Oct 20, 2014, 8:06 am
Last edit by: Snacky
This is the WIKI for the Aegean Airlines (A3) / Olympic Air (OA) Miles+Bonus frequent flier program. Please read all about it on their homepage: http://en.aegeanair.com/milesandbonus/
Please note that A3 is a Star Alliance (*A) member airline, OA is not.
If you have questions not answered in this WIKI or you can't find an answer on the A3 Miles+Bonus website, ask in the thread below.
Tiers (clicking on them takes you directly to the respective tier's Miles+Bonus benefits webpage)
BLUE
SILVER
GOLD
Miles
Miles are classified into two categories, tier miles and award miles.
Tier Miles determine the tier of the program to which the member belongs. These are miles that each member collects from qualifying flights with A3, OA and *A airlines in order to move through the membership levels to Silver and Gold, and then to retain those levels. They expire at the end of each membership year - any 'excess' miles beyond the Tier qualification do not carry forward into the following year.
Award Miles are miles that every member collects in order to redeem for redemption flights or other products and services. Award miles are accumulated from flights with A3, OA, *A member airlines and products and services of the program partners and do not expire provided the account remains active by crediting flights.
Tier advancement
Tier advancement is constantly evaluated and measured along a rolling 12 month period. This means your account will be upgraded as soon as you hit the requirements at any time, counting backwards within the last 12 months. A few days after a new tier threshold has been reached, there will be a "Card upgrade" transaction in your transactions overview.
SILVER
The BLUE member that accumulates 12K tier miles, including at least 2 flights with A3/OA, or a total of 24K tier miles regardless of *A airline, within 12 consecutive months, will be upgraded to the SILVER tier.
Upon the upgrade to the SILVER tier, the required 12K tier miles+2xA3/OA flights or 24K tier miles will be consumed instantly and the year start/end date will be reset. Any tier miles beyond the threshold will remain in your account for 12 months, and will therefore count towards any subsequent upgrade to Gold. All segments flown in qualifying for Silver will be reset to zero, so a further 4 segments will be required to qualify for Gold under the combined segment/miles option.
NOTE: In a scenario where you accumulate the required A3/OA flights some time after you already have accumulated more tier miles than what's required in the combined tier miles plus flights threshold (12K), but have not yet accumulated enough tier miles to reach the tier miles only threshold (24K), you will be instantly upgraded to the SILVER tier and your year start/end date for your subsequent GOLD upgrade will reset, but also be set to less than 1 year ahead in time (in effect the date of the first possible opportunity to reach the upgrade threshold for the GOLD tier), the date depending on when the last consumed tier miles for the SILVER upgrade were originally accumulated. A lesser amount of tier miles, equal to the difference between the remaining leftover tier miles and the qualification thresholds, will then be required for upgrade to the GOLD tier. BUT, be aware that tier miles expire after 12 months, and therefore expiration of older tier miles will continue all through your new membership year, meaning that in this scenario the "until"-date and qualification thresholds will change as time passes and more tier miles expire. Therefore, you'd be wise to check your account statement continuously and your transactions records rather accurately, to follow on which dates you previously accumulated your tier miles, AND when they expire, to plan your subsequent upgrade to the GOLD tier in the most effective way.
GOLD
The SILVER member that accumulates 24K tier miles, including at least 4 flights with A3/OA, or a total of 48K tier miles regardless of *A airline, within 12 consecutive months from the last tier upgrade/retention, will be upgraded to the GOLD tier.
Tier retention
Tier retention is only evaluated at the end of each membership year (on the "until"-date in your account statement).
SILVER
The SILVER member that accumulates 8K tier miles including 2 flights with A3/OA or a total of 16K tier miles regardless of *A airline, within a period of 12 consecutive months from the last tier upgrade/retention, his/her status will be automatically extended for 1 year. If the member does not manage to accumulate the above within the determined time, then he/she will be downgraded to the BLUE tier.
GOLD
The GOLD member that accumulates 12K tier miles including 4 flights with A3/OA or a total of 24K tier miles regardless of *A airline, within a period of 12 consecutive months from the last tier upgrade/retention, his/her status will be automatically extended for 1 year. If the member does not manage to accumulate the above within the determined time, then he/she will be downgraded to the SILVER tier.
On reaching the retention criteria, the member's year-end date will not change, and the member's retained status will extend for 1 year from the year-end date (e.g. if the year-end date was 24th November 2015, the member's status will extend to 24th November 2016). The extension will however not be shown in your online statement until your status has been renewed (at the year-end date or immediately after). Also note that for retentions, any leftover tier miles exceeding the retention thresholds will be expired by the next time retention is evaluated, so thereby there are effectively no rollover tier miles helping you retain your status more easily.
