Aegean is one of the smaller Star Alliance airlines out there, though they have a lucrative frequent flyer program, even for those who don’t fly with the airline often. I’ve written about the Aegean Miles+Bonus program in the past, and what sets it apart:
- Aegean offers lucrative class of service mileage bonuses; for example, you can earn 200% elite qualifying miles for business class on many partners, when their own programs would award significantly fewer miles
- It’s easy to earn Star Alliance Gold status with Aegean — qualifying takes just 24,000 tier miles with four flights on Aegean OR 48,000 tier miles on partners, and requalifying for Gold takes just 12,000 tier miles with two flights on Aegean OR 24,000 tier miles on partners
- Aegean has generous Star Alliance award redemption rates, though they do impose carrier imposed surcharges on many partners (for reference, the Star Alliance award chart is below — prices quoted are roundtrip, and one-ways are bookable for half the cost of a roundtrip)
Up until now, one major frustration with the Miles+Bonus program has been the inability to book Star Alliance award tickets through their website. It’s not that it’s necessarily a deal breaker, but I think most will agree that it’s annoying to have to phone up an airline call center with limited hours in order to redeem miles. Personally I’d be willing to pay a mild premium to book through a program that allows online bookings.
There’s some good news on that front now — Aegean’s frequent flyer program now lets you book Star Alliance award tickets through their website. To book a Star Alliance award just follow this link and log into your account.
Best I can tell Aegean’s online award search tool shows all Star Alliance airlines, though there are some catches:
- You can only search award availability if you have enough miles in your account for a ticket
- The search interface isn’t great, and not all cities show up properly
- On the initial search page you can’t specify whether you want a premium cabin award or not, so the calendar search results aren’t ideal, since you can’t select to see availability by class of service, etc.
Overall this is a fantastic development, and certainly makes me more likely to put effort into collecting Aegean miles, since I avoided collecting them too much prior to this.
However, I do think it’s worth acknowledging that up until now Aegean has had lucrative award redemption rates, and presumably they’ve been able to keep it this way due to the challenges associates with the bookings, and as a result, the relative limited number of redemptions. By bringing these redemptions online, I think it’s much more likely that we’ll see an award chart devaluation sooner rather than later.
(Tip of the hat to Running With Miles)
No longer works. City pairs are Europe-only.
Any update?
Since you can't see award availability without buying the miles first, I'm out.
Sorry, I'm very new to this- but are the charges (in addition to miles) normal? do most other airlines/programs charge similar fees for redemption?
Talking about United awards - you can't even select EWR as an airport in drop dpwn, let alone book anything out of NYC area in A3 engine.
Does the number of miles requires and the amount of money I see a final price that I have to pay? And also does this mean I can get an on spot confirmation on my flight instantly after I reach and completed payment page? Or the system will put me on ‘waiting list’ like other airlines do with award redemption on partner airlines and confirm me at a later date when the award redemption becomes available.
Definitely hit and miss. Lots of F showing on UA on LH metal, but not on A3. Interesting though they offer SQ rewards where UA aren’t showing those.
@Dylan yes you can get gold which is Star Alliance gold without the need to fly Aegean at all. Once you make it to Silver you need 48K miles in the next 12 months in any *A airline. Once you make it to Gold, to maintain it you need 24K miles in the next 12 months in any *A airline.
They obviously don't have (any?) access to United, for instance there is F award availability on 12/12 FRA-IAD, visible on ANA, United, Aeroplan, but not also on A3.
ok so to get gold i need 48000 miles on a partner airline. so i never need to fly aegean ???? Thanks
@Tennen, yes, tier miles reset once hitting Silver, but one continues needing only 24k miles, including 4 legs in A3 metal, to get Gold.
Moreover, A3 gives you 1k miles (both tier and award) for just enrolling in the program, so one that lives in Europe could get Silver by only flying a return ticket to USA in full fare Y, or premium economy with LH, for instance, then spending a weekend in Athens.
@tom, yeah, that’s the worst part of their awards. :-( I hope that changes soon.
@Christopher, you’re right. But it’s actually worse than that, unless things have changed recently. The tier miles reset once you hit Silver, so in reality, it will probably take a lot more to hit Gold from zero status.
Lots of Air Canada metal available awards does not show up on Aegean.
To qualify for Gold the first time, don't you have to accumulate 36,000 tier miles and fly 6 Aegean segments? 12K + 2 segments for Silver, then 24K + 4 segments for Gold.
Speaking of Star Alliance awards, I’m surprised you haven’t mentioned the issues going on with booking online partner awards with Singapore Airlines, as they were supposed to include the ability to book all partner airlines 2 days ago. Appears only Lufthansa and NZ are available online as of now...
You should also mention the 1 connection rule, which is arguably the biggest downside of this FFP
I'd rather pay the surcharge and redeem 60k miles versus united's 110k or aeroplan for 70k. I'd bet they are going to devalue it with time though given how good of a deal it is.
Don't forget the best part of Aegean elite status - the Together account that let's you claim miles for up to 5 friends and credit them to your own account.
The surcharge seems quite high.