Mar 9, 2015, 6:33 am
Last edit by: Gnopps
*** MOD NOTE: Please do not remove ***
A friendly reminder that Flyertalk is not a marketplace, and nothing may be offered (or solicited) for sale or barter within the general forums - which includes offering vouchers for free. For those with sufficient posts and length of membership, trading/exchange is allowed solely within Coupon Connection, and then only in accordance with the specific rules of that forum.
Please do not attempt to solicit, sell or trade upgrade vouchers within this forum. Posts will be deleted and the members concerned potentially subject to disciplinary action. **Please note that this includes directly using the PM system to do so without first posting in Coupon Connection**. Thanks for your co-operation.
A friendly reminder that Flyertalk is not a marketplace, and nothing may be offered (or solicited) for sale or barter within the general forums - which includes offering vouchers for free. For those with sufficient posts and length of membership, trading/exchange is allowed solely within Coupon Connection, and then only in accordance with the specific rules of that forum.
Please do not attempt to solicit, sell or trade upgrade vouchers within this forum. Posts will be deleted and the members concerned potentially subject to disciplinary action. **Please note that this includes directly using the PM system to do so without first posting in Coupon Connection**. Thanks for your co-operation.
Criteria
- You must be travelling on A3 or OA metal - codeshares are not included.
- The original ticket must be issued on either A3 (390) or OA (050) ticket stock.
- Only revenue (paid) tickets, in fare classes other than U, P & T on a GoLight fare basis, can be upgraded, but not redemption tickets.
- All flights on the ticket must be on A3 or OA metal.
- There must be award availability in I-class for the upgrades to clear. You can check this by logging in to M&B then going to https://en.aegeanair.com/milesandbon...t/spend-miles/ The results page will initially be a calendar. To see Business availability, you have to click through to the next step. (You can also use a free or paid tool such as ANA website, UA website (looking for saver award space), Aeroplan, AwardNexus or ExpertFlyer to check for availability.)
- One coupon per person per journey leg is required - so, for example, TXL-ATH-SKG and return via the same route would require four coupons per person.
- Anyone can be upgraded using the coupons - you do not have to be travelling on the same booking or even the same plane.
Procedure
- Call A3 to request the upgrade. The phone numbers are listed at https://aegeanairlines.custhelp.com/ (most of them should go to the same call centre in Greece).
- If successful, a new ticket will be issued (with a new number). The PNR will remain unchanged.
- You are liable for any extra taxes applicable to Business Class (e.g. APD from the UK). Sometimes this gets charged, sometimes it doesn't - if it's due and you're not charged because the agent forgets, you've just been lucky.
- If there's no immediate I-class availability, you can ask to be waitlisted for upgrade. The ability to waitlist was reported to have been removed in August 2016, but was again possible in September. Check with the agent - option available on May 2018.
- in case you requested to be waitlisted for upgrade and want to check if the customer care agent made the changes on your booking you can check the reservation on checkmytrip.com (click here), the leg you requested the upgrade will be shown here as ”Waitlisted”.
- If you wish to upgrade one segment of a multi-segment trip (e.g. XXX-ATH-YYY) and there is availability on the leg you wish to upgrade, you may still have to be waitlisted due to married segment issues. The process of clearing the waitlist is somewhat confusing and may result in frustration due to the availability seeming to disappear but in reality, this may mean that the segments have been "unmarried" and the availability has been allocated to your reservation. See post 2272 and the update in post 2294 for more details.
Benefits
- No matter what the fare basis of the original ticket, you receive full Business Class benefits after upgrade.
- This includes lounge access (useful if you're upgrading someone other than yourself who has no status, or if you've run out of Silver lounge vouchers) and full baggage allowance (it applies for first leg as well, in case you are upgraded only on the 2nd leg of your trip - confirmed on the etix).
- Because the ticket books as a redemption, the free car hire is not included.
Mileage/segment earning
- You will earn at the underlying rate of your purchased ticket in economy, not at a business class rate. Because status miles are awarded, this also counts as a segment for re-qualification purposes.
- The flights may credit automatically, but may take longer to credit than tickets that have not been changed. They may also credit as 0 miles, and later change to the correct rate. If the flights have not credited properly after a few weeks then calling A3 will rectify this rapidly.
Expiry
- The vouchers expire at the end of your membership year - they do not carry over, even if status is retained. A new set is issued every year.
- It is the date when you use the voucher that matters. It can upgrade a flight that takes place after expiry as long as you apply the voucher before.
- On upgrade from Silver to Gold, any remaining Silver upgrade coupons expire, but they are replaced by four Gold ones which expire at the end of the Gold membership year.
BEWARE
- Once you have upgraded your seat, your ticket will be reissued. Suddenly, this ticket may be VERY expensive to change. If, for instance, you later decide to travel on a different date, you will probably be required to rebook into Business, even if Economy was available for new bookings. A3 will charge you the difference from your original Economy fare to a NEW Business fare. Plus fees, taxes and whatnot. Update 18/08/2021: this appears to no longer be the case, as an upgraded ticket was changed and the underlying Economy fare was used for the upgraded segments. The coupon was "removed" from the old dates and "reapplied" to the new dates.
