The beauty of airline alliances is that you can “shop”, which is the best frequent flier program for you. If your goal is to get the easiest Star Alliance Gold status that lasts for the longest, Aegean’s Miles & Bonus program is the answer.
You can access Aegean’s Miles&Bonus website here.
Here’s what you need to qualify:
1. You will get Blue status for crediting 4,000 status miles within 12 month period (3,000 actually as the 1,000 sign up bonus miles are tier qualifying)
2. After qualifying for Blue, you will have 12 months to collect 16,000 status miles for the status to be upgraded to Gold.
Things to note:
– Aegean uses rolling 12 month calendar for status qualification and not calendar year.
– Currently Aegean status doesn’t expire and only requires ONE flight to be credited to the program in any 36 months.
– The 1,000 bonus miles for signing up are currently showing as tier qualifying (July 22, 2013)
Easiest Gold Status
You can get Star Alliance Gold status by crediting i.e. one-way business class ticket from London to Sydney or return economy one one Thai Airways.
One-way distance between LHR-BKK-SYD is 10,620 miles according to Great Circle Mapper. This is usually within few miles that the airlines credit.
The Thai business class earns 200% tier miles on Aegean and one-way would then be 21,240 tier miles. If you book economy return in qualifying fare class, you would earn that 21,240 miles for the return trip.
Eligible Fare Classes
You have to be careful with the eligible fare classes, if ticketed in economy. Ageean lists the eligible fare classes on its web page here along with the non-eligible ones.
It get’s tricky, when you are on i.e. Lufthansa marketed but Thai Airways operated flight. With the Star Alliance, it is the booking class of the operating carrier and not the marketing carrier that dictates the mileage earning. And it is not easy to find out the booking class on i.e. Thai that Lufthansa fare maps to. The easiest way is to ring the operating carrier to get their underlying booking class.
Too Generous?
Currently your status doesn’t expire as long as you credit one flight within 36 month period. Whether this approach is sustainable in the long run, remains to be seen. Some airlines have a requirement for flying few segments on their own metal in order to qualify for status and all the other airlines (that I have been member of) require you to qualify yearly for status.
Star Alliance Gold Benefits
The lounge access, business class check in, extra baggage allowance and priority baggage handling are the main benefits that I continuously use.
Conclusion
Aegean truly is the easiest to get the Star Alliance Gold status by just doing one long-haul trip and currently the status doesn’t expire as long as you credit one flight every 36 months.
The problem is it takes incredibly long time to get your miles credited if you are using their membership ID with at least some other Alliance members. I had a number of flights with Lufthansa, Austrian and Swiss on Aegean’s I’d starting from March, the miles are still outstanding without any reasonable explanation. The miles from the flight with Turkish appeared on the account 3 days after the flight.
Are you sure that you were on eligible fare class?
My Swiss flights have all ben credited within a couple of days – in fact I was given blue status five days after the flight that got me to my 4000th mile.
That sounds about right. Obviously, there can be problems at times.
Aegean also status match BA and AF – I used this some time ago and got teh card within a few weeks, easiest *Gold anywhere!
They still do? I thought that they ended this sometime ago?
How did you accomplish that?
Hi, John. Thanks for the info, great post. Not to be pedantic, but I think you mean to say “e.g.” (“for example”) not “i.e.”(“that is to say”). (e.g.(for example), when you write: “… i.e. [that is to say] when you are on i.e. Lufthansa marketed but Thai Airways operated flight…”, you probably mean “…e.g. [for example] when you are on i.e. Lufthansa marketed but Thai Airways operated flight.”).
Thanks. This is terriffic! LOL… However, you have to be careful in United business and first as well. I am on a refundable flight with United in first class to Hawaii next March. It is in “P” class which is specifically not allowed, much to my amazement. I was going to maybe try to do a Platinum Premier challenge anyways, and won’t have a problem with the 16,000 (they are especially generous with first class 300% and some business class at 200%!)
I may call United and see if I can get into “A” class for maybe $100 more, being first class it looks like, but just be careful not only in economy!
They might be just late updating some partners, when they have changes theit fare alphabet.
Can you transfer miles from Am exp or any other partners to get the gold or you have to take a flight and it has to be flight miles only
Nope. These must be flown.
Hello,
I was checking the aegeanair but I can’t find how many miles they will give me if I fly with Air Dolomiti and Luxair.
I only found this link http://en.aegeanair.com/milesandbonus/program-description/earn-miles/
So, do they will not give me any miles if I fly with this 2 companies (Lufthansa does)?
Regards
You won’t earn anything because they are not part of Star Alliance. They can be LH Miles&More partners, however.
No, they don’t give you anything. Air Dolomiti, Luxair and Germanwings are partly (LG) or fully (4U and EN) owned by LH and they use Miles & More as well. With 4U you can actually decide if you want the miles credited to Miles & More or their own Boomerang Club. But as neither of the three are *A members in their own right, you won’t get any miles on Miles & Bonus. Sadly LH started on July 1st 2013 to have 4U operate most of their domestic and some of their short haul european routes, so you might travel on LH, OS, LX ticket but on 4U metal which won’t earn you any miles outside of Miles & More.
