eielef

It sounds stupid, but I paid a pretty expensive ticket on the Austrian website, on the DME-VIE-SJJ-VIE-DME route, and I don't get any.
I e-mailed them the following:

Sure they have some stupid rules, for instance those stated on this link: https://en.aegeanair.com/milesandbon...ines/#AUSTRIAN
It stays: Note: Miles cannot be earned in booking classes: O, I, X, F, A, S, T, E, L, K, N, R

12 classes give no miles? That sounds pretty much stupid and unfair. How can I know which class I paid? Am I entitled to any complain?

headingwest

Have a look at your confirmation e-mail that Austrian sent you when you booked the tickets, the fare class will be shown there.

CesarFrancq

I'm afraid that sticking to the rules stated on the M&B website is essential if you want to collect any miles. Sometimes the price difference between successive booking classes is very small (on the order of 10 EUR even), but mileage accrual may differ between zero and full miles. Doing your homework before booking makes all the difference. A travel agent can normally book any available booking class on request.

Tennen

^

Just doing a quick search for next month for DME-SJJ, the following fares are offered in Economy: Light K, Classic K, and Flex K or Light L, Classic L, and Flex L. Business books into D (LH website) or P (OS website).

Seems pretty bizarre that all of the Economy fare types book into a single fare class (which happens to earn zero with A3). At least the fare class is very, very clear during the booking process. The OP should've paid attention prior to booking the ticket, and really can't blame anyone. Unfortunate for eielef, but as CesarFrancq mentioned, using a TA could've avoided this situation.

craz

Next time 1st find out the fare basis code then go here; http://www.wheretocredit.com/ make sure the airline you are flying on is the airline in the drop box and then in the 2nd box make sure the fare basis code you will be tkted in is there, it will list all the carriers that that fare will earn miles on and what % it will earn

Its a bit of a pain but worth it

eielef

I bought the fare Economy Classic, my partner did Economy Light. We had one big bag, so I paid 18019RUR and my partner paid 15259RUR.
I haven't been to a travel agency for over 10 years, and I thought I could buy online in a safe way.
So, I wouldn't have minded paying 10Eur extra for another fare, but it would be seriously good that the airline offers you those options on their website, and give a note saying: you earn nothing in your miles account here.

I've checked both of the e-mails sent from Austrian.com and there it says i bought in clase Economy Classic / K. That means, following CRAZ's advice, we wouldn't have gotten any miles on this fare we booked, only in the United program, in the LH program (close to none), or in the Air Canada program.

I'm seriously angry with being a regular traveler (spending over 7000U$S on flights a year), and I've only gotten one flight in all my life, redeemed by miles (an amazing TUC-AEP-USH/RGL-AEP-TUC by AR), and an upgrade from Economy to First (MAD-VVI by 5L, in a JumboJet!).

Those rules make it very hard, close to impossible, to achieve anything, at least for those without your knowledge.
Going to a travel agent, mostly carries a big commission (in Argentina they charge you 50U$S for the ticket) and I'm not really sure they would know all of these routes.

Isn't it just whimsical for Aegean to set those rules?
Using the miles-and-more calculator rechner, Austrian offers following classes: CDJPZ (Business) and BEGHKLMQSTUVWY (Economy).
Back to Aegean rules, there is no booking class called O, I, X, F, A, N or R. So flights with classes S, T, E, L, K earn no miles. I'm wondering how much people knows these rules.
I gave up with Aegean and I went to the Lufthansa website, where i earned the very sad amount of 125 miles for each flight (grand total of 500 miles).

Next time, before I book anything, i'll ask you guys!

eielef

So, if you are a travel agent, according to your research (DME-SJJ) all flights booked online, via austrian.com, in Economy (Flex, Light or Classic) are either K or L fares? This mean 125 miles in LH/OS, and 0 miles in A3. Don't you think those 100+ guys flying in cattle class don't agree with me than they deserve just better?

headingwest

The issue here is really with Austrian (aka Lufthansa Group) and their notorious tight-fistedness to pay out miles, particularly in other FFPs. Basically they want you to credit to their pathetic programme, so they offer you nothing with A3.

In my opinion this has nothing to do with Aegean being unfair. If you want to credit miles to A3, then avoid Austrian/Swiss/lufthansa K and L fares. That was one of the first things I learnt!

Knobbgb

I absolutely agree. This is NOT the fault of Aegean; they can only credit what miles are offered by the carrier you flew with. I avoid the entire Lufthansa group wherever possible now (as if the possibility of disruption due to strikes isn't enough!). Unfortunately that's no help for you going to SJJ. The only half-decent option who fly between Moscow and SJJ might have been Turkish. They are also stingy, but nowhere near as bad as LH/OS/LX/SN. You may have got a thousand or so miles.

You'll find Aegean one of the easiest ways to earn Gold, but ONLY if you want to fly where they do! Luckily they're adding routes all the time. At least they fly to Moscow quite regularly (and cheaply), so you are half way there.