- Coupons will not be returned/reinstated. Once a coupon is applied, it is gone for good (the T&Cs printed on the coupons allow for date and time changes, but not route changes).
- If you want to provide your coupons to upgrade a friend's travel, it is advisable to call in yourself. Your friend can call in if they know your name, birthdate, M&B-number and the email address associated with your account. That means: Anyone who knows these particulars can use your coupons without your knowledge. They do NOT need the coupon numbers.
- Crediting upgraded segments to another program will likely fail, as it will be reported as I-class. It may be possible to retro-claim the miles.
Seat upgrade coupons
Sep 16, 2018, 2:48 pm
#1772
Join Date: Nov 2012
Location: YYZ
Programs: A3*Gold, Air Canada Aeroplan
Posts: 37
I will be flying with A3 from CPH to ATH in October and I called A3 call center to get an upgrade to Business class. It took 3 minutes and an e-mail arrived a few days later. Painless!
Sep 17, 2018, 2:57 pm
#1773
Join Date: May 2012
Location: Munich, Algarve, Sussex or S.F Bay Area
Programs: Mucci, BA Gold, A3*Gold, AA Plat, HH Gold, IHG Plat Amb, Marriott Plat
Posts: 4,163
So I have XXX-ATH-HER and return for 2 pax. I am trying to upgrade XXX-ATH-XXX which I can see is available online and was confirmed by the service line. However, they are telling me that XXX-ATH-HER is married and I can only upgrade the whole journey. Since ATH-HER is not available, and actually I do not really want to waste a coupon, they say they have to wait-list the upgrade until the back office can clear it. While I can believe the segments are married, surely that should not block an upgrade of 1 sector only?
Last edited by Tafflyer; Sep 17, 2018 at 3:05 pm
Sep 17, 2018, 7:57 pm
#1774
Join Date: Jan 2004
Location: Heraklion, Greece
Posts: 7,565
HUACA! You must have talked to the minority of agents who got it wrong (has been reported earlier). I did just that the other way round (HER-ATH-VIE and back) last June and upgraded the international segments.
Sep 23, 2018, 4:08 am
#1775
Join Date: May 2012
Location: Munich, Algarve, Sussex or S.F Bay Area
Programs: Mucci, BA Gold, A3*Gold, AA Plat, HH Gold, IHG Plat Amb, Marriott Plat
Posts: 4,163
I did that and got the same info. CAI-ATH-HER are married segments and it needed to be waitlisted because ATH-HER is not available. Strangely, A3 called me yesterday to tell me my CAI-ATH had cleared. On questioning, I was told the „back-office“ had to un-marry the sectors first. Ends well in the end so I am happy, but not quite sure if it couldn‘t have just been a little easier.
Sep 24, 2018, 1:30 am
#1777
Join Date: Sep 2012
Location: NW London and NW Sydney
Programs: BA Diamond, Hilton Bronze, A3 Diamond, IHG *G
Posts: 6,344
BEWARE
If you want to provide your coupons to upgrade a friend's travel, it is advisable to call in yourself. Your friend can call in if they know your name, birthdate, M&B-number and the email address associated with your account. That means: Anyone who knows these particulars can use your coupons without your knowledge. They do NOT need the coupon numbers.
If you want to provide your coupons to upgrade a friend's travel, it is advisable to call in yourself. Your friend can call in if they know your name, birthdate, M&B-number and the email address associated with your account. That means: Anyone who knows these particulars can use your coupons without your knowledge. They do NOT need the coupon numbers.
Sep 24, 2018, 2:38 am
#1778
Join Date: Sep 2018
Posts: 1
I was told today that I cannot use my upgrade vouchers on a 3-segment flight that contains one segment with another airline (in my case LH-A3-A3) and was told that I should have bought separate tickets to get around this limitation. I saw now in the fineprint of the vouchers and in the forum wiki that this is actual a valid rule ("All flights on the ticket must be on A3 or OA metal"). However, I have upgraded at least 3-4 flights just like this (i.e. always including one non-A3 segment) in the last few years and this has never been an issue before.
So my questions are:
1) is this a new rule? Or has it always been there and I was just lucky on previous flights?
2) is this strictly enforced now or does it depend somewhat on the hotline contact person?
So my questions are:
1) is this a new rule? Or has it always been there and I was just lucky on previous flights?
2) is this strictly enforced now or does it depend somewhat on the hotline contact person?
Sep 27, 2018, 1:03 pm
#1780
Join Date: Jun 2016
Location: OTP/KRK
Programs: M&M FTL, Miles+Bonus Gold
Posts: 664
So I have XXX-ATH-HER and return for 2 pax. I am trying to upgrade XXX-ATH-XXX which I can see is available online and was confirmed by the service line. However, they are telling me that XXX-ATH-HER is married and I can only upgrade the whole journey. Since ATH-HER is not available, and actually I do not really want to waste a coupon, they say they have to wait-list the upgrade until the back office can clear it. While I can believe the segments are married, surely that should not block an upgrade of 1 sector only?
