Sebring

https://www.newswire.ca/news-release...682662191.html
MONTREAL, May 15, 2018 /CNW Telbec/ - Is Santorini, Mykonos, Crete or the Delphi Theatre on your list of planned travel destinations? Aeroplan's newest airline partner, Olympic Air, can now make it that much easier for Aeroplan Members to get there.

Starting today, Aeroplan Members can accumulate and redeem Aeroplan Miles for travel with Athens-based Olympic Air which joins Aeroplan's existing airline partners.

"Adding Olympic Air as the latest airline partner to our program enables members to travel to some of Greece's most popular holiday hotspots," said Matt Hall, Vice President, Key Account Management, Aeroplan. "This addition will give our members more choice and flexibility with flight connections to numerous cities and some of Greece's more remote islands."

Aeroplan Members will be able to use their miles for flights with Olympic Air through Aeroplan's Fixed Mileage Flight Rewards that offer industry-leading value at a fixed mileage level.

Olympic Air, a subsidiary of Aegean Airlines, is a regional airline in Greece. With primary base in Athens International Airport "Eleftherios Venizelos" and secondary hubs at "Diagoras" Airport in Rhodes and Macedonia Airport in Thessaloniki, Olympic Air performs approximately 168 flights per day, travelling to a total of 31 Greek destinations including some of the most remote ones.

Xiaotung

Looks to me that OA is poised to become the 2nd *A connecting partner.

pewpew

EW/4U makes more sense to me. You can already access LH J lounges when flying those carriers if you're UA/AC/NH/LH*G

acysb87

All Greek to me

Stranger

Olympic was more dead than dead, and Aegean eventually picked up bits and pieces...

Transpacificflyer

Oh great another crappy carrier to push reward tickets to.
Not happy with the alcohol free craptastic EgyptAir, or the awful craptacular Air India, Aeroplan now gives us crapalicious Olympic, the airline that should have died long ago (much like aeroplan).
I guarantee we will all receive an idiotic stereotypical email with lots of Oopa oopas announcing this craporific event.

yyznomad

Ok, but how do you really feel?

yyccdg

Not sure what your issue is. Flew Olympic between SKG and ATH two weeks ago, can't tell the difference between them and Aegean. Some of the time, they are flying Aegean planes. I like it, now instead of having to redeem only to ATH, I can actually use my miles to redeem to the island I wanted. The funny part is, most of the time to get to the islands, you were buying a ticket on Olympic anyway. Most Olympic flights are short distances, under 1.5hrs, I am sure we can tough it out.

yyznomad

What's "Olympic Airways"?

justforfun

This opens up routes that were previously unavailable with Aeroplan. But by all means go ahead and be upset about this.

Admiral Ackbar

He is talking about the Olympic Air that had 747s going to Montreal in the winter with cigarette smoke coming out of the cockpit.

Adam Smith

Your rageful rants often have interesting nuggets in them, but I think you missed the mark here. I don't think Aeroplan is likely to be trying to route you through JTR, JMK, etc the next time you're trying to go from YYZ to BKK...

Transpacificflyer

I'm not so much upset by this as annoyed. I see it as a feeble attempt to build a defense against the growing frustration of Aeroplan members who are unable to redeem on some of the more common routes. For those of us who are not million milers and/or super 100K elites, we do not have access to the priority options you folks have, and we have been getting squeezed out over the past two years and it is getting worse.

I get it. There will be options on the unpopular routes from / to Athens to Alexandroupolis, Chania, Chios, Heraklion, Ikaria, Ioannina, Karpathos, Kalamata, Kavala, Kerkyra, Kefalonia, Kos, Kythira Leros, Limnos, Mykonos, Milos, Mytilini, Naxos, Paros, Preveza, Rhodes, Samos, Santorini, Skiathos, Skiros, Sitia, Thessaloniki and Zakynthos. And direct flights from / to Thessaloniki to Athens, Chania, Chios, Hraklion, Kalamata, Kerkyra, Kos, Mykonos, Mytilini, Paros, Samos, Santorini, Skyros and Rhodes. Rhodes Airport connects with Samos, Chios, Mytilini, Limnos and Kos, Kalymnos, Leros.

Aside from folks like aged Aunt Eugenia who will be thrilled to know that she can visit her cousins Eudoxia, Hagne and Phoibe before they die, I don't see this helping too many Aeroplan customers.

Passengers will be flown in luxury aboard Dash 8-100, Dash 8-400 and ATRs all of which have their own threads lamenting the horrors of flying on such aircraft. (I like the 400 series and consider it a fun plane. Nevertheless, I am sensitive to the pain of others and ,my how the people who sit on the aircraft do complain in FT.)

Yes, there will be more options, but a relatively useless addition. I would have been thrilled and done cartwheels, had Aeroplan announced more availability on the continuously sold out routes, with quality airlines and reasonable route and time options.

Bonaventure

Boy you must be fun to have dinner with.

Do you do anything besides complain?

Do you understand that AP availability is a function of what AC is contractually obligated to release (8% of all seats, which they do) and load factors generally (at record highs?).

You shouldn't be annoyed at Aeroplan. You should be annoyed that other people make more money than you and are paying the airline more cash than they would otherwise get giving the seat to point-cheapos.

Rendar

Excpet if you have Gold Star status, you get nadda on an Olympic ticket despite a lot of their flights being wet leased and operated by Aegean