GBobon

You're comparing two airlines from two very different markets.

Asian airlines, like American ones, are fighting for market share and are trying to attract more customers with better and better soft and hard products and status matches from their competition.

This is mostly not the case for A3, at least for now they have biggest market share on most of their routes and most of the business travelers will continue to fly A3 with or without status thanks to convenience (big network) and, I guess, in many cases due to the corporate contracts their companies have with A3.

If A3 would have more and solid competition on most of their routes the situation will be probably similar to the one in Asia, US and Western Europe and will try to keep as many customers as they can thru status extensions and so on.

NWIFlyer

It’s a little more complicated than that for many people. I’ve been a *G for 12 years - three with BD before BA bought them, the balance with A3. Both those airlines had something in common - a decent FFP, but a very limited flight network. A3 has a network even more limited than BD did, particularly if resident outside Greece.

Want to go to North America, SE Asia or Oceania and earn status miles? You need to use a *A airline Consequently qualification methods will vary, and there will be many outside Greece who use the higher mileage option because their travel pattern for the year requires it. I’ve personally used both methods since the dual route was introduced, although probably in the years I did fly with A3 I’d have qualified anyway.

There will be few people now using the FFP for earning given the earn/burn ratio isn’t as good as it once was - most will want the benefits of *A status.

Doubtless A3 would rather you stepped onto its own metal, but even if you don’t it still gets the benefits of its *A membership by the partner airlines paying for the miles A3 awards when you fly. Every FFP is a profit centre - indeed with BD, Diamond Club was just about the only profitable part of the airline at the end!

In terms of travel throughout the world, those in the US have had the ability to move around a little more than most, and domestic travel has remained largely unaffected. If you always qualified by flying on UA, the likelihood is that’s still the case. An individual with that travel pattern will probably represent the least value to A3 though because they’ll likely be using the status for lounge access.

Meanwhile, those in Europe who’ve had the tightest restrictions to work with, and are much more likely to book Aegean metal at some point, may well find themselves frozen out if A3 doesn’t change tack. In Greece, for domestic itineraries, if you lost status would it make you more or less likely to fly with Skyexpress, take the train to Salonica, or a ferry to the islands? It makes no commercial sense for any of those people to be allowed to drift away.

Do you have some evidence to verify this against? Does A3 have the largest market share on the LHR or AMS routes compared to BA/KL? There’s no money in domestic routes - it’s the international ones that really benefit A3, much as BA relies on its domestic feeders solely to boost international routes, and KL sells cheap connections from UK regional airports to AMS.

mgo72

I contacted A3 on twitter as my Gold expires on 22/2 and Belgium has forbidden all travels that are not official.

They told me that my status will not be renewed if I do not fly. I have all the miles only lack the 4 A3 flights. Flights that got cancelled in May.

powergean

You can not fly, from Holland, or Germany? Borders by car or train are closed?

Archon1995

I managed to secure Gold late last year, and have until October to renew. Need just over 6k miles plus four A3 flights, or 18k miles. If international travel opens back up within the next 6-7 months I'll make it. Otherwise I'll be dropping back to Silver without ever getting to use my *A Gold benefits, let alone the A3-specific benefits.

If we get another status expiration extension, cool. If not, meh. There are better things to stress out on.

NWIFlyer

In many countries right now just leaving your house for a non-permitted reason is against the law, let alone driving to another country! With respect, you do seem a little unaware of just how restricted day to day movement is across Europe at the moment, before we even get to the stage of considering travel.

powergean

I know exactly the europian conditions , i had 8 flights the last 2 months. But for example when was not possible to fly from Budapest , was no problem to fly from Wien. Only 2 hours by train..

greenarmy

I would suggest if your *need* to travel is minimal, or particularly your A3 related travel is primarily leisure orientated, that viewing your local government restrictions as something to be skirted around to absolutely the finest point of the law, is not a great place to be with respect to public health restrictions during a pandemic.

Yet, even if that approach is right for your personal circumstances - which I am sure it will be - it does not make it the right that A3 would expect *all* its elite members of February 2020 to take a similar approach to retain their status.

GUWonder

Just like many other airlines and hotel groups nowadays, Aegean has a choice to make: do what it takes to keep the historical elite status customers as close as possible for the circumstances or to risk alienating their historical elite customer base by setting them up to be free agents when those customers get back into traveling.

It's no coincidence that so many airlines and hotels have been extending elite status and/or reducing elite status qualification/retention requirements during this pandemic. Aegean probably will eventually gravitate toward what the other European airlines do, unless Aegean really thinks that it can make it well enough on just its captive domestic flight routes.

headingwest

Please tell me which train gets you from Budapest to Vienna Airport in 2 hours?!

NWIFlyer

Well I’m delighted you’re in a position to be able to do this, but you’re patently unaware of the position in the UK, where A3 will have a reasonably large number of members given M+B was the natural FFP for many of us who had status with BMI to transition to following the BA takeover.

Currently, no-one in the UK is permitted to leave their house other than to exercise, to go to work, to seek medical treatment or to do essential shopping. We certainly cannot go on holiday, either domestically or abroad. Anyone who turns up at an airport will likely be stopped outside by the police and asked their purpose of travel. If it’s not valid, if they’re lucky they’ll merely be turned around and sent home, but fines are ever more widespread. Bluff your way through that somehow and you still have to fill out a form declaring your exact purpose of travel, potentially with supporting evidence, before you’ll be allowed on the plane.

If anyone somehow found a valid reason to travel abroad, then on return - with a few exceptions - there’s a 10 day mandatory self-isolation. If you’re unlucky, the country you’ve visited might end up on the red list, potentially at near zero notice, meaning an enforced hotel stay at a cost of Ł1750. In Scotland it’s worse with hotel quarantine for all arrivals.

This is expected to continue for many months, maybe even into 2022.

If you ask people resident in many other European countries they’ll paint a very similar picture.

Still think it’s easy for everyone to re-qualify?

fransknorge

Or sometimes it is even simpler: I had two A3 bookings for travel in recent times (one in December, one in February). A3 simplifies all that for me by simply cancelling the flights weeks in advance, with very little flexibility to rebook as the services were reduced to a bare minimum (a few flights per week).

jetplane86

If Aegean doesn't extend status, I think many (former) frequent flyers, myself included, will definitely look at this as a sign of poor treatment of its members. I may just seek Gold status with a different airline, one who actually takes care of its members during hard times.

sokolov

Especially as we have caused hardly any costs. I haven't flown anywhere in almost a year. That means I haven't used any lounges, haven't checked any free bags, etc. Nor have I used any upgrade coupons.

OK, I haven't brought any revenue either. But I'm looking FWD to flying to Greece/Cyprus as soon as I can. I hope it will be with Aegean. But if they drop me after years of Gold status, I'm not so sure.

djjaguar64

A decision has been made, we will push our trip for the second time to 2022 now. Will call Aegean and reschedule for April 2022, of course will wait for the calendar days to pass. Sad.