Aegean Star Alliance Gold is Easy and for Life: Last week I posted that I had received a status match with Turkish Airlines Miles&Smiles. I wanted Gold status a new non-U.S. Star Alliance program now that my beloved british midland was gobbled up by British Airways (oh, don’t cry for me, that gets me British Airways Gold status for 22 months — and access to American’s Flagship Lounges even when flying domestically).
Turkish has an interesting program, their status lasts for two years, and I just need 37,500 qualifying miles in that time to requalify (and I can even buy up to 10,000 of those miles).
So I thought I was done.
Then I read on Milepoint that Aegean was offering status matches to british midland elite members. They’re the Greek airline that joined Star Alliance a couple of years ago, and the program is designed primarily for Greeks flying around the islands with the occasional hop to Europe — you get 1000 (status!) miles for signing up, 4000 miles gets you Star Alliance silver status (so a free checked bag in the U.S.), and 20,000 miles gets you Star Alliance Gold.
In July 2010 I wrote about the value of the Aegean program. For the occasional traveler, a single East Coast – Denver trip on United might earn Star Alliance silver status if credited to Aegean.
Earning is generous on premium cabin fares, with 150% or 200% bonuses for business class and 300% for paid first. While some discount United fares accrue only 50% miles (although they award 500 miles minimum), US Airways fares all earn 100%. There’s no elite status bonus.
The award chart has some values, like US to Europe and North Africa for 90,000 miles in business class, and they allow one-way awards for half the miles. But no changes are permitted to awards once ticketed, and cancellations forfeit half the miles, also no stopovers and only one connection each way, rules which are pretty draconian.
But what’s really special about the program is that status doesn’t expire as long as your account remains active. At least unless Aegean changes its mind. But for now at least the terms and conditions seem clear.
You earn status based on miles earned on a rolling 12 month basis. Once you hit 4000 miles earned, including the 1000 mile signup bonus, you’re “Blue” which is Star Alliance silver. (Aegean Visa cardholders automatically get Blue status.)
Gold status isn’t actually 20,000 status miles — it’s 16,000 miles earned after first earning 4000. So you could earn 4000 within 12 months, not fly for 2 years, and then earn 16,000 and you’d become Gold.
And status earned does not expire. Blue members who do not earn Gold (or fly at all) stay Blue:
If, however, the Blue Member, after completion of the aforementioned twelve-month period, has gathered less than 16,000 Tier Miles, then he/she shall remain a Blue Member, whilst the Tier Miles collected during that twelve-month period shall not be automatically reset, but shall rather be successively deleted one (1) year from the day of each respective flight event, effected within the 12-month period in question.
And they continue to have the chance to earn Gold by flying 16,000 status miles over a continuing rolling 12 month period.
Once you earn Gold, in order to keep it active all you need to do is credit a flight once every three years.
Member Cards and their Passwords will be cancelled within 36 months if no flight activity is recorded in their Accounts.
Aegean is very clear that they can change these rules, of course, so nothing is guaranteed forever.
The number of Tier Miles required for each type of Card, as well as the privileges that stem from each tier, may be modified at any time by AEGEAN without prior notice.
..The Card remains property of AEGEAN at all times and AEGEAN reserves the right to withdraw or cancel and/or replace it with a Card of the same or different level.
Lifetime Gold (which is Star Alliance Gold) sounded good to me, all I would have to do is credit perhaps one US Airways DC – New York flight segment every 3 years and I’d continue to receive lounge access on my domestic US Airways and United travels.
As I understand it, members receive cards that have expiration dates three years forward. We don’t yet know whether status will really last ‘forever’ as long as someone credits a flight every 3 years, though the terms and conditions would seem to reflect that. The program is still pretty new, and the airline has only been a Star Alliance member for two years, so this all still needs to be filed under “developing…”
Given the possibility, though, I signed up for Aegean Miles&Bonus and then emailed a copy of my british midland card and online statement.
Within hours I had a response:
Dear Mr. Leff,
Thank you for joining Aegean airlines.
Further to our communication, we are glad to inform you that you have been upgraded to Gold Status ; thus, you may expect your Gold card to be delivered at your address via Post in about two months after the date of your membership upgrade. Until then for your future flights you can print the log in page of your profile via our web site where is clearly shown that you are a gold member.Moreover, in any case the standard Star Alliance policy is that either you have with you your gold card or the paper boarding pass that you will get from the check-in procedure, in which your gold status is shown .However, in order to have access on the Star Alliance Lounges some Star Partners consider as mandatory to have with you the gold card.
