fedeflyer

Hi guys,

I've been A3 Gold for a while in the past years but, unfortunately, I didn't manage to travel a lot during last two years so that I lost my status.

I would like starting again from Blue Tier and hit the Gold Tier in the fastest and cheapest way.
I didn't find any similar topic (the previous ones are all related to the old easy A3 program) that's the reason why I opened a new one.

I will be flying in Europe during October (so I might be able to get 4 A3 flights to accelerate the process).

Any suggestions for a fast way to achieve the A3 Gold? (At the moment I'm based in East Asia).

Thanks

1353513636

Bear in mind you need to qualify for Silver first, then the counter resets, then qualify for Gold. Assuming you are Europe based, I would do a cheap quick RT on A3 followed by a longhaul on SK, which would get you to silver, then do the same thing again twice to get to Gold.

Knobbgb

Also a good bet if you are Asia based is Ethiopian. They (as well as SAS) offer at least 100% miles on all flights. You will have to come to Europe to take six A3/OA flights to speed the process so you need to do something like this (the destinations are just for example)

HKG-ADD-LHR on ET 8700 miles
LHR-ARN-ATH on SAS (Plus class = 200% miles) 4850 miles
Take a day trip ATH-SKG-ATH (S class and above) 1000 miles, 2 segments

At this point you will become SILVER and will have approx. 2500 miles carried over (or more if you've already taken other flights).

Take four more segments in Greece on A3 or OA (cheap classes) 800 miles, 4 segments
ATH-ARN in SASPlus 3050 miles
ARN-xxx-ARN in SASPlus (shortest, cheapest trip you can find) 2400 miles
ARN-SFO in SASPlus 10,700 miles
SFO - HKG somehow (probably UA) - earning at least the 4600 miles you need to reach GOLD.

This would be quite a quick way to do it, with the fewest flights (avoiding really expensive business class fares of course). Whether it would be CHEAP or not is another matter. ET have some really good fares and SASPlus can be fairly reasonable on certain routes/times. Other options are to take a 4-leg business class trip in Europe. With the right airline/route this can earn 4x2000 = 8000 miles.

Xandrios

There are so many ways to reach gold if you are booking flights solely for that purpose. However, personally, I would never ever do that - as status simply isn't worth that much $$$. You're better of buying a Priority Pass and be done with it.

However if you do have some travel planned, it may be worth to maximise the earnings by choosing some smart routings. You'll earn the status that way. That way it may well be worth it - but it does require us to know what trips you're planning to take.

irishguy28

Getting 4 A3 flights won't be enough.

First, you need to get from Blue to Silver [2 A3 segments will bring down the required mileage amount to step up from Blue to Silver].

Once you get to Silver, any A3 segments flown when you were Blue will not count; you will need another 4 segments flown as a Silver to reduce your Gold threshold.

As the previous poster stated, booking flights solely to get back to Gold seems rather pointless. If status was important, you should have invested in status running while you still had status, as it is easier to retain, rather than attain, Gold status.

To get from Blue to Gold, you will need to do at least 12k miles (with 2 A3 segments) to get to Silver, and then 24k miles (with 4 A3 segments) to get to Gold - or, without A3 segments, you will need to get 24k miles to get to Silver and then another 48k miles to get to Gold.

To retain Gold would instead have taken only 12k miles + 4A3, or 24k miles in each year....which represents only about one-third of the flying you now have to do just to get back to where you were.

The amount of flying that previously would have retained Gold for you is now required just to get you from Blue to Silver - and to get from Silver to Gold requires double that amount of flying again, on top.

Sorry to tell you this, but your mistake was letting Gold go when it is so (comparitively) easy to retain - one decent longhaul in a decent earning class with 4A3 segments, or two decent longhauls.

You have considerably more flying to do by allowing yourself drop back all the way to Blue.

If you haven't been flying *A, it is a lot of effort for apparently little reward. (Having status is nice, but rather meaningless if you are not actually flying in order to use it. Instead, you seem to be flying JUST to get it, and then doing nothing with it).

