intuition

The Miles&Bonus program is renewed as of 24 nov 2014. The information in this FAQ is outdated. /Intuition


As the number of curious FT'ers coming to this forum is increasing, I thought I'd try to answer the number one question in a new thread. All this knowledge (and more) does already exist on this fora, but may be hidden in the still-to-be-chopped-up monster-thread. Don't be afraid of reading that one or other threads too, but here is the crash-course for quick knowledge to getting A3 gold card!


How do I earn Gold?
Make sure the sum "Total Tier Miles" presented in your account hits 20 000 at any given point in time.

You can make this happen
a) by crediting 19 000 tier earning miles to your A3 account within 12 months of the flight date of your first credited flight
or
b) by crediting 3 000 tier earning miles within 12 months of the flight date of your first credited flight and then crediting another 16 000 tier earning miles in any given 12 month period

If you understand every word in the above statements, this is the only thing you need to know! Now get out there and fly some 20k!


NEWS
A3 has upgraded the member page and will now display number of miles needed and by what date those miles must be earned.

What is the talk of 16 000 miles about?
That is what a A3 blue card holder needs to collect to reach gold, since the tier points are not reset to zero upon status upgrade. This is good if you are planning a slow route to gold. If you are going for gold the fast route, don't try to understand how blue works, just keep your focus on the 20 000 miles.



20 000? But you said 19 000 miles?
If you sign up for the program online, you will get 1 000 miles for enrolment. These counts as tier miles.
There have been occasional reports saying enrolment bonus only counts as award miles, but last time I personally checked the bonus awarded is both tier and award miles.


Please explain the rules better so I can make my own decisions!
This will be in the art of making something simple sound complicated.

Short explanation:
You need 20 000 tier points for gold. The program do not use calendar year and there is no membership year. Tier points do not get reset to zero upon getting blue card. Tier points do expire and gets deleted sequentially from your account after 12 months.

Long explanation:
A3 uses a points-expiry-policy / a rolling status evaluation year. The basic rule is that tier points will expire 12 months after you earned them. This date is labelled "Activity date" in your account and is basically the date of flying. For instance, a retro claimed flight will expire 12 months after flight date, not 12 months after it was credited to your account.
Originally, the Internet enrolment bonus was an exception and did not expire at all.
Starting autumn 2012, expiry rules will apply to enrolment bonus miles as well. User reporting indicates that enrolment bonus miles may have different expiration for different users. Both 12 months and 6 months expiry have been reported.

Your tier account is evaluated every day to see if you meet the requirements for status upgrade. The tier account will first be scanned for points that have expired, delete them and then the remaining tier points will be summed up. If the sum is above 4 000 you will get the blue card upgrade and if it is above 20 000 you will get the gold card upgrade.

Upon getting Blue status, the 4k miles that earned you blue are secured and will not expire. From this point you need another 16k miles for GOLD. These miles have the same expiry model as before, and since your first 4k miles are secured, these 16k miles can be earned in a period of 12 consecutive months of your choosing. If you fail to add 16k miles within 12 months, you will not lose BLUE and you will not gain GOLD. The only thing that will happen is that the oldest miles after getting BLUE status, will start to expire.
You will not lose BLUE status, or the first 4k miles it seems, as long as you keep your account active. It is unknown if there is any other specific rules for renewal of blue status at this point. Check the information for 'keeping card active' under GOLD.


After getting gold status, the collected tier points will no longer expire. The account page will change, and the section labelled "Tier miles soon to expire" will disappear from your account.
To retain status the gold member must now keep his account active. This can be done by using the M&B co-branded credit card or by crediting one (1) tier earning flight to the account within the following 36 months. At this point it is not known if there are any other requirements for re-qualification. Therefore, it is of little use to ask the forum about the re-qualification rules, as we can only provide opinions on this matter!

How do I log in to M&B using an iPad?
http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/aegea...l#post18726280


OK, there are tonnes of other A3 knowledge spread around here, but now you have all you need to get the Gold card. Minus the flying. So what are you waiting for?

