FAQ No. 1 for Aegean Miles & Bonus: All You need to Know
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1. Introduction to Aegean Miles & Bonus (M&B) 1a. Quick presentation M&B is Aegean Airlines (A3) loyalty programme. Aegean Airlines is a regional airlines based in Greece, and a member of Star Alliance since 2010. The programme is mostly known for its very low qualification thresholds to get *A elite status and perks, proabbly the less stringent of the whole alliance at this point. 1b. Status matches While it can't be excluded, there was so far no report of successful status match TO M&B elite levels, except as a one time campaign tied to exit of airlines from Star Allliance. Most members won't be too concerned about matching in this case, as earning elite status is easy. There was a handful of reports of Gold status being matched by other airlines (VS, AF/KL, DL...) but sometimes to a lower tier. It's understandable since Aegean's coverage is regional and other airlines may not expect much added business by luring one of A3's frequent flyers to their programme. Status matches to other Star Alliance programme are not possible as airlines won't offer matches within an alliance as a general rule. 1c. How can I contact M&B You can contact them by mail at [email protected]. They are NOT quick to answer, but they do after a few days. If you want a quick answer, you can phone them (+30) 210 6261000 Mon-Fri 9am-11pm ATHENS TIME. Other phone numbers include :
No, there are no offices in the US to provide service during US business hours. 2. Glossary 2a. Award miles Award miles are the currency of M&B. They are used to get rewards such as free flights, upgrades on A3 flights, car rental within Greece, voucher in select Greek partner store... They come from a range of activities : flights, but also buying through A3's online stores and credit card spending. Award miles don't expire as long as the account is active. 2b. Tier miles Tier miles are used to determine status. They only come from flights credited to the programme (and 1,000 of them from a special, unexpiring signup bonus). Tier miles expire 12-months after the flight that gave them, until you reach Gold status, at which point, they don't expire. 3. Membership Tiers 3a. Tier overview and thresholds There are three levels in M&B. The first is the Basic Level. It's the level everyone starts with at enrollment. When you earn 4,000 tier miles within a rolling 12-month period, you get promoted to Blue Level. Note that, unlike many other programs, the 1,000 miles signup bonus is 1,000 award AND tier miles, so effectively, you'll have to earn 3,000 tier miles within 12 months after enrollment to get upgraded to the next level. Getting to Gold level require 16,000 tier miles within 12 months after you've been upgraded to Blue level, or within a 12-months rolling period while holding Blue status. 3b. Losing status T&C doesn't state specific requalification requirements. As long as your account is active, you should keep your status. To maintain an account active, you're expected to credit a flight at least every 24 months as a Basic member, once every 36 months as an elite member. 3c. Is this too good to be true? It seems. At this point, noone knows if there are further, hidden requirements as the programme is quite young and Gold members are yet to reach the validity period of their cards. Keep in mind that A3 is a regional airline that just joined Star Alliance. Before that, it was difficult to get 4,000 and 16,000 miles by flying on Greek domestic routes only. It's certain that earning tier miles on long-haul flights has made it much easier. Note that, as usual with FF programme, rules can be amended at any time, but so far, it's how it works. 3d. When will I get my card? Cards are sent once a month, usually around the end of the month. It can take additional time to deliver it around the world (they are shipped from Greece, and the nearer you are, the quicker you should get your card. Though the T&C states that you must use your card to get the benefits of the programme, there have been numerous reports of people being granted benefits, namely lounge access, by having their status printed on their boarding pass or showing a printout of their account showing status. No card are issued for Basic Members, only Blue and Gold members. 3e. Blue level benefits As a Blue member, you'll get:
That's all! But you should not be Blue for a long time... 3f. Gold level benefits As a Gold member, you'll get the following additional benefits:
This means getting access to *A lounges even when flying an economy ticket. A3 is located in Europe, so you'll be granted access to lounges in North America even when flying a domestic flight. 3g. Getting benefits while crediting to another programme It is possible to use a *A card to get benefits, like lounge access, while crediting the miles to another programme. PNRs have two different fields for entering the mileage programme used for credit (FQTV) and benefits (FQTS). Nothing in the term and conditions say you can't. It has been rumored that A3 is frowning upon that but it's unsubstantiated so far. This FAQ will we updated if A3 introduces crediting requirements in the future. 4. Earning miles 4a. Award and Tier miles with Aegean/Star Alliance flights. You can read the earning page here. Some precisions that aren't obvious...
