Feb 23, 2015, 6:35 am
Last edit by: NWIFlyer
With the evolution of the Miles&Bonus program, there are a number of threads on this forum that contain outdated information, plus a further set that - whilst describing the new program - contain conflicting information that has only been crystallised as we all discover how certain aspects of the program either work or are interpreted.
It is perhaps therefore unsurprising that many new members find searching through this myriad of threads a little daunting, and consequently they post a question in one of the FAQ threads.
This tends to irk those who've been around for a while who expect the new posters to at least do some basic searching before posting a question that has probably been asked many times before. This also causes the forums to become very congested and less easy to read through with the same question being asked and answered many times.
I am therefore creating a thread, which will be stickied, for anyone to ask any question they like about the M&B program where they are unsure or it's not obvious where they should be posting it.
There is no such thing in this thread as a stupid question, no issue with asking a repeat question, and any answers should be 100% flame-free. I will take a dim view of anyone that abuses a member or provides a less than helpful answer (such as 'do a search') to any question asked in here, because this is being created to benefit all of us so the other threads flow more cleanly. Thank you for your co-operation on this.
It might be that I move questions to more appropriate threads so they receive an answer more quickly, but if I do so I will always add a note to indicate where they originated, and ask that the flame-free answer principle be respected.
NWIFlyer
Moderator
Aegean M&B
It is perhaps therefore unsurprising that many new members find searching through this myriad of threads a little daunting, and consequently they post a question in one of the FAQ threads.
This tends to irk those who've been around for a while who expect the new posters to at least do some basic searching before posting a question that has probably been asked many times before. This also causes the forums to become very congested and less easy to read through with the same question being asked and answered many times.
I am therefore creating a thread, which will be stickied, for anyone to ask any question they like about the M&B program where they are unsure or it's not obvious where they should be posting it.
There is no such thing in this thread as a stupid question, no issue with asking a repeat question, and any answers should be 100% flame-free. I will take a dim view of anyone that abuses a member or provides a less than helpful answer (such as 'do a search') to any question asked in here, because this is being created to benefit all of us so the other threads flow more cleanly. Thank you for your co-operation on this.
It might be that I move questions to more appropriate threads so they receive an answer more quickly, but if I do so I will always add a note to indicate where they originated, and ask that the flame-free answer principle be respected.
NWIFlyer
Moderator
Aegean M&B
Flame-Free Questions on A3 - ask your newbie (and not so newbie) questions here
Sep 10, 2021, 1:54 am
#2431
Join Date: Jul 2019
Posts: 1,326
Nah, it just depends how many seats are in each fare bucket. There are probably just a lot of U,T class seats available - maybe more than usual due to reduced travel and the time of year. 13 isn't that many really. Once you find a flight that says something like "3 seats remaining at this price" it works just fine.
The problem with waiting for the available seats of the fare bucket to be reduced to just a couple is, that you risk one of two things happening: 1: There is a real risk of those couple of seats suddenly vanishing. Well, perhaps it's less likely to happen to economy seats, but I originally wanted to book one leg in business class, it showed me 3 seats available at the Z fare (in total of course there were and still are many more seats available) and even though I was checking the website like 4 times a day, all of a sudden it still showed 3 seats available, but the fare bucket had be changed to D. 2: if you are looking to apply a discount code (which I was) and you can only use it once and you therefore need to book both the outbound and the inbound flights in one go, then perhaps the other leg of the two will get more expensive, practically cancelling out the discount you wanted to achieve. Anyway, food for thought, this time I was fortunate enough to book the cheapest fare that will get me gold (cost of all my 6 flights is under 500€, from blue to gold...
).
Sep 11, 2021, 3:54 am
#2432
Join Date: Oct 2012
Location: PAS, Paros Greece
Programs: A3 *G
Posts: 1,375
Wow that IS good. I usually reckon on spending around 500€, maybe a bit more, to requalify Gold. So you are getting 36,000 tier miles for 500€ - that is exceptional. The best I've booked this year is a business class ticket for 162 Euro netting 4500 points - only a third as 'valuable' as your bookings. Please do share!
Sep 11, 2021, 4:18 am
#2433
Join Date: Jul 2019
Posts: 1,326
Most came from the 2xMiles and A/Z fares (insane) combined promotion that was running about 1 year ago. 
The latest booking was made using a 50% off promotion that a relative of mine received, but I could use it instead of him (only available to a very small group of Greek residents, which by the way also gives 3x award miles).
I would have never gone for status, but I would have taken 4 out of 6 flights anyway and I wouldn't have been able to save more than 200€ at most, not counting the value of all the additional award miles those fares got me or the upgrade coupons I already made good use of (if I count those too based on my personal valuation of them, then I probably saved money by going for status and I still don't count all the gold benefits I am counting on getting by the end of the month), I don't think I went against my own "values" by booking a single return "milage run" flight from Athens to Thessaloniki (which by the way is a nice little getaway and reunion with friends and family) because my main principal I act on is to save money (while trying to fly business class if I can) and this way I actually do, without even slightly going out of my way to do so (OK, only just slightly
)!
