Aegean Airlines Miles&Bonus is offering 2000 miles for signing up.

In the past the offer was 1000 miles. The key though is that the 1000 miles counted as status miles.

And it only takes 4000 miles within 12 months to earn Silver status. Which is Star Alliance Silver, for priority boarding and a free checked bag domestically on partners United and US Airways.

This offer should mean you only need 2000 more miles to make Star Alliance Silver. And then after that only 16,000 more for Star Alliance Gold which gets lounge access.

And it seems that, so far, once you earn status with Aegean you keep it (rather than having to requalify each year).

I outlined the Aegean program back in June when I was comped to Aegean’s Gold status (based on my british midland Gold). And then last month they improved their change policies on award tickets. And I flagged the Aegean as a non-obvious program to consider.