Qualifying flights
For the purposes of accumulating either two (for SILVER) or four (for GOLD) A3/OA flights, the metal travelled on counts. So if A3 marketed, but another *A airline (or non-*A partner airline) operated the flight(s), they do not count. If another *A airline (or non-*A partner airline) marketed, but A3/OA operated the flight(s), they should count (might be subject to the online retro-claim procedure). Also note that there are some non-earning fare buckets on OA flights; these are not believed to count (if this happens to be the case, someone is bound to learn this the hard way; we'd very much like to hear your reports).
Tier and Award miles purchase (new)
SILVER and GOLD members may top up their accounts by purchasing additional tier miles in order to upgrade to the next tier or to retain their current tier. The maximum amount of tier miles that can be bought, are 1000 for SILVER members and 2000 for GOLD members (in increments of 500) priced at 10 eurocents/mile (€50 per 500 tier miles).
Award miles are also available for purchase, even for BLUE members. The maximum amount of award miles that can be bought is 50000 (in increments of 1000), priced at 2.5 eurocents/mile (€25 per 1000 award miles).
NOTE:All miles purchases are credited to your account immediately and are non-refundable.
Together Account (new)
SILVER and GOLD members may activate a together account and add up to 5 members (family, friends etc.), regardless of their tier. All the award miles earned by each member will then be automatically transferred to the together account, letting the head member of the together account make full use of the collective award miles balance for redemptions. There is also a setting in "Manage my together account" where you can allow or disallow members to see the transactions in the together account and to redeem miles on their own. Please note that all the members of the together account will still continue to receive their tier miles to their own personal accounts, in order to be eligible for status tier upgrade or retention.
Happy Miles (new)
Happy Miles is a unique service that allows you to spend up to 30% fewer miles on specific flights throughout the Aegean Airlines and Olympic Air network. Simply login to Miles+Bonus, select “Request award ticket” from the navigation list of your account menu and pick a happy mile flight. Keep checking in to find out about new destinations to come as happy miles flights are updated every three months.
Please note that A3 is a Star Alliance (*A) member airline, OA is not.
If you have questions not answered in this WIKI or you can't find an answer on the A3 Miles+Bonus website, ask in the thread below.
Tiers (clicking on them takes you directly to the respective tier's Miles+Bonus benefits webpage)
BLUE
SILVER
GOLD
Miles
Miles are classified into two categories, tier miles and award miles.
Tier Miles determine the tier of the program to which the member belongs. These are miles that each member collects from qualifying flights with A3, OA and *A airlines in order to move through the membership levels to Silver and Gold, and then to retain those levels. They expire at the end of each membership year - any 'excess' miles beyond the Tier qualification do not carry forward into the following year.
Award Miles are miles that every member collects in order to redeem for redemption flights or other products and services. Award miles are accumulated from flights with A3, OA, *A member airlines and products and services of the program partners and do not expire provided the account remains active by crediting flights.
Tier advancement
Tier advancement is constantly evaluated and measured along a rolling 12 month period. This means your account will be upgraded as soon as you hit the requirements at any time, counting backwards within the last 12 months. A few days after a new tier threshold has been reached, there will be a "Card upgrade" transaction in your transactions overview.
SILVER
The BLUE member that accumulates 12K tier miles, including at least 2 flights with A3/OA, or a total of 24K tier miles regardless of *A airline, within 12 consecutive months, will be upgraded to the SILVER tier.
Upon the upgrade to the SILVER tier, the required 12K tier miles+2xA3/OA flights or 24K tier miles will be consumed instantly and the year start/end date will be reset. Any tier miles beyond the threshold will remain in your account for 12 months, and will therefore count towards any subsequent upgrade to Gold. All segments flown in qualifying for Silver will be reset to zero, so a further 4 segments will be required to qualify for Gold under the combined segment/miles option.
