Aegean Makes Elite Status Harder To Earn, Adds New Top Platinum Tier

This will basically obliterate most of A3's *G base. Getting four segments a year was easy - one round trip from Europe to any of the Greek islands did the trick. Getting 32 segments practically ensures that only actual A3 frequent flyers qualify for the status. For those who could earn Gold status "the hard way", they now have no particular reason to choose A3 over many other FFPs with lower qualifying thresholds.

Sorry, I meant to write 12* segments.

Considering that Aegean are already doing a bit of intercontinental flying (to the UAE and Saudi Arabia) and are planning to start proper long-haul service, I don't think that the new requirements for gold are excessive. It's also good that they're giving members plenty of notice. In that context, it's not surprising that they are no longer keen to have elites who don't fly with them with any regularity.

The platinum benefits do seem very weak, but the new tier won't be going live for another year so presumably they'll have the opportunity to consider feedback from their members.

I've been Star Gold with Aegean for almost ten years. I was already considering not renewing status from next year. I used to love visiting Greece and traveling through ATH, but lately the crowding and service have been horrible. Also, visiting Greece several times a year isn't as fun and enjoyable as it used to be given the crowds, higher prices, and diminished service I've experienced more recently.

I'll be sad to give up the status most familiar to me, but these changes-along with what I described above-make the decision a little easier. I'll continue working towards OW status with Alaska now.

I'm quite sure that obliterating the *G members who contribute little to their revenue base is exactly what they have in mind. Loyalty programs are intended to reward loyalty, not freeloading.

Operating carrier pays for lounge access not the FQTV programme

@Lucky et al - we can we go from here? What's the easiest Star Alliance Gold status to earn after the Aegean?

TK

Maybe more airlines should go even further with "outsider" qualification requirements and mimic Amex Platinum: you have to have at least one "our-metal" flight each quarter and make you be a sustained actual member...

From a revenue perspective, Aegean's latest changes are likely to prove counterproductive.

When passengers fly to Greece once annually, they typically travel with partners and children, turning it into a family vacation. This pattern meant Aegean was already capturing far more than the minimum four flight segments from their Gold cardholders—often multiplied across several family members.

However, few travelers will be willing to complete 18 flight segments to Greece each year. This is particularly true given that Athens Airport has become overcrowded and increasingly unpleasant in recent years. Moreover, Athens lacks appeal as a connecting hub for European travelers beyond the Greek islands, since Aegean doesn't operate long-haul flights.

Rather than generating incremental revenue, these stricter requirements risk alienating those customers who were already delivering substantial business through high-yield, peak-pricing leisure bookings.

Granting status to people who don't fly with you just creates cost, potentially a significant one - someone who will fly A3 once a year to earn four segments and then flies other *A airlines twice a month is exactly the type of customer A3 wants to get rid of.

The original idea was that you make up for the loses by having people credit their flights to you (thus generating revenue). But that doesn't work that well these days when many booking classes credit very little - if anything at all. OS is one example which is particularly bad, I saw intra-EU Y flights for 400€ return that didn't credit anything to other *A programs.

This is one way to resolve ATH lounge crowding.

LH lounge in Athens is much less of a circus.

Incredible changes. Opening a lot of opportunities for mileage runs. For example, a round trip ATH-HER (one-hour flight) costs only 69 USD. You can do four round trips in a day, so you can be done with 32 flights in 4 days. 1200 USD for two *G statuses. Fantastic deal. Platinum renewal looks very good.

@Jack - Depends on when you travel. When there's plenty of LHG departures, LH lounge becomes an even worse zoo.

I’m not sure where the information in this article is from but regarding current Gold requalification:

“ To retain your Gold Tier, you have a fixed 12-month period from the date of your upgrade or renewal of your tier to collect 12,000 Tier Miles, including 4 flights with Aegean and/or Olympic Air, or** collect a total of 70,000 Tier Miles, regardless of which airline you choose to fly with.”

There’s no such thing as re-qualify for silver first.

I agree that the Platinum tier benefits are really weak for the effort required, but you missed the part about having a “dedicated team”, whatever that means.

While they weren't perfect, I miss Olympic. Greece deserves a true long-haul airline. Like, it feels kinda 'wrong' to connect in Istanbul to get to Athens... (unless you're Eric Adams...)

'proper long-haul service'... bring back Olympic!

You won't be anywhere near 72k miles with that!

A little myopic to think that that’s what brings the airline its core business and profits. Look closer at their business model!

For segment runs look closer at the Aegean passes. ATH-HER at €19 each + €25 in taxes and only €19+€7 for HER-ATH. €17 for SKG but higher taxes.

True if you are traveling on a ticket that grants lounge access. Not if you are getting in on status only.

For many airlines, the mileage programs are more profitable than the core business itself. For other, such as Aegean in the past years, they were significant drivers of passenger volume.

The majority of Aegean's business is not Greek people flying out of the country (particularly not for long-haul...), but foreigners coming to Greece, mostly for vacation. That is why the mileage program had significantly lower thresholds (12,000 miles versus 70,000) if one booked four legs with them - to get all these people to buy tickets for them (and often their families) annually.

Very few of these people are going to book the 18 legs now required - I suspect many of them will now book 0 flights on Aegean, as there is no more incentive to do so.