Do not assume that miles earning class in another program will necessarily let you earn miles with Aegean, check the official table for information. Note that sometime, a fare class from one carrier is mapped to another fare class when operated by another carrier. You could buy a ticket with a Z fare in a codeshare flight and it won't always be Z fare of the operating carrier. 4b. Problem with getting credit/getting perks You should make sure your FF number is on the boarding pass, and ask check-in agents to check for that. You should also remember Aegean Airline code (A3) if you want to generally benefit from perks associated to the card. It's not a widely known airline, and some *A airlines employees don't know its existence or its membership of Star Alliance. So don't hesitate to tell the agent you're speaking to about that. T&C of the programme state that miles should be posted on the next business day. After that, you should do a retroclaim application, providing your boarding pass as proof of travel to A3. The procedure can be initiated by logging to A3's website and selection Claiming Miles. Miles should then be posted within four weeks. You can retroclaim up to twelve month after a flight. And, if you have uncredited *A flights before joining, you can retroclaim them up to 6 months before your join date. Empirical experience shows that miles are posting quicker than when A3 joined *A, but it can still take a few days, so you could just wait a little before submitting a retroclaim. A3 doesn't provide follow-up email when considering a claim, so if you don't see the miles posted, you can call them once the normal delay has passed. 4c. Award miles with Booking.com Aegean has a partnership to use Booking.com's engine and bring them revenue. When buying hotel rooms through this channel, you'll get 2 miles per euro spent. Be aware that several hotel chain programs don't grant points for consolidator fares, some of which you'll find via A3's website. Other may grant no points/benefits when booking via any third-party website. 4d. Award miles with CityDiscovery CityDiscovery offers tours and travel activities, and booking with them through A3's website also get 2 miles per euro spent. 4e. Award miles with duty free shopping You also get 2 miles per euro spent on on-board duty free on Aegean flights, and Hellenic Duty Free shops in Greece airports. You also get the same benefits when ordering online from the Eastpack store through A3's website. 4f. Award miles with credit card spending You can earn miles using a Greek-based Visa linked to an account in Alphabank. Unless you live in Greece, it's unlikely you can use this channel to get points. 4g. Award miles with Hertz You'll get a fixed amount of miles (from 350 to 1,000) depending on length of rental and location. You need to either book through A3's website or make sure you use A3's CDP when booking, just quoting your M&B number isn't enough. The eligible CDP are displayed on Hertz website and depend on your M&B elite level. 4h. Transfering miles and points, buying miles (short answer: no) No option exist to pool miles between accounts, transfer miles, convert to and from any other programme. It's also impossible to top up your account by buying miles. There is no transfer options between account of the same program (like Household Accounts). 5. Spending miles 5a. Aegean award flights Awards flight on A3 use mile per segment, not per origin-destination only. So if you want to fly LHR-ATH-SKG roundtrip, you'll have to count the international segment mileage (20,000) plus the domestic mileage (9,000). On the plus side, as it's basically two separate tickets, you can do an unlimited stopover... It's generally considered that Business ticket on domestic Aegean flights have little to no value over Economy. 5b. Star Alliance award flights The Star Alliance reward table can be found here as well. To clarify some poor wording on the website:
5c. Are award ticket flexible? No, you can't change tickets and you'll have to cancel them, incurring a 50% penalty on the miles used. You can cancel ticket up to 24h before a flight. Book wisely! 5d. Can I book one-way flight? Yes, they are priced at half the mileage stated in the chart. If you want to do a stop over within the same zone, it can be a solution, albeit costly: booking, say, FRA-BKK-NRT with a stopover in BKK isn't possible, so you'll have to split it into three o/w away award. FRA-BKK, BKK-NRT, and NRT-FRA. The total amount will be 105,000 miles in Eco instead of the direct 80,000. 5d. Are award transferable? Yes, you can issue award tickets for other persons freely. 5e. Upgrade award Aegean isn't part of the Star Alliance upgrade award. So far, you can only redeem miles to get an upgrade on A3 operated flights. Given the low value of upgrading to domestic business class, this FAQ will concentrate on upgrading international tickets. Upgrade can be done from the following fare: Y, M, B, H, Q, V, W, O, L, K, S, J. The cost is half the miles for an award flight (10,000 instead of 20,000 per leg), but you still gain miles based on the original booking class. So the net cost will be 8,750 if booked in Y, M, B, H and 8,000 in the other classes. You can't upgrade from the cheaper fares. 5f. How can I get an award? Award flight can be asked through the form listed in a member's online account, or a mail submission can be made to ask for an agent to come back to you with availability proposals. If you've already checked for availability, either through ANA's online tool or United website, and know exactly what flight you want to book, you'll get quicker service by phoning to M&B Customer Service : (+30) 210 6261000. Be careful to use ITA or any comparable tool to check for the taxes amount that should be charged before calling. There have been report of uninformed agents calculating taxes on a full fare flight. 5g. Award car rental You can use miles to get free car rental with Hertz in Greece, Cyprus and Bulgaria. 5h. Award shop vouchers You can redeem miles at Hellenic Duty Free shops to pay in 200 miles increments for 1 €. At half a cent per mile, it's considered poor value. 6. Tips and good value Unlike other *A programmes, A3 groups North Africa and Europe in the same award zone. Flying from Europe to Egypt or Israel don't cost more than from Germany to France. 7. Useful links 8. Unanswered questions -to be edited- Redeeming using complex route (Europe->Asia via the US) ? Renewal requirements |
Initial FAQ for Aegean Miles & Bonus
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Initial FAQ for Aegean Miles & Bonus
Reserved for later use
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Initial FAQ for Aegean Miles & Bonus
Reserved for late ruse
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Initial FAQ for Aegean Miles & Bonus
Reserved for later use.