NOTE: In a scenario where you accumulate the required A3/OA flights some time after you already have accumulated more tier miles than what's required in the combined tier miles plus flights threshold (12K), but have not yet accumulated enough tier miles to reach the tier miles only threshold (24K), you will be instantly upgraded to the SILVER tier and your year start/end date for your subsequent GOLD upgrade will reset, but also be set to less than 1 year ahead in time (in effect the date of the first possible opportunity to reach the upgrade threshold for the GOLD tier), the date depending on when the last consumed tier miles for the SILVER upgrade were originally accumulated. A lesser amount of tier miles, equal to the difference between the remaining leftover tier miles and the qualification thresholds, will then be required for upgrade to the GOLD tier. BUT, be aware that tier miles expire after 12 months, and therefore expiration of older tier miles will continue all through your new membership year, meaning that in this scenario the "until"-date and qualification thresholds will change as time passes and more tier miles expire. Therefore, you'd be wise to check your account statement continuously and your transactions records rather accurately, to follow on which dates you previously accumulated your tier miles, AND when they expire, to plan your subsequent upgrade to the GOLD tier in the most effective way.
GOLD
The SILVER member that accumulates 24K tier miles, including at least 4 flights with A3/OA, or a total of 48K tier miles regardless of *A airline, within 12 consecutive months from the last tier upgrade/retention, will be upgraded to the GOLD tier.
Tier retention
Tier retention is only evaluated at the end of each membership year (on the "until"-date in your account statement).
SILVER
The SILVER member that accumulates 8K tier miles including 2 flights with A3/OA or a total of 16K tier miles regardless of *A airline, within a period of 12 consecutive months from the last tier upgrade/retention, his/her status will be automatically extended for 1 year. If the member does not manage to accumulate the above within the determined time, then he/she will be downgraded to the BLUE tier.
GOLD
The GOLD member that accumulates 12K tier miles including 4 flights with A3/OA or a total of 24K tier miles regardless of *A airline, within a period of 12 consecutive months from the last tier upgrade/retention, his/her status will be automatically extended for 1 year. If the member does not manage to accumulate the above within the determined time, then he/she will be downgraded to the SILVER tier.
On reaching the retention criteria, the member's year-end date will not change, and the member's retained status will extend for 1 year from the year-end date (e.g. if the year-end date was 24th November 2015, the member's status will extend to 24th November 2016). The extension will however not be shown in your online statement until your status has been renewed (at the year-end date or immediately after). Also note that for retentions, any leftover tier miles exceeding the retention thresholds will be expired by the next time retention is evaluated, so thereby there are effectively no rollover tier miles helping you retain your status more easily.
Qualifying flights
For the purposes of accumulating either two (for SILVER) or four (for GOLD) A3/OA flights, the metal travelled on counts. So if A3 marketed, but another *A airline (or non-*A partner airline) operated the flight(s), they do not count. If another *A airline (or non-*A partner airline) marketed, but A3/OA operated the flight(s), they should count (might be subject to the online retro-claim procedure). Also note that there are some non-earning fare buckets on OA flights; these are not believed to count (if this happens to be the case, someone is bound to learn this the hard way; we'd very much like to hear your reports).
Tier and Award miles purchase (new)
SILVER and GOLD members may top up their accounts by purchasing additional tier miles in order to upgrade to the next tier or to retain their current tier. The maximum amount of tier miles that can be bought, are 1000 for SILVER members and 2000 for GOLD members (in increments of 500) priced at 10 eurocents/mile (€50 per 500 tier miles).
Award miles are also available for purchase, even for BLUE members. The maximum amount of award miles that can be bought is 50000 (in increments of 1000), priced at 2.5 eurocents/mile (€25 per 1000 award miles).
NOTE:All miles purchases are credited to your account immediately and are non-refundable.
Together Account (new)
SILVER and GOLD members may activate a together account and add up to 5 members (family, friends etc.), regardless of their tier. All the award miles earned by each member will then be automatically transferred to the together account, letting the head member of the together account make full use of the collective award miles balance for redemptions. There is also a setting in "Manage my together account" where you can allow or disallow members to see the transactions in the together account and to redeem miles on their own. Please note that all the members of the together account will still continue to receive their tier miles to their own personal accounts, in order to be eligible for status tier upgrade or retention.
Happy Miles (new)
Happy Miles is a unique service that allows you to spend up to 30% fewer miles on specific flights throughout the Aegean Airlines and Olympic Air network. Simply login to Miles+Bonus, select “Request award ticket” from the navigation list of your account menu and pick a happy mile flight. Keep checking in to find out about new destinations to come as happy miles flights are updated every three months.
New Program Details for M&B
Oct 1, 2014, 4:57 am
#151
Join Date: Feb 2013
Posts: 356
Ok, now I'm confused.
My understanding is that miles earned from *A flights count towards tiers + they can be redeemed for awards (tickets/upgrades).
Let's assume 40K miles were accrued from *A flights in the last 2-3 years. What's going to happen on 2014-11 when the new M&B commences?