Thanks guys……good explanation.
So I can’t use aegan to reach the gold status.
There is another way to reach it easly?
Next easiest is Ethiopian Sheba-Miles, 50’000 miles needed for *Gold. But: Aegean start counting the miles on the day you first generate any and add them up 365 days later, regardless of the calendar year. So if you get your first mile on 15 August you need 20’000 miles by 14 August the following year to qualify. Ethiopian, as do most others, use the calendar year to calculate status, the counter resets to zero after 31 December. And Ethiopian don’t credit 4U, EN or LG either.
There really isn’t any other way to get the Star Gold status as easily.
I was flying return Delhi-Munich-Sao Paulo on Lufthansa business, can you help me find out if I credit the miles to Aegan instead of miles and more, will I get star gold in single return flight.
Miles and More gives me somewhere around 22000 miles, will I get the same with miles & Bonus.
You have the check the ticketed fare class against what is is shown on Aegan’s website and then use the Great Circle Mapper to calculate the approximate number of tier miles that you would earn.
Does anyone know if points earned from using their hotel/booking.com portal (http://en.aegeanair.com/milesandbonus/news-offers/latest-news/news-page/?nid=84&f=2013) will count towards the 20K M&B requirement, or does it have to be exclusively flight points? Thanks.
Have to be flight miles.
I had 2 booking.com activities, and they do not count as status miles.
How does it work if I collect 32000 points in one go from registration? Or do I have to qualify stage by stage?
You do not have to do stage by stage, according to FT.
Can go from zero to 20K and Gold on one trip. They don’t zero miles in between like BA does.
Is it possible to status match into Aegean from UA Gold? I’ll likely make Gold this year but unlikely to maintain it. Also, is there a way to book Star Alliance flights to get the *G benefits but credit the miles to another program like UA’s?
You could match with Turkish for sure. I am not certain with with Aegan. You could try and then let me know?
Do you think Aegean Blue, which is a Star Alliance Silver status would grant a match at other FFP’s like BA’s Executive Club, for instance?
BA doesn’t do matches. You would need to get Gold status before matches to other programs.
I just received an email from Aegean about reaching the Gold level and it only took 3 trips (which unfortunately span across the whole year). I and a few of my colleagues joined the program about a year ago and I think at least 4 guys from our office managed to get the gold status this year.
Aegean is definitely the way to go to get the Star Alliance Gold status. Glad that you made it. I was suggesting this to a friend of mine living in Finland as well instead of SAS Eurobonus.
Does this mean then that you join Aegean miles and bonus scheme and fly on Lufthansa, the Aegean miles and bonus scheme gets the points credited. Once you’ve reached gold you get all the benefits of gold star alliance membership on any partner carrier?
You need to credit to Aegean at least until you reach the Gold status. You can then take advantage of the Star Alliance Gold benefits, but credit to other program than Aegean. Remember to carry the A3 *G card with you, however.
I have SAS Eurobonus card – is it possible to “transfare” my points to AEGEAN card ?
You cannot transfer points between different Star Alliance member plans.
I’ve just achieved *G with Aegan thanks to the excellent info found here. Now that I’ve got there, can I check a couple of things:
1. If I credit miles to another *A FFP when I fly in future, can I still flash my Aegean gold card to access a lounge or get priority boarding, even though my *G status isn’t showing on my boarding pass?
2. I have FT status on LH. If I fly on LH and credit miles to the Miles&More programme (so it shows FT status on my boarding card), can I access an LH Senator Lounge (versus the LH Business Lounge) by producing my Aegean Gold card?
You can actually have both frequent flier number on file; the one that you use for status and the one where you want the miles to go. In reality, it is almost impossible for the airline employees to get this right.
I would have the number on BP where you want the miles to go and then just flash the Aegean Star Alliance Gold card for lounge access and priority boarding etc.
Thanks John. Has anyone managed to use their Aegean Gold card to gain access to a Lufthansa Senator lounge – especially if flying on LH and with their Miles&More Frequent Traveller (*A Silver) number showing on their boarding pass? Just wondering how this will play???!!!
Hi John. Really interesting indeed. I am currently hunting for a flight from Singapore to Boston. I am planning to book on Singapore Airlines via LHR. However the LHR to BOS sector is on Virgin Atlantic which is not a part of *A. I am wondering if i will be able to book all my miles on Agean Miles & Bonus? I
They just announced they are making significant changes to this, including requiring you to actually fly with Aegean http://www.newmilesandbonus.com/en#milesbonus-tiers
starting from 01 december 2014, this seems to be over, they updated (did not say enhanced for once ! 😉 ) their terms, you need to fly to remain gold the next year !
https://en.aegeanair.com/milesandbonus/about-the-program/terms-conditions/
Hello Join, can you look at for actual Miles & Bonus program from Aegean because they changed conditions and My opinion is that is more hard to got Gold Status. Thanks Frantisek