PS. The only other non-essential expenses besides that short run are the commuting costs related to said mileage run, which are around 70€, but it's still a no-brainer.
The latest booking was made using a 50% off promotion that a relative of mine received, but I could use it instead of him (only available to a very small group of Greek residents, which by the way also gives 3x award miles
). I would have never gone for status, but I would have taken 4 out of 6 flights anyway and I wouldn't have been able to save more than 200€ at most, not counting the value of all the additional award miles those fares got me or the upgrade coupons I already made good use of (if I count those too based on my personal valuation of them, then I probably saved money by going for status and I still don't count all the gold benefits I am counting on getting by the end of the month), I don't think I went against my own "values" by booking a single return "milage run" flight from Athens to Thessaloniki (which by the way is a nice little getaway and reunion with friends and family) because my main principal I act on is to save money (while trying to fly business class if I can) and this way I actually do, without even slightly going out of my way to do so (OK, only just slightly
)! PS. The only other non-essential expenses besides that short run are the commuting costs related to said mileage run, which are around 70€, but it's still a no-brainer.
Sep 13, 2021, 2:17 pm
#2434
Join Date: Jan 2020
Location: PRG
Programs: A3 Gold, *A Gold
Posts: 63
Hi,
has anyone experience with crediting of miles to A3 on Swiss flights operated by Helvetic? For example, LX1499, which is (at least in some days) operated by Helvetic.
(originally, I expected that these will not be credited, but i noticed that *A award ticket can be issued also on Helvetic (on Aegean website) so it brings to me and hope that it will work..?)
Thx
has anyone experience with crediting of miles to A3 on Swiss flights operated by Helvetic? For example, LX1499, which is (at least in some days) operated by Helvetic.
(originally, I expected that these will not be credited, but i noticed that *A award ticket can be issued also on Helvetic (on Aegean website) so it brings to me and hope that it will work..?)
Thx
Sep 14, 2021, 4:11 pm
#2437
Join Date: Jul 2019
Posts: 1,326
To avoid being misunderstood, since I just caught a not-so-minor detail, that I forgot to mention in my earlier reply to this comment, I might as well elaborate on this now:
I didn't need to get 36k miles thanks to the -25% status miles promotion running for nearly 12 months now. So I just needed 9000 for silver and then 18.000 for gold, 27.000 in total. Had I needed 36k, that would have required an additional 2 flights (at minimum), so a total of 8 instead of originally intended 4 and I wouldn't have done that.
I also neglected to mention that those "insane" A/Z fares were in fact insane, because at the time the 2x status miles promotion was running, there was another promotion running parallel to that that saw every fare getting a 50% discount (so a once in a membership's lifetime triple promotion of 25% less miles, 50% discount and 2x miles, that reduce the cost of reaching gold by almost a factor of 5, something less, since that 50% wasn't applicable to taxes)! There were cases of return flights with A fares costing ~180€ delivering over 16k status miles! Gold was reachable from blue with roughly half or 2/3 of my "invested" budget, if that was the sole purpose, which also corresponds to your estimate of 500€ for 12k miles in "normal" times (so convert that to 1500€ for 36k miles during "normal" times, then divide by 5 and you get to the estimated 300€, that a status hunter would have to pay).
I didn't need to get 36k miles thanks to the -25% status miles promotion running for nearly 12 months now. So I just needed 9000 for silver and then 18.000 for gold, 27.000 in total. Had I needed 36k, that would have required an additional 2 flights (at minimum), so a total of 8 instead of originally intended 4 and I wouldn't have done that.
I also neglected to mention that those "insane" A/Z fares were in fact insane, because at the time the 2x status miles promotion was running, there was another promotion running parallel to that that saw every fare getting a 50% discount (so a once in a membership's lifetime triple promotion of 25% less miles, 50% discount and 2x miles, that reduce the cost of reaching gold by almost a factor of 5, something less, since that 50% wasn't applicable to taxes)! There were cases of return flights with A fares costing ~180€ delivering over 16k status miles! Gold was reachable from blue with roughly half or 2/3 of my "invested" budget, if that was the sole purpose, which also corresponds to your estimate of 500€ for 12k miles in "normal" times (so convert that to 1500€ for 36k miles during "normal" times, then divide by 5 and you get to the estimated 300€, that a status hunter would have to pay).
Sep 14, 2021, 6:48 pm
#2438
Join Date: Jul 2018
Posts: 180
To avoid being misunderstood, since I just caught a not-so-minor detail, that I forgot to mention in my earlier reply to this comment, I might as well elaborate on this now:
I didn't need to get 36k miles thanks to the -25% status miles promotion running for nearly 12 months now. So I just needed 9000 for silver and then 18.000 for gold, 27.000 in total. Had I needed 36k, that would have required an additional 2 flights (at minimum), so a total of 8 instead of originally intended 4 and I wouldn't have done that.