KLouis

I guess it must have been a rainy Sunday for you too!

sipples

I thought the initial 1,000 tier miles expire (as tier miles) 12 months after program enrollment.

intuition

Haha, it was actually a blue (or blue-ish) sky, subzero temp and a few hours of very pale sun! Here in the nordics that is considered a good day!

intuition

I don't have the authoritative answer on it (only a blue member with less than 4k points/year can tell how it works) but 2 things in the T&C leads me to this conclusion:

How to determine the dates for which tier miles to count for status upgrade:
The clock starts ticking on first flight, not on enrollment date. So enrollment bonus should not expire before first flight expires.

How to determine when the account will get deleted:
By this it seems enrollment bonus do not expire like flight activities, but gets deleted only when the account gets deleted (after all flight activity have expired).

GUWonder

Great OP, thanks.

Now that it is sunny here today, hopefully the help will keep coming.

For my circle of friends and family, a lot of upcoming A3*S and A3*G cards are in the future, and this has answered the most important questions for the ones who have been seeking answers about whether or not there was a tier miles reset at each qualification level.

MSPeconomist

However, when you reach blue or *Silver, the My Account/Account Summary: page will show your total miles but the last five records displayed (tier miles about to expire) below there will drop the 1000 sign up bonus and the first 3,000 additional miles you earned. In my case, only four flights were displayed and the first one showed 3,000 fewer miles than it should have, but the 1,000 + 3,000 miles were included in my total tier miles and total award miles at the top of the page. If you see this on your account, do not worry.

GUWonder

Tier (status) miles expire one year from the date earned and the expiration of tier miles is indicated under "Miles&Bonus / My Account". Some would call this a rolling calendar feature when it comes to elite status qualification determinations.

intuition

GUWonder, could you PM me a little more in detail of this as I'd like to update the post with new knowledge. I am asking because other poster claimed the opposite and I cannot confirm myself. I have some specific question, but failed to PM you as your inbox is full...

GUWonder

Just logged into a relative's A3 account which I signed up for earlier this month.

After getting into the following link http://en.aegeanair.com/milesandbonus/ and signing in, this link under "My Account" on the right side of the screen gives way to the following https://en.aegeanair.com/milesandbon...MilesToExpire/ which revealed the following:

The only actions to credit anything to the account were the three flights corresponding to the dates provided above minus a year and the 1,000 enrollment bonus.

intuition

OK, that is consistent with what I wrote in the first post. The tier points are under the expiry-policy / rolling year until you reach Gold status. After that points do not expire, and the expire list will disappear from your account.
(I thought you posted to correct an error in my post. )

bevoinva

While it is true that you will earn Gold by flying 20,000 miles in any given 12 month period you can also obtain Gold status by flying 16,000 miles from when you gain Blue status - even if that is longer than a 12 month period.

You cite "marketeer language" but this is part of the terms and conditions. The 20,000 miles isn't the only rule one needs to understand.

Take for example my son's account. He had these activities:

Internet enrollment 4/20/2011.
First flight 4/23/2011
Hit 4,000 miles on a flight 5/22/2011 (went 1194 miles over so he had a total of 5194)

His account status was upgraded to Blue on 5/26/2011.

His account then said:

Account Summary:
Total Tier Miles:
5194
Total Award Miles:
5194

Tier miles about to expire (last 5 records):
Date: Tier Miles To Expire:
22/05/2012 1194

This would imply that his tier miles will not expire until a year from his Blue status - NOT from his first flight activity. Therefore he has a year from the date he earned his first miles as a Blue member (5/22/2011) to get another 16,000 miles and achieve Gold.

Theoretically, one could take almost two years to earn the 20,000 miles and get Gold.

intuition

Well, it seems from your example that the expiry date is set to 12 months after the last credited flight on the previous tier (22/5), and not the upgrade date (26/5). The T&C says "...first miles-accruing flight on the previous tier " in regards of how to count the 16k miles.
Thanks for the example, this gives another path to gold, and I will update my post with this info!

bevoinva

In my son's case, because he didn't come in right at the 4000 miles (he went over by 1194), the flight that got him to Blue was also his first miles accruing flight on the previous (Blue) tier.

I'm not sure what would happen if someone were to hit 4000 miles exactly to obtain Blue status and then wait some period of time before they took another flight. I would guess that the 12 month period to qualify for Gold would start from when the next flight was taken (as long as they still had Blue status when they took the next flight) but who knows?

Might be awhile before we get all of the scenarios figured out since the program is still relatively new!

MSPeconomist

If you are referring to my post in this thread, post #12 seems to confirm what I observed in my account.