This is really sad. I’ve been loyal to A3 for 15 years and have tolerated every round of increased qualification requirements. Even after moving from Asia to the U.S., I still make a point to visit Greece every year so I can keep my status.

Earning 17,000 miles isn’t the issue — that’s easy. But requiring 12 A3/OA segments is a real stretch. What does that even look like in practice? One trip to Greece per year only covers 4 segments, so I’d somehow need to squeeze 8 extra Aegean flights into a single vacation. Flying to Greece three times a year to requalify simply isn’t realistic.

Now I’m sitting here wondering… do I just switch to TK? But I still have nearly 300,000 miles stuck with A3, I haven't seen any good business class lately...so I feel trapped.

Honestly, I’m at a loss about what to do next.

If that was the case, why not keeping the 12K miles for renewal for passengers flying 12 flights on Aegean every year? Increasing the miles demand by 50% AND adding 8 flight segments means simply to reduce number of *G status holders with A3, period. Aegean in my opinion will lose some very loyal and profitable passengers.

I can't wait to see all those businessmen hopping between Greek islands in the dead of winter to keep status.

If you make less than three trips per year with A3 (which would mean 12 segments unless ATH is the final destination), you're not really "loyal" to them. Of course everyone loves an easy status but let's be reasonable, this just isn't the amount of business that justifies gold.

In Star Alliance it's the FFP that pays, unless the lounge access is already included in the ticket - and even then, if you have business lounge access based on the ticket but access a *G lounge (e.g. LO Elite Lounge or LHG SEN lounges), the FFP is billed for the difference.

People who fly less than three times a year (assuming a roundtrip with a connection) with you and don't earn even 17k miles per year aren't "very loyal" and giving them gold status is hardly "very profitable".

I should be able to quite easily and pretty cheaply do 3-4 intra-Europe premium cabin roundtrips on Aegean Airlines to destinations beside ATH so as to retain Gold status with the airline. This may mean that I visit Thessaloniki a bit more often than before so doesn’t mark a big change for me anyway, but I can see this definitely thinning down the number of A3*Gs who neither reside in Greece nor commute routinely to and from Greece.

Aegean is getting into the long-haul travel business so they will likely get me on some trips to India. And I’m really curious what the airfares will be like since even last minute I am finding things like Europe to Delhi for sub-$300 one-way in economy class as a result of IndiGo and its competitors.

I anticipate we will see Aegean pushing customers to buy access to the Aegean lounges instead of Aegean having to foot the bill for its A3*Gs using the lounges.

I’ve been gold with AC for 20 years and with the changes to AC’s program, which I don’t seem to recall Lucky covering, they made it basically impossible for Europe-based flyers to retain gold status. The logical choice was for me to move to either Aegean or TAP. Given the ongoing uncertainty over TAP’s ownership, I’ve chosen to go with Aegean. Now, on first reading these changes might seem quite steep, but actually the 12 sectors a year is more than doable in a long weekend, simply by doing some island hopping. Even with the new requirements, I could still get to Gold with Aegean within 3 months.

I know people who would pay up to fly Aegean in Aegean business class for the purpose of *G re-qualification but will probably cutback on flying Aegean to some degree or another once this change hits them. But they tend to not be very frequent Aegean flyers beyond 4-6 Aegean segments a year and then use A3*G status primarily for other Star Alliance flights. Clearly, Aegean wants to cut back on such kind of A3*Gs otherwise they wouldn’t have hiked up the requirements so much.

no it doesn't have to be. A3 domestic flights are really cheap. 10 of those are not as expensive as my business class from paris to ATH or MAD ATH or ATH DUBAI.

like someone mentioned in the discussion, If a person just want to satisfy the system, they can fly ATH HER back and forth in one day but that's just stupid.

loyalty is a habit, I fly 60 times a year, I can get gold with united or others, (i don't like united) it's the hassle of change.

but that just really changed my otherwise nice greek holiday to a pure status run....which is stupid....

This is me. Switched from TP*G (my home airline at the time) to A3 13 years ago, retained A3*G ever since. Reason wasn't so much the renewal requirements (though that certainly helped at times) but being fed up with TAP's short expiration time (back then, not sure today) and later family pooling (Together account).

Usually take a family trip to Greece every year (5 people, so 20 flights overall) and might travel to or connect in Athens for business a couple more times. Really enjoy flying A3, so happy to take some detours. Currently have about 498k miles on my account.

Won't go out of my way to fly the 12 sectors, though. I'm renewed through mid-2027, so nothing changes immediately, and I may or may not qualify based on miles alone -- my travel patterns are quite spiky -- but this is likely the end of the run for me.

Not really mad, just sad. In the end, a programme like TK's is significantly more rational given I organically fly long-haul with them and can easily meet the requirements.

I’ve held A3 gold for 15 years and my wife is Gold with TK. Flying from IST to anywhere with Aegean is stupidly expensive but I did four segments a year for the past four years as required. A pain in the arse but I was happy to stick with them. Now I need twelve? Eight I could kinda understand, but 12??? Aegean is a budget airline that charges economy fares often equivalent to KLM business class, and they barely fly anywhere compared to others. They’re going to lose a lot of custom from this, from foreigners and Greeks alike. Now I have 12 months to find a status match equivalent.