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
Aug 30, 2016, 8:03 am
#1051
Moderator: British Airways Executive Club
Join Date: Jan 2009
Programs: Battleaxe Alliance
Posts: 22,127
It was sometime in the evening Greek time. I was rather pleased - basically answered without being put on hold.
I have become rather wary of calling airlines because of potentially long holding time before the calls are answered but A3 seem to be one of the good ones. My previous phone contact with them was promptly answered too.
I have become rather wary of calling airlines because of potentially long holding time before the calls are answered but A3 seem to be one of the good ones. My previous phone contact with them was promptly answered too.
Aug 30, 2016, 10:08 am
#1052
Moderator: Aegean Miles+Bonus
Join Date: Oct 2009
Location: AMS / ATH
Programs: AFKL Plat, A3 Gold
Posts: 7,340
Aug 30, 2016, 11:57 am
#1053
Join Date: Jul 2014
Location: Wedged somewhere between BTS and VIE ✈
Programs: Star Alliance Gold (A3 Gold), Oneworld Emerald (BA Gold), Hilton Diamond
Posts: 6,338
When I searched today on 'award availability' under 'spend miles' it only shows economy flights (with no option to search for business class), so I was probably looking in the wrong place.
Aug 30, 2016, 1:01 pm
#1054
Join Date: Sep 2014
Location: Lincoln, UK
Programs: A3G, BA Silver, LH FT
Posts: 296
When you select the specific date it shows the breakdown of miles needed for light, flex and business fare IF there is availability in the respective cabins. Some seasonal routes haven't got business class. In my experience when there were C class seats available for miles redemption I was able to use an upgrade coupon on those flights.
Aug 30, 2016, 1:22 pm
#1055
Join Date: Jul 2014
Location: Wedged somewhere between BTS and VIE ✈
Programs: Star Alliance Gold (A3 Gold), Oneworld Emerald (BA Gold), Hilton Diamond
Posts: 6,338
When you select the specific date it shows the breakdown of miles needed for light, flex and business fare IF there is availability in the respective cabins. Some seasonal routes haven't got business class. In my experience when there were C class seats available for miles redemption I was able to use an upgrade coupon on those flights.
Sep 12, 2016, 1:31 am
#1058
Join Date: May 2012
Location: GVA
Posts: 188
I don't know that anyone's tried to compare, but I would not expect it to make a difference regarding auto-crediting whether you upgraded in one go or two.
Sep 12, 2016, 7:13 am
#1059
Join Date: Nov 2012
Location: YWG
Posts: 2,272
I assumed that re-writing the ticket twice (by upgrading segments at different times) would make it less likely to auto-credit than versus once. No basis to that?
Sep 12, 2016, 11:30 pm
#1061
Join Date: Oct 2012
Location: PAS, Paros Greece
Programs: A3 *G
Posts: 1,372
I think you're worrying too much about the auto-credit thing. Either it will or it won't (and recent experience is that they usually do credit, even if with some delay). The worst case scenario is that you'll have to make a 2 minute call to Aegean and they really are quite efficient in that scenario. My advice is stop over-thinking it and enjoy your upgrade(s).
Sep 21, 2016, 7:28 am
#1065
Join Date: Sep 2012
Location: NW London and NW Sydney
Programs: BA Diamond, Hilton Bronze, A3 Diamond, IHG *G
Posts: 6,344
I found a fare for GBP10 (plus taxes) which included a 20-hour stopover in ATH so we can finally go to see the city after transiting the airport so many times.
Used the above info to make sure there was availability. It's not in the wiki so I shall add it.
Then called, got a male agent for the first time ever, took 2 mins as well and email confirmation arrived in 5 mins.
So A3 gets £2.50 for a J flight, and I won't really be stimulating the Greek economy either since I am using points for the hotel, plus the relevant FT thread indicates I will be upgraded to a room with club lounge so all meals will be "free"
Oh well, since it's only 2 segments each, we will give A3 some more money later on.