Remaining at your disposal for any further assistance.
Best regards
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
eCommerce & Loyalty Department
E-mail: wwwcontact@aegeanair.com
31, Viltanioti Street
145 64, Kifisia Athens
www.aegeanair.com
Aegean doesn’t usually match status that I’m aware of, although they’re currently matching bmi status holders since that airline has left the Star Alliance. I’ve seen references to Aegean matching Spanair elite members when that Star carrier went under, and one reference to a status match from El Al.
But it’s an easy status to earn and for now, at least, it looks like an exceptionally easy status to maintain.
Any advise for Indians using star alliance senator miles for international travel? Taxes charged is more than cost of paid ticket!
My question is about the A3 500 miles min and 50% mileage for UA flights.
Which of the two kicks in first?
Say I fly from IAD to JFK on UA G ticket for 228 miles and put miles on A3.
Do I get 228*50%=114 but 500 min on A3?
Or it will be 228 but translate into 500 min and then credit only 250 miles due to 50%?
If it is the first, I guess it take at most 4 segments on UA to get *A silver then.
If the second, it will sadly become 8 segments min.
They’re still (as of early October) doing status match for ex-BD gold members. I got upgraded overnight after joining, no email but statement shows “BDSM-BMI Status Match Campaign 2012”.
Paper print of card + statement + bit of explanation got access to Asiana *G lounge.
Can I book someone else a flight on USAir and use A3 # to get the credits or do the names have to match, and the points only get credited if I actually fly myself?
One thing to keep in mind is that it doesn’t appear that Star Alliance Gold status gets you free seat upgrades on any of their carriers, for that you need to have status through that carrier. Since I fly 20k miles at a time for my work at a non-profit (every 6 weeks or so) having that free upgrade would be a really huge comfort bonus. Way more important to me than lounge access. Because I fly to Asia and Africa my points are split on United and Delta which means I only have gold status on each–not enough for automatic upgrades. Any thoughts/suggestions?
@Sarah: Automatic upgrades happen at hotels, but airlines have given his up long ago. Some are more generous than others, but in STAR alliance flights, upgrades re given usually only of your booked class is booked out, so they have to bump up a few passengers.
So – the gold status at *A is certainly more about lounge access than about anything else. And of course, it protects you against the expiry of your miles.
Is this deal still on?
Nope 🙁
@gary What changed? It looks to me like you still get Gold with 20,000 points.
…and status still appears not to expire, no?
sorry didn’t reread the post i thought it was talking about status matches they aren’t doing that currently… but yes this is otherwise still available 🙂
I just flew with US Airways and had my A3 account associated to the flight… how long should it take for these miles to populate in my Aegean account?
It’s been 72 hrs and I don’t see them…
Alex, when I fly United or USAir on my Aegean card, the miles show up almost exactly one week later. Consistently.
Is anyone else having problems enrolling in the Miles and Bonus program? I tried a couple times today, aside from the site being very slow, right after I fill out all my personal information, and hit submit, it says
There has been an error
Error Message : An unxpected error occured.
Back To Page
I’m getting the same error Daniel is, 20/08/2013
I have lost over 20,000 miles in my Turkish Airlines account and was downgraded from Gold (sad). I currently haveover 70, 000 in my UA account. Q: Can I combine these miles for a Star Alliance Gold status? OR: Do TA miles convert to UA miles to increase my status, etc? I
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Gary, any idea if this is still a functional thing? Or have the rules changed since you posted this?
@Stephen still works
Do you have a copy innehar you wrote in Mail to them?
@Gary and @harvson3 As of May 2014, United website shows that domestic flights within the USA are NOT getting the 1 free bag allowance for Star Alliance Silver, but getting it for *A Gold members.
@MS – thanks!
Has Aegean made any changes to their qualification for *Gold or is it still as posted?
@brian – no changes at this point
I just received notice of changes to their policy. I think the gravy train has just ended. Please correct me if I am wrong about these changes coming in Nov.
It looks like maintaining Gold status has increased dramatically to 24000 non-Aegean miles every 12 months, not 36 as previously. Lifetime *Gold just became much more difficult. We all knew this was not sustainable, too bad that has now become reality come Nov 2014.
I was a silver-tier member for A3 but after the change of policy I am a blue-tier member now. what the?
You mentioned a trick on ANA in the past that allowed us to check star alliance award availability for partner airlines for all star alliance routes. I used it all the time. I tried to access the same page this week, and I could not get there! Is this still viable, and if so, how do I get to that spot again?
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