in place.

Furthermore, with such a long validity given, I would feel more pleasantly surprised than otherwise.

I guess you guys are right. I'm not really complaining just surprised.

The only other FF program I've used is Aeroplan. When you become gold with them you receive a booklet of upgrades, inflight coupons, duty free vouchers etc.

So that is the only thing I have to compare it to. I am very impressed with the length of status retention though and would much rather have that than the other little perks.

Lounge Access as *G before Card comes
 

Has anyone had any experience getting into a *A lounge without the card - but with *G on the boarding pass. I made *G by 45 miles with 3 flights - my 4th will be in about a week - wondering if it's likely I can use this approach until the card comes.

Thx.

I have no direct experience and wish you luck!

(A broad smile and a print-out of your status from the website
http://en.aegeanair.com/milesandbonus/AccountActivity/
may help maximise your chances...)

The A3 lounge dragons in ATH are anything but ...dragons. If you have a print-out of your status, as suggested by WaterfordWanderer, your chances are rather high.