OTP-ATH-XXX-ATH-OTP, I upgraded only ATH-XXX-ATH for 2pax, no issue and all legs are on a single pnr/pax, it cleared immediately.
Sep 28, 2018, 5:34 am
#1781
Join Date: Sep 2018
Programs: miles and bonus
Posts: 1
I booked our flight LHR-ATH 3 months ago, asked to be upgraded with vouchers was told Aegean could not do this immediately and was waitlisted.
Last week at T-72 I phoned to see if Ihad been upgraded and was told that I would be upgraded at check-in or at the gate. I asked about extra baggage and lounge access, but was told there was nothing they could do and to check in online into economy.
I phoned again at around T-6 and was told almost exactly the same thing. At the airport I went to business class check-in and was told I was still waitlisted and was told that I could not be upgraded yet because tickets were still on sale, but it might happen at the gate.(Also we were told to go and check in at the economy check-in). When I got to the gate I was just bluntly told that we had not been upgraded.
It seems to me that Aegean are far more interested in ticket sales than in customers that are obviously loyal as proved by Silver/Gold M+B membership.
Not the greatest Customer Service!!
Last week at T-72 I phoned to see if Ihad been upgraded and was told that I would be upgraded at check-in or at the gate. I asked about extra baggage and lounge access, but was told there was nothing they could do and to check in online into economy.
I phoned again at around T-6 and was told almost exactly the same thing. At the airport I went to business class check-in and was told I was still waitlisted and was told that I could not be upgraded yet because tickets were still on sale, but it might happen at the gate.(Also we were told to go and check in at the economy check-in). When I got to the gate I was just bluntly told that we had not been upgraded.
It seems to me that Aegean are far more interested in ticket sales than in customers that are obviously loyal as proved by Silver/Gold M+B membership.
Not the greatest Customer Service!!
Oct 2, 2018, 1:07 pm
#1783
Join Date: Sep 2012
Location: NW London and NW Sydney
Programs: BA Diamond, Hilton Bronze, A3 Diamond, IHG *G
Posts: 6,344
I tried to upgrade my ARN-ATH-OTP, there was availabilty in C on the first segment and waitlisted the second.
At OLCI, I got a BP for ARN-ATH but couldn't even check in for ATH-OTP (tried website, app and kiosk), and was told to get a BP at the transfer desk in ATH. The gate area in ARN was super chaotic so no chance of trying again there.
The flight was a bit late then we pulled up at a bus gate so I got a bit apprehensive, though thankfully A3 uses dedicated buses for C. I reached the transfer desk about 45 minutes before departure time of ATH-OTP (and remember, you need to go through security again), maybe some airlines would have already offloaded you by then, but it was fine. The staff member said she saw a requested upgrade but if it was to happen I would be told at the gate.
Eventually I did get upgraded. The odd thing was that 7/8 C seats were occupied in the flight that had award space initially, while the waitlisted flight only had 3/8 C seats occupied, so a bit of a mystery as to why they didn't clear the waitlist earlier.
Also, ATH-OTP posted miles for C rather than whichever economy booking class it was...
At OLCI, I got a BP for ARN-ATH but couldn't even check in for ATH-OTP (tried website, app and kiosk), and was told to get a BP at the transfer desk in ATH. The gate area in ARN was super chaotic so no chance of trying again there.
The flight was a bit late then we pulled up at a bus gate so I got a bit apprehensive, though thankfully A3 uses dedicated buses for C. I reached the transfer desk about 45 minutes before departure time of ATH-OTP (and remember, you need to go through security again), maybe some airlines would have already offloaded you by then, but it was fine. The staff member said she saw a requested upgrade but if it was to happen I would be told at the gate.
Eventually I did get upgraded. The odd thing was that 7/8 C seats were occupied in the flight that had award space initially, while the waitlisted flight only had 3/8 C seats occupied, so a bit of a mystery as to why they didn't clear the waitlist earlier.
Also, ATH-OTP posted miles for C rather than whichever economy booking class it was...
Oct 3, 2018, 5:00 am
#1785
Join Date: May 2012
Location: Munich, Algarve, Sussex or S.F Bay Area
Programs: Mucci, BA Gold, A3*Gold, AA Plat, HH Gold, IHG Plat Amb, Marriott Plat
Posts: 4,163
Turns out that despite only upgrading CAI-ATH and not -HER, I was wait-listed for the upgrade which did not clear. Online check-in was rejected and at the airport I was made to wait because somehow my Y reservation was still wait-listed for upgrade. I asked the agent to leave the Economy booking but he could not. Result was that I was upgraded into C class, got the extra miles, sat in business and retained my coupon. Aegean confusion or incompetence I am not sure, but a good result in the end. Flights were, as usual with Aegean, great.