My understanding is that miles earned from *A flights count towards tiers + they can be redeemed for awards (tickets/upgrades).
Let's assume 40K miles were accrued from *A flights in the last 2-3 years. What's going to happen on 2014-11 when the new M&B commences?
Oct 1, 2014, 5:19 am
#152
Community Director
Join Date: Jan 2009
Location: Norwich, UK
Programs: A3*G, BA Gold, BD Gold (in memoriam), IHG Diamond Ambassador
Posts: 8,473
Ok, now I'm confused.
My understanding is that miles earned from *A flights count towards tiers + they can be redeemed for awards (tickets/upgrades).
Let's assume 40K miles were accrued from *A flights in the last 2-3 years. What's going to happen on 2014-11 when the new M&B commences?
My understanding is that miles earned from *A flights count towards tiers + they can be redeemed for awards (tickets/upgrades).
Let's assume 40K miles were accrued from *A flights in the last 2-3 years. What's going to happen on 2014-11 when the new M&B commences?
Tier miles are temporary and expire after a given period (a year in the case of M&B). At that point, you have to start earning them again to maintain status.
Award miles are permanent and yours to spend for as long as the account remains active (and, unlike Snacky, I don't believe this will end at any point in the foreseeable future).
Let's say on 1st January 2015 you take a flight that earns 1,000 miles. Those will appear in your account as 1,000 tier miles (towards your *S or *G status) plus they will also appear in a different bucket as 1,000 award miles.
You now have 1,000 miles towards your annual status renewal plus 1,000 miles to spend on flights or hotels or car hire or any of the other things A3 has spend partners for.
You do not fly for the rest of the year, so on 1st January 2016 your tier miles expire. You now have zero tier miles but still 1,000 award miles.
On 2nd January 2016 you fly another 1,000 miles. You now have 1,000 tier miles towards status and 2,000 award miles to spend.
Oct 1, 2014, 6:11 am
#154
FlyerTalk Evangelist
Join Date: Mar 2008
Location: Netherlands
Programs: KL Platinum; A3 Gold
Posts: 28,689
Oh dear. If you are not aware that there are two different types of miles, then you must understand the programme as working in a very unusual and baffling way.
Log into your account. It lists (separately) both mileage totals.
New is the "miles requred for upgrade" and "until" lines (I think! I never needed to take notice of these fields before, having been comped *G with the demise of the sadly-missed Diamond Club programme).
THESE FIELDS SHOULD MAKE CRYSTAL CLEAR FOR ALL, IN THE NEW SCHEME, HOW MANY MILES ARE REQUIRED TO UPGRADE/RENEW, AND BY WHEN THESE MILES MUST BE ACHIEVED
Log into your account. It lists (separately) both mileage totals.
New is the "miles requred for upgrade" and "until" lines (I think! I never needed to take notice of these fields before, having been comped *G with the demise of the sadly-missed Diamond Club programme).
THESE FIELDS SHOULD MAKE CRYSTAL CLEAR FOR ALL, IN THE NEW SCHEME, HOW MANY MILES ARE REQUIRED TO UPGRADE/RENEW, AND BY WHEN THESE MILES MUST BE ACHIEVED
Oct 1, 2014, 6:13 am
#155
FlyerTalk Evangelist
Join Date: Mar 2008
Location: Netherlands
Programs: KL Platinum; A3 Gold
Posts: 28,689
Taking an award flight does not give you any award miles (or tier miles). As such, it would be rather unusual if such flights met the criteria of lowering the Tier Mile totals required.
Oct 1, 2014, 6:15 am
#156
Ambassador: World of Hyatt
Join Date: Mar 2002
Location: UK - the nearest airport is named after a motorway !
Posts: 4,229
Oct 1, 2014, 8:17 am
#157
Join Date: Jul 2014
Location: SYD
Programs: TK*G, QR Gold, VA Gold, NZ Gold
Posts: 237
OMG! Such a shock to me. I just invested my precious 9k miles flight from syd-sin-bkk return all to a3 solely so i can get *G by Dec when i normally fly to mnl (where i earn 10k miles). now I'm waiting for my flight to mnl in dec and they do this rule right before that!!? really frustrating.
is it worth it to book a flight before the transition happen just to get *G? perhaps not. I will therefore write-off a3. its not practical. good thing i have priority pass. at least i can still taste lounge access.
is it worth it to book a flight before the transition happen just to get *G? perhaps not. I will therefore write-off a3. its not practical. good thing i have priority pass. at least i can still taste lounge access.