Note: It's no good for SSJ, but you should always look at SK in future. They fly frm Moscow and currently offer at least 100% miles with A3 on ALL flights in ANY booking class.

NWIFlyer

This is absolutely spot on - the lack of miles really is nothing to do with A3. The other airlines the OP mentions - LH, UA & AC - have very close co-operation with revenue sharing arrangements on their TATL routes. A3 does not have that sort of relationship with the Lufthansa group airlines. Consequently, they probably pay A3 little or even nothing for a booking in the lowest fare classes, and so A3 can't justify awarding any miles to you in return (it works that LH effectively 'buys' A3 miles for each passenger at an agreed cost per mile, and in return A3 gives some of those miles to you as a reward).

It's probably intuitive that even Miles&More, Austrian's own FFP, merely offers the paltry sum of 125 miles. If you're at that level on a 'home' FFP, you can be pretty sure you're on zero earning elsewhere.

Incidentally, many of those fare classes are for award bookings, so actually there's not a dozen non-earning revenue classes, although the number is still quite large.

Xandrios

The fact that a ticket costs a lot of money, does not necessarily mean that it is expensive. Further down the thread it was posted that this booked into K-class, meaning the cheapest fare that is available from LH group.

Every single FF program has such rules. Half of these classes are not revenue ones (they are for tickets bought with points, upgrades, etc) - and the other half are the cheapest fare buckets. Meaning that the prices for these tickets are so low, that no miles can be given.

I some cases the earning is different per FF program, in this case you would earn about one euro worth of miles with the LH FFP (so basically nothing). That is not due to the receiving programs rules (Aegean in this case), but the airline operator not sending over enough credit to actually award any miles.

irishguy28

If mileage earning is a factor in deciding which ticket to buy, you really MUST check what fare basis your ticket is being issued in, and then CHECK WITH YOUR INTENDED FFP IF THIS WILL EARN.

I note that your profile says you are an AV member - it is also worth pointing out that LifeMiles also gives no miles for the fare classes mentioned. (If you have a Miles & More account, you could claim a paltry sum of miles for the ticket).

You must NEVER make any assumptions about mileage earning; if you are booking a ticket on a new(ish) carrier, you should always check.

Star Alliance is about the "meanest" of the 3 alliances, for two main reasons:
- codeshares often map to a completely different fare basis from the one you purchase. Say, for example, you book an A3-coded flight on a different carrier, which A3 tells you is fare "L". For mileage earning purposes, this will not be an "L" type A3 ticket, but rather, some other fare letter on the operating carrier. There is NO way of knowing in advance what that letter may be, but it very frequently will be a fare that earns no miles.
- even some business class fares earn no miles. Lufthansa "P" discount business class is an example - no earning at all in Aegean's Miles+Bonus, in Avianca's LifeMiles, or in more than half of all Star Alliance members' programmes.

NEVER ASSUME YOU WILL EARN MILES, REGARDLESS OF HOW "EXPENSIVE" THE TICKET IS, OR EVEN IF IT IS A BUSINESS CLASS TICKET. YOU MUST ALWAYS CHECK THE FARE BASIS, AND CHECK THE EARNING TABLE BEFORE BUYING

eielef

Hello Guys, as we all expected, Aegean wrote me a very nice e-mail saying that, according to their records, my fare was "K class" and it gives no miles on the Aegean program. They were upset they couldn't do anything better for me.
I quitted lifemiles very long time ago, as i've been living in Moscow for over 4 years, and haven't been to Colombia for the last 6 years or so... I do miss those days.
TK was an option as well, but gave me very long connection times. So was Air Serbia flying to Banja Luka (my destination was Mostar). Split and Dubrovnik have buses to Mostar but flights were only with LH, and very expensive.
Flying to TIV (my first option, as I love that airport) was also very expensive, both in SU and S7 and YM.
So I was left with no other option than flying to Sarajevo and driving to Mostar, as arrival in SJJ was at 21:30 and departure was at 07:30, very early (plus a 20Eur+VAT fee of early return of the car). It wasn't the best trip ever, but I organized it just three days in advance, while traveling on the remote Altai regions in Siberia.

Miles are those 500 in my LH account, were some other 6000miles expired just a month ago (from a EZE-FRA-DME-ZRH-GRU flight back in 2014/15).
My accounts are now in A3, AR, LA and UT. LA is very full, AR also has many, A3 and UT are beginners accounts.

eielef

When I lived in Argentina, i often flied between TUC (my hometown) and AEP (the only destination we had in those days, in Buenos Aires).
Each time I bought a ticket, from the cheapest to the most expensive option (Premium economy was beyond my budget, and is not offered by LA), gave me only 168 miles. It takes 12000 to get an economy return ticket to AEP. The system is doomed. It wins only by people getting credit cards, spending lots (which they don't have nor need) and earning some miles at the end of the month, for a trip where, eventually, flights are cheaper or free, but they can't even afford a better hotel.

I'm a quitter. So I quit!

djjaguar64

Before you book keep this link handy!

https://en.aegeanair.com/milesandbonus/how-to-earn/