giorginho

That would mean that gold members, who enter the Aegean Lounge, get miles, but Business Class passengers (who are, potentially, also gold members!) entering the same lounge don't!??!?!
I mean, I personally couldn't care less about 200 award miles, but what the......???!!!
The whole "sorry if you 're gold and have to use Goldair's instead of our lounge, here are 200 miles" is (censored by myself). If anything, they should have been handing out the miles to silver members, which Aegean deprived of their lounge access completely! (yeah, I know, fast track coupons.... seriously?...)

MeltingAlf

Not sure why the overreaction.

But silver members do not automatically get access to Aegean's lounges - every visit requires a lounge coupon for entry. I'm not sure why the kerfuffle about this, since they would be denied anyway if it's at capacity.

Business Class passengers do have automatic entry but equally, they're not affected by the new intra-Schengen lounge policy. They still get access as they should.

M+B Gold members are the only one that should have automatic entry but can be denied. It would make sense to stratify it and give those who have been sent to the Goldair lounge miles and not the rest, but I just see it as A3 giving more miles to people who shouldn't get miles (solo M+B Gold travellers in Y). Which is a more generous policy anyway IMHO, but your reaction seems to suggest otherwise.

Xandrios

Yes that's what I meant to say. Its not automatic for everyone, class of service plays a role. Which was not the case in the past when they were rebuilding the A3 lounge and only business class pax were admitted to the Goldair lounge. Back then (as a Gold in business) you'd get lounge access and the 10 euro coupon.

giorginho

My reaction has to do with the pure insanity in Aegean's take of the situation, which they themselves created. So now solo golds get to enjoy a considerably less crowded, refurbished Aegean lounge (since Aegean got rid of the "unworthy") AND get miles for an inconvenience the only way it affects them is to their own benefit??
Again, the 200 miles are worth next to nothing, but it's the message that move sends.
"we're so sorry we made our lounge much more comfortable for you, here are some miles"
​​​​​​If this was a gold benefit ("as a gold member each time you fly you get 200 additional miles") then OK, but as "compensation"???

romans

https://en.aegeanair.com/milesandbon...-program/gold/

As an extra benefit, we offer to all Gold members, 200 extra award miles when travelling from Athens within Greece with AEGEAN or Olympic Air, and 500 extra award miles when travelling from Athens to an international Intra-Schengen destination with AEGEAN or Olympic Air.

generally... I would ask!

Xandrios

That's interesting. Sounds like they made it a generic Gold benefit. Also implies that they are not expecting this situation to be resolve anytime soon..

bgriff

I am flying ATH-BCN later this summer, 2 of us business class, I also have *G (and Priority Pass) if it matters. Flight departs at 8:25am on a Sunday. Sounds like I should expect the intra-Schengen lounge to be crowded at best, and to deny us entry at worst? Is the LH lounge likely to also be busy at that hour?

nk15

You'll be fine, just your partner will have to go to the lesser lounge. I am wondering how many relationships has A3 destroyed with the new lounge rules. On second thought, nope, you won't be fine...

giorginho

Lol, they're both in business class, so gold or not should be irrelevant ​​​​​​.

ntzanos

Both will be fine! Flew with my partner a couple of weeks ago to CDG both in business and both got access to A3 lounge (I'm A3G, she's A3S)

We got at the lounge around 06:00 and it was ok, plenty of seating.

It started getting crowded around 07:30 I would say.

Xandrios

Today at 10AM there was still seating available (mostly at the cafetaria style seats/tables in the back) but that started filling up reasonably fast. By noon pretty much all tables were taken.

Still pretty happy with my visit though, thought that the cheesecake was pretty good with some coffee!

nikolask

I recall this topic has been discussed already but can't find the thread so here goes my question: I will have a quite long layover in ATH soon (6 hours) and will be arriving from a non-shengen flight, connecting to a shengen one. I am booked in Economy with a companion and have *G status. Will it be possible to access the A3 extra-shengen lounge for the duration of my layover? With *G + companion, we will be sent to the Goldair lounge in the Intra-Shengen area which is subpar to A3's lounge and we'd prefer to avoid this.

Any experiences?

ntzanos

You will be fine. New rules apply for intra-Schengen lounge only.

nikolask

Thanks. My question was rather referring to whether we'll be able to enter the extra-shengen zone in ATH with an intra-shengen boarding pass. Or even better, stay in the extra-shengen zone after after our arrival.

giorginho

I guess it never crossed Aegean's mind that a family of 4 can actually either have 4 gold members or fly (yes, all 4) in business class, because the intra-Shengen lounge has ZERO seating options for any party larger than 2! (this regards the "dining" section, but even in general, the most I saw were 3 armchairs in the area after the entrance, but there never was any actual free space there either, since all such tables were occupied by solo travelers!).

On the one hand all their latest TV spots are "we 're going all-out for families flying with us" and on the other such a move... Noone seemed eager to help accomodate us either, we had to find "single's" tables and move them together as well as ask solo travelers occupying tables for 2 for "the other chair", then within the minute or so it took me to put together a plate, a girl from another family had "stolen" on of our borrowed chairs and her parents showed zero interest in giving it (or any chair) back...

After all those months with either too much traffic in the loung or coincidences causing me to not visit the renovated intra-Shengen lounge, this was a huge let-down. It feels more cramped now than before (and that's with fewer visitors, so no idea how they managed that!) and unless I missed something there's a far inferior offering of drinks (non-alcoholic at least) compared to before. Where did all those "bottom-shelf refrigerators" go?
Breakfast and lunch options are improved (though the chicken souvlaki, the only 'souvlaki' on offering, would have most likely caused any greek "souvlatzidiko" to go out of business), but still worse than what I would get at the SKG lounge (well, last visit there was pre-covid).

I actually at some point suggested to wifey to move over to the Goldair lounge, which I remembered from our visit 3 months ago had better seating options for groups larger than 2 and far better/cleaner toilets (!), but by that time it wouldn't have been worth it.

I really felt "unwelcomed" by the layout and I don't know if this will change much (there's a chance, that in 2 months I'll be there again), but I'm certainly writing to Aegean about this.