Oct 1, 2014, 12:53 pm
#158
Join Date: Aug 2008
Location: YXY
Posts: 3,506
As for the requalification requirements: The sectors on Aegean/Olympic, do they have to be their metal or are codeshares on other metal OK?
I know that for mileage accrual it usually goes by metal (with a few exceptions, like certain AF-operated OS-flights). But this is not mileage accrual, so it would be nice to have more flexibility. :-)
I know that for mileage accrual it usually goes by metal (with a few exceptions, like certain AF-operated OS-flights). But this is not mileage accrual, so it would be nice to have more flexibility. :-)
Oct 1, 2014, 3:18 pm
#159
Join Date: Jun 2009
Location: London, United Kingdom
Programs: British Airways Gold
Posts: 2,635
As for the requalification requirements: The sectors on Aegean/Olympic, do they have to be their metal or are codeshares on other metal OK?
I know that for mileage accrual it usually goes by metal (with a few exceptions, like certain AF-operated OS-flights). But this is not mileage accrual, so it would be nice to have more flexibility. :-)
I know that for mileage accrual it usually goes by metal (with a few exceptions, like certain AF-operated OS-flights). But this is not mileage accrual, so it would be nice to have more flexibility. :-)
Oct 1, 2014, 5:20 pm
#160
Join Date: Sep 2012
Posts: 25
T&C are not out yet? How do we know E3 will allow rollover tier miles? Any tier miles accrued before 2014-11-24, whether they rollover or not, will have reached their 12month expiry before 2015-11-24- judgement day to retain status. So, effectively, everybody starts at 0 in a 8 weeks. Unfortunately, any E3 credited flights you take in the next 8 weeks are useless to retain status beyond 2015-11-24. Correct? crap crap crap!
Oct 1, 2014, 5:31 pm
#161
Join Date: Aug 2008
Location: YXY
Posts: 3,506
Not necessarily, assuming they earn money with codeshares. I would think they are in it for the money, not for the sentimental value of "welcoming you aboard". :-)
Oct 1, 2014, 6:27 pm
#162
Join Date: Jul 2005
Location: Here
Posts: 1,907
So, my take on the 4x A3 requirement is more like "we really DO wanna welcome you aboard but only cause we make more money awarding you a given number of miles than you flying [insert codeshare or star carrier here] and crediting to A3"
Oct 2, 2014, 1:14 am
#163
FlyerTalk Evangelist
Join Date: Mar 2008
Location: Netherlands
Programs: KL Platinum; A3 Gold
Posts: 28,689
This surprised me when I first discovered this.
And this of course does not mean that A3 will operate the requirement in a similar way. I suspect that it is their intention that you must fly on A3 or OA metal for 4 sectors to get the reduced rates - not that you can get creative and fly on an A3-codeshare.
That said, there are probably not many A3 codeshares on routes that don't touch Greece, so for people way outside Europe, the A3 codeshare thing may not have been much of a help anyway.
Oct 2, 2014, 1:18 am
#164
FlyerTalk Evangelist
Join Date: Mar 2008
Location: Netherlands
Programs: KL Platinum; A3 Gold
Posts: 28,689
T&C are not out yet? How do we know E3 will allow rollover tier miles? Any tier miles accrued before 2014-11-24, whether they rollover or not, will have reached their 12month expiry before 2015-11-24- judgement day to retain status. So, effectively, everybody starts at 0 in a 8 weeks. Unfortunately, any E3 credited flights you take in the next 8 weeks are useless to retain status beyond 2015-11-24. Correct? crap crap crap!
Anyone who is a "Blue" in the new system will be on a rolling qualification period (as will the new Silvers, by the way) as for these people, the system has to monitor their accounts daily to see if they have earned a status upgrade. Anyone who is "Blue" in the new scheme definitely will not have tier miles earned after 24/11/2013 automatically deleted (unsure if automatic Silvers would, by way of their "upgrade"). So for the "new" Blues, all the flights taken in the next 8 weeks will still remain as valid Tier Miles in their account until October/November 2015 - and the Tier Miles earned in the next 8 weeks (just as the tier miles earned in the months up til now) can earn them status beyond 2015-11-24 - they can bring them up to Silver!
Last edited by irishguy28; Oct 2, 2014 at 1:47 am
Oct 3, 2014, 7:50 pm
#165
Suspended
Join Date: Jul 2001
Location: Watchlisted by the prejudiced, en route to purgatory
Programs: Just Say No to Fleecing and Blacklisting
Posts: 102,095
UA has a 4 segment requirement for elite status too: at least 4 flights by United and/or Copa. That was what LH wanted.
