HEhatesusall

This may be interesting for anyone that can get their hands on an alpha bank gold/platinum visa!
Basically alpha bonus is the rewards program for alpha bank. Their gold MC pays 2 bonus points per euro spent, increasing to 4 or 8 points for some partners( A3, Greek supermarkets, specific petrol stations etc)
Now, there is a special site that you can redeem these alpha points that works on (what looks like) the same award inventory as the M&B program
Of course you can only redeem on A3 metal, and cost for a "long" european flight is 22.5k alpha points + taxes for economy . Flights inside greece are 10k + taxes (Y class again). All these tickets include 2 hand luggages + checked-in 23kg bag.

Now, the interesting thing is that gathering alpha bonus points can be *significantly* easier than earning miles. 100 euros spent in vasilopoulos ( a greek supermarket) is 800 alpha points using a gold MC(which can be free of the yearly fee if you meet certain criteria)
There aren't many arbitrage opportunities for alpha bank bonus points. They are usually worth .2 (usually) to .3 cents(in a few merchants) of cash discount, and whenever there is an arbitrage opportunity it usually raises the valuation of each point to e.g .5 cents each but only for 10-20 euro vouchers that aren't stackable usually.
Now, yesterday I wanted to book AMS-> ATH return flights during the summer peak season (July/August)
Return prices with A3 were easily into 500+ eur territorry (ouch) , and other carriers weren't any cheaper to be honest.
So, I found some award inventory and I ended up spending 45k alpha points (+ taxes) for a return ticket instead of 25-30k M&B miles (+taxes) for these tickets.

Now, if you can only really use the alpha bonus points for .2 cents each (like me) , spending 45k alpha points is basically identical to spending 90 euros cash. Which can be an awesome deal if you want to book really expensive intra-EU (or even flights in greece!)

ariadgr_

This has been true for years. You were just made aware of it now.

First of all, in order to have an Alpha Bank card, you must be a resident of Greece, customer of Alpha Bank, and eligible for a credit card.

Second, Alpha Bank points expire at 2 years (very negative point in my opinion).

Third, you are still limited by Aegean's award (I class) availability. So you might have points expiring that you are unable to redeem due to Aegean's limited award availability.

Last, if you are a Greek resident, there's also Alpha Bank's Aegean Bonus Visa Premium, which has an annual subscription of 80 euros, with which you can also earn an increased amount of miles at certain big partners of Alpha Bank's programme like the supermarket you mentioned. (x4 on the Euros spent, and x1,25 when converted to Aegean miles -which do not expire-, therefore 1 euro = 5 Aegean miles). This card also has other perks (like 1+1 aegean ticket for your travel companion free each year etc).

maciuj

Are you sure this is the case, Any source? I couldnt find such information so general terms should just be that anyone in EU can be eligible.

johnirvine

Yes, anyone in the EU is eligible as long as they also have a Greek tax number. Aegean miles are also available via the Bank of Cyprus M&B card which provides a variety of other benefits (see the BOC website). The big disadvantage of the BOC Aegean card is that you can only collect 100,000 miles per year, whereas the LH Group Miles and More card available from Astrobank/Piraeus Bank allows unlimited mileage collection. Again, any EU resident is eligible for both cards provided that they have a Cyprus tax number, residential address, employment contract and apply in person with a local utility bill in their name which is less than 3 months old. Good luck in demanding strict adherence to EU rules!

HEhatesusall

For the greek alpha bank CC's : In theory you are right, in practice unless you are a tax resident of greece OR you are a non-resident but with substantial income in greece (as proven by you greek income tax statement) they will never give you a credit card.
I applied for one a few years back when I was a resident in another EU country and got rejected. When I complained alpha's gold line told me something along the lines of "unless you have significant income in greece we cant give you a CC as if you abuse it and never pay us back we'll have an almost impossible way of getting our money back". However they did give me the option to put on hold , say 3000 euros, from my alpha bank current account and then allow me a credit card with 3000 euros credit limit. Which I of course declined....

giorginho

I would have gladly accepted! ​​​

Flyer1F1

I tried getting a card last year but they refused me as a customer. I am a Greek citizen, resident in Switzerland (not really part of the EU) which has CHF as currency.
They told me non-residents can only get the debit card which gives only 1 mile per 4E of spending.
On a related note another bank told me they only give credit (credit cards, morgages, etc.) to EU residents living in a country that has EUR as a currency.

Actually this is not too bad. Next time I am in Greece I will ask them if they still allow this.

zak_aviation

Is availability for award flights the same when redeeming using Alpha Bank Bonus points and award miles from Aegean? I think that with Bonus points you might find availability for a specific flight even when there is none trying to redeem miles

giorginho

zak_aviation Not only do they use the same "pot" for such award tickets, but tickets with "points", as opposed to tickets with miles, don't allow for connections, if I'm reading the results correctly (I don't mean of course connections to other star alliance partners, I mean Aegean's own flights, for example I can find the tickets for the direct ATH-DUS flight, but not for the ATH-SKG-DUS, even though the connection is available to book with miles. This also used to be true for tickets issued with the points program of eurobank, the other bank that until January 10th 2023 used to cooperate with Aegean).