wtcmor

Is the 20k miles to reach gold have to be done on Aegean flights or is any Star Alliance carrier ok?
Also, I can see that you get bonus if you are in business of first. Does this count towards the 20k or is it just the base points?
Thanks

intuition

Any *A flight, as long as the class is listed in the earnings table, will count toward tier miles ans status. For codeshares, the same troubles exists as on any *carrier.

Same goes for C and F class, look it up in earnings table. There is no one simple rule like "all F earns 300%", but all flight miles are tier miles and count toward status.

midnightflight

just to be on the safe side before booking: are there any traps if travelling on a regional instead of the mainline? e.g. ac <-> jazz oder sky regional, or swiss <-> swiss european etc.? it should earn the miles in the class published for the mainline airline according to the earnings table, correct?

intuition

I believe standard *A rules are that operating carrier pays for the miles? There is no earnings table for QK, hence a QK-operated flights would not earn, even if it is marketed / sold by AC.
I am by no means expert on *A, but have seen many threads on this subject for many different *A airlines.

Personally, I'd stay away from any codeshare or marketed/operated-split tix if miles are important.

midnightflight

thank you, intuition, that´s what i´m afraid of. but being new to the a3-game i´m not sure how they handle things. and with them almost everything seems possible well, if in doubt, stay away from it -> that´s what i´m going to do.

pkfk13

Hi - I just joined A3's FFP after reading many of the forums here.

I am an AC Elite status, but typically fly between 35K and 50K miles per year - meaning I will likely lose my *G if I keep crediting my flights to Aeroplan.

Here is my dilemma - until I achieve *G on A3, I will need to use my Aeroplan Elite card for priority boarding, luggage, and lounge access - so I guess that means keep using my AP number on my bookings.....so that's simple enough.

But - what I do not know how to do - is get my flights credited to A3 ?? Will the TA's in the lounge make the change for me ? (and then kick me out of the lounge ?)

What about the gate agents - can they change the FFP number for me ? And if they refuse, then my points would go to aeroplan.....can I "redirect" them after the fact ?

Apologies if this is an obvious question, but I have read many threads, but could not find out the specifics of how to change numbers on the fly.

midnightflight

welcome, pkfk13

i´m not with aeroplan, so i don´t know. but:

yes, they can. i recently had a connecting flight and only wanted the second leg to be credited to a3, so i asked the gate agent for the second flight to change the number. it worked just fine. just be prepared that the agent probably doesn´t know a3... (when i asked i got the reply: well, if this airline is member of the star alliance i certainly can do that for you )


i´m pretty new to a3 as well, but i highly doubt that you can do that. but if someone should refuse - i´d ask to remove the numbers from that particular ticket at all and then retroclaim the miles.

RudderDucky

I can speak from experience that Jazz operated Air Canada flights do indeed earn miles on A3, as long as it is in a valid booking class. I've had the same experience for flights operated by United Express and US Airways Express. It's all dependent on the booking class.

I took a trip from the US back to Europe on AC and credited all the miles to my A3 account, which tipped me over the edge to make 20k for A3*G. At check-in, I changed everything to my A3 number and continued to use my UA*G to get waivers on bag fees and lounge access. I accessed the Maple Leaf Lounges in both Montreal and Toronto by having A3*S printed on the boarding pass and showing my UA*G card. Nobody said anything about a different number on my boarding pass as opposed to my *G card. The check-in agent even said to make sure that I hold on to my UA*G card so that I got my lounge benefits, so it seems to me AC has no problems using one number to credit to, and the other to get the benefits from.

midnightflight

thank you very much for posting your experience, RudderDucky! that´s good news! ^

pkfk13

Thanks for the info !!

These are excellent forums to help navigate thru the myriad of FFP rules and tips !

intuition

^

Is this to say that all QK operated earns the same as if it was AC or do people need to know how to map QK classes to AC? If you have specific examples (that is not in the officila earnings table), I think it would be great if you could add them here:
unlisted-fare-classes-will-will-not-credit-m-b.html

crimson12

Hi All, Sorry for what might be a basic question. But as I understand the earlier posts, once you hit *G status through A3, all you have to do is credit a flight to A3 once every three years to maintain *G? OP wrote,

If my understanding is correct, that's a pretty great deal, unlike the usual carriers who "drop down" your status every year.

RudderDucky

The flights that I flew were ORD-YUL-YYZ-FRA, all booked into L class on a single ticket with Air Canada, with the ORD-YUL segment operated by QK (and even listed the flight number using QK on the boarding pass). The flights quickly posted to my A3 account, and the QK segment actually posted showing AC8652. That makes me deduce that QK flights will post just as the AC flights as long as it is in a valid booking class as shown on the Aegean website.

mabramovich

I think I've got the hang of this...

I don't fly enough for *G, but *S and its free bags may be nice.

My understanding is I sign up for A3 and fly 3000 miles (for a total of 4000 miles, and assuming mileage-earning booking classes and so on) within 1 year.

I am now *S for 12 months from the date I hit the 4000 miles. These miles now expire in 1 year, and I can retain *S if the number of miles in my account never dips below 4000 due to expiry.

Now, I don't want to credit any more miles to A3, so I can put down any FF number on future tickets and just show my *S card while checking in to get bag fees waived.

Is that correct?

PVDtoDEL

Yeah... As long as you are crediting 4k miles per year, you should stay at silver. If you manage to push for Gold, then you'll only need 1 flight per year, not 4k miles - and the miles never expire, so you can actually bank them for an award...