I also neglected to mention that those "insane" A/Z fares were in fact insane, because at the time the 2x status miles promotion was running, there was another promotion running parallel to that that saw every fare getting a 50% discount (so a once in a membership's lifetime triple promotion of 25% less miles, 50% discount and 2x miles, that reduce the cost of reaching gold by almost a factor of 5, something less, since that 50% wasn't applicable to taxes)! There were cases of return flights with A fares costing ~180€ delivering over 16k status miles! Gold was reachable from blue with roughly half or 2/3 of my "invested" budget, if that was the sole purpose, which also corresponds to your estimate of 500€ for 12k miles in "normal" times (so convert that to 1500€ for 36k miles during "normal" times, then divide by 5 and you get to the estimated 300€, that a status hunter would have to pay).
I didn't need to get 36k miles thanks to the -25% status miles promotion running for nearly 12 months now. So I just needed 9000 for silver and then 18.000 for gold, 27.000 in total. Had I needed 36k, that would have required an additional 2 flights (at minimum), so a total of 8 instead of originally intended 4 and I wouldn't have done that.
I also neglected to mention that those "insane" A/Z fares were in fact insane, because at the time the 2x status miles promotion was running, there was another promotion running parallel to that that saw every fare getting a 50% discount (so a once in a membership's lifetime triple promotion of 25% less miles, 50% discount and 2x miles, that reduce the cost of reaching gold by almost a factor of 5, something less, since that 50% wasn't applicable to taxes)! There were cases of return flights with A fares costing ~180€ delivering over 16k status miles! Gold was reachable from blue with roughly half or 2/3 of my "invested" budget, if that was the sole purpose, which also corresponds to your estimate of 500€ for 12k miles in "normal" times (so convert that to 1500€ for 36k miles during "normal" times, then divide by 5 and you get to the estimated 300€, that a status hunter would have to pay).
Sep 15, 2021, 2:00 am
#2439
Join Date: Jul 2019
Posts: 1,326
I need to ask a question, that I have a feeling I already know the (not so positive) answer to (but I still have some hope): Let's say one has booked a comfort flex P fare. This isn't upgradeable with miles (as opposed to the same fare being upgradeable with a coupon 
). Is there any chance that I get it to "book up" to at least a S fare (through manage my booking) and then get it upgraded with miles or will the same "base fare is still P" principle apply?
Let's assume that the upgradable fare is directly available to change the ticket to, my question is solely about the upgradeability of tickets changed in this way.
). Is there any chance that I get it to "book up" to at least a S fare (through manage my booking) and then get it upgraded with miles or will the same "base fare is still P" principle apply?Let's assume that the upgradable fare is directly available to change the ticket to, my question is solely about the upgradeability of tickets changed in this way.
Sep 23, 2021, 11:31 am
#2442
Join Date: Mar 2019
Location: DK
Programs: A3 Gold, BA Silver
Posts: 869
I have a situation concerning an A3 flight that has been upgraded with a coupon getting canceled. It is BER-ATH. They canceled the evening departure and have put me on the morning flight.
Would it be possible to get myself moved to a LH group flight? It is a Friday departure don't want to take a full day off because of the cancelation.
What have been your experiences?
Would it be possible to get myself moved to a LH group flight? It is a Friday departure don't want to take a full day off because of the cancelation.
What have been your experiences?
Sep 23, 2021, 3:25 pm
#2443
Join Date: Dec 2009
Programs: A3*G, Marriott Gold, Hilton Honors Gold, Radisson Rewards Premium
Posts: 862
I have a situation concerning an A3 flight that has been upgraded with a coupon getting canceled. It is BER-ATH. They canceled the evening departure and have put me on the morning flight.
Would it be possible to get myself moved to a LH group flight? It is a Friday departure don't want to take a full day off because of the cancelation.
What have been your experiences?
Would it be possible to get myself moved to a LH group flight? It is a Friday departure don't want to take a full day off because of the cancelation.
What have been your experiences?
Sep 23, 2021, 3:26 pm
#2444
Join Date: Jul 2019
Posts: 1,326
If it is within 14 days, then #5c ii ) or iii) apply and they shouldn't put you on the morning flight against your will otherwise they should offer compensation on top.
Sep 27, 2021, 7:29 pm
#2445
Join Date: Feb 2011
Location: DPS/DXB
Programs: Hyatt Globalist, BA Silver, A3 Gold, EK Gold, HH Gold, Sixt Dmd
Posts: 259
Question: I want to book GRU-IST-CGK on TK J with A3 M&B miles, costs 75K miles. For the taxes and fees, technically it should be zero in regards to Brazilian law of flights departing from Brazil, is that correct? And yet it is full taxes and fees, a whopping 291.51 Euros. Is this correct or is a mistake? If a mistake, is there a workaround when the website is showing full taxes? Thanks!