Romanianflyer

While the previous users gave excellent advice, I have to say that we don't yet know the reasons why fedeflyer wants to achieve gold status again.

Of course, it's pointless if his flying pattern stays the same as during the last two years, or will only slightly increase.

Yet if perhaps in the near future he knows that he will need to fly a lot (eg. for work) then it can be a sound aim, especially if he already planned to make a trip in the first place.

I'm in the same boat having fallen back in the last years and needing to start all over due to a change of jobs, less time for personal travels, less work-related flights and most importantly a change of city which meant I was less dependent on *A than I was when still living in Greece. As most of my income went to relocating and some other stuff, it often meant travelling on LCCs instead, as well as the odd flight on SkyTeam now living in one of their hubs.

Now that I'm fully settled, having much more time (and money!) to travel and also quite some travels for work coming up soon (in which I can chose the carrier) - it's a no-brainer to slowly work back to my old flying/travel rhythm and focus on concentrating most of my flights back to *A. Who knows OP might be in a similar situation!

For the advice so far on flights I agree. SAS an ET often have great deals, for SAS its worth to watch one of their sales - I've seen flights from Scandinavia to China/Japan regularly on sale for 200-300 EUR last year.

Ethiopian is great as Addis Abeba is way off the normal path you'd fly to Europe, so more miles! Just be careful that most of their business class deals/errors are often in P class, which is worthless as it earns 0. Forget about LHR and concentrate on DUB - by far the lowest fares (and bigger distance!) that I've seen on their European destinations (and you don't have to pay the hefty ex-LHR taxes).

Also United still earns decently enough in their cheaper booking classes.

Lufthansa should be avoided, although Swiss and Austrian can have cheap intra-European business class deals earning a good amount of miles (when commencing in a non-*A hub and flying 4 sectors, eg. OTP-ZRH-BRU).

Note that when getting your A3 sectors it's cheaper to fly XXX-ATH-XXX (final destination/starting point don't has to be in Greece!) than to start from Athens as it's more expensive in taxes/final price often.

Make sure to avoid the Summer holidays and religious holidays like Easter (both Catholic/Protestant Easter AND Orthodox - check the dates!) or Christmas. Outside of season there are some steals available on fun routings which for 40-50 EUR one way get you 2 sectors and quite some miles (eg. TXL-ATH-CDG, OTP-ATH-LGW etc).

If you are flexible, I've often found Italy, Germany and Turkey among the cheaper places as starting points to pick up A3 flights (much better than eg. France, UK, Scandinavia).

ProleOnParole

If you're in East Asia, you can also consider taking CA flights and crediting them to A3. Their long-haul fares can be very cheap sometimes.

Knobbgb

UK/ROI (EDI, DUB, BHX) and France (not CDG) are quite cheap at the moment. I just booked DUB-ATH-TLS for 54 Euro which ties in rather nicely with an ET flight into DUB. The same fares were available to other French secondary cities as well as BCN and FCO. Oh, and don't forget that ET fly transatlantic DUB-LAX too!

ermis177

Agree. SAS all the way. Although Lufthansa PE can be an option.

palcsaky

As you're based in Asia, wouldn't Asiana Club be a better program for you? 40 000 miles in 24 months to achieve Diamond status (Star Gold) and once attained it's valid for 24 months.

irishguy28

True...but if the OP has increased travel in their future, it would make sense to wait for that travel to commence, and to use that necessary travel to build back status....filling in the gaps with extra discretionary travel if they are only just short of status.

If it wasn't worthwhile doing a relatively small amount of flying to retain Gold, it doesn't seem worthwhile doing three times that amount of flying that otherwise is unnecessary.

fedeflyer

Thanks!!

fedeflyer

Thanks you all for the great tips!

VishalSFO

fedeflyer

Probably not.. you should go step by step...but wait for more valid answers. Good luck!