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well done, thank you ^
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Thank you!
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Thank you. Nice!
A couple picky points: Are you sure that the Hertz upgrades are worldwide and not just in Greece (and nearby countries)? Similarly, to earn miles on Hertz rentals, I believe the area is restricted and the rental needs to be booked through Aegean. As a general rule, miles from rental cars in the USA, for instance, require a small fee or a special rate that may not be very good. My understanding of upgrades on A3 is quite different. In particular, I believe that they can only be confirmed within 24 hours of the flight, so that you're paying miles for a standby upgrade, which I would not find to be very attractive. OTOH, I think Aegean domestic business class has some value. You have more space, better food and beverages (including some decent Greek wines), and a special bus that isn't crowded when the plane is at a remote stand. If you're not *Gold, you get extra bags, lounge access, and dedicated elite check in lines; IIRC you can board when you want. I don't know if the offer is still valid, but I've gotten free days of a basic Hertz car from the airport (the automatic transmission requires an upgrade that can be confirmed with difficulty) with a domestic RT Aegean ticket in their business class. I've also been able to reserve my seats when the ticket was purchased, but there might be a one or three month window for this, not the longer period that many legacy carriers offer when seats traditionally are assigned in advance. |
Awesome job!
But you should ask a moderator from the Aegean M&B forum to consolidate this with their main topic here http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/aegea...les-bonus-694/ ;) ***EDIT*** ooops, don't shoot at me, I must have been drunk lol. Don't know why I thought this was posted in the Star Alliance forum... my bad haha |
Originally Posted by MSPeconomist
(Post 18449395)
Thank you. Nice!
Are you sure that the Hertz upgrades are worldwide and not just in Greece (and nearby countries)? Similarly, to earn miles on Hertz rentals, I believe the area is restricted and the rental needs to be booked through Aegean. As a general rule, miles from rental cars in the USA, for instance, require a small fee or a special rate that may not be very good. Simply go to https://rentacar.aegeanair.com or any Hertz office around the world and drive away with miles. To get your miles make sure to: quote your Miles&Bonus Member ID when making a reservation show your Miles&Bonus card at the time of rental My understanding of upgrades on A3 is quite different. In particular, I believe that they can only be confirmed within 24 hours of the flight, so that you're paying miles for a standby upgrade, which I would not find to be very attractive. |
Very informative, thank-you!
As I am a typical FlyerTalker (ducking and diving for status with very little flying) I have signed up to A3. Looks like my 2 scheduled transats on AC should see me re-qualify as *G this year. I noticed that a lot of fare buckets are missing from the A3 earning map. Is this an error? Or is it a case of only paying out for qualifying fares? Specifically: LH L class SK U class and T class |
Originally Posted by OttoMH
(Post 18661790)
I noticed that a lot of fare buckets are missing from the A3 earning map. Is this an error? Or is it a case of only paying out for qualifying fares? Specifically: LH L class SK U class and T class |
Now when I look at the OP, something seems funny in the discussion of Upgrade Awards. It shouldn't cost more (net) to upgrade from a Y fare etc. than from more discounted fare classes. I'm not sure that the 8,750 miles versus 8,000 miles are correct.
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Just wanted to let you know that today I have had my second upgrade Y->C on LX with my A3 status. So, upgrades on *A carriers are not totally impossible.
I like the "Post your recent op-ups...."-thread in the Miles&More forum, should we not have something similar here on the A3 forum? It would be interesting to see what you get from your A3 status.... Basically I consider the A3 forum to be very, very boring, and it is only kept alive thanks to some very few persons who answer again and again the same questions of all those new M&B-members who do not have time (or are not in the mood) to read through the posts.... |
Originally Posted by EAPflyer
(Post 19996839)
It would be interesting to see what you get from your A3 status...
Basically I consider the A3 forum to be very, very boring, and it is only kept alive thanks to some very few persons who answer again and again the same questions of all those new M&B-members who do not have time (or are not in the mood) to read through the posts... Of course, that's my personal opinion, and to make the thread less boring I include here a link to a video showing one of my dogs sleeping next to me son. It has absolutely nothing to do with the thread (possibly with the lack of lie-flat beds on many long-haul planes), but unless the mod gets really angry at me, it should make the A3 thread less boring. Mod, please feel free to delete this! |
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