Are you disappointed after helplessly witnessing United not only devalue their miles, but also add a minimum spend requirement in order to earn elite status? Did this completely destroy your hopes of achieving any Star Alliance Gold status? Well, fear not because there are a few other ways. One just takes a little bit of resourcefulness and attention to detail. There is a method for you to become a Star Alliance Gold (*G) or Silver (*S) by earning your miles through the Greek airline, Aegean Airlines (A3).
Gold and Silver benefits are quite valuable. Gold status gives you international lounge access, priority boarding, extra baggage allowance, priority reservations wait list, priority standby list, and more. To put it in perspective, if one were to qualify for Star Alliance Gold status via the United Airlines MileagePlus Program they would need to accomplish one of two options: fly 50,000 Premier Qualifying Miles (PQS)
AND spend $5,000 within a qualifying year or fly 60 Premier Qualifying Segments (PQS)
AND spend $5,000 within a qualifying year. Here is how this works:
- Sign up for an Aegean Airlines Miles & Bonus account
- A3 automatically deposits 1,000 miles–just for registering!
- You now have 1 year from your first flight credited to A3 to earn 20,000 miles total and get awarded *G status. Basically only 19,000 miles after they hand you 1,000
- The caveat to this is great. Even if you only manage to earn 4,000 additional miles and hit 5,000 total–you earn the Aegean Blue card which equates to *S
- From there you now must earn 16,000 points in order to earn *G and they give you another full year in order to accomplish this. Basically the clock resets
Sounds too good to be true? Check their terms and conditions page here.
UPDATE: Since this publishing Aegean changed their requirements for earning elite status. Now you need to fly 24,000 miles within 12 months and four of your flight segments MUST take place on Aegean or Olympic Air. If you do not meet the four flight segment criteria, then you must fly 48,000 miles on any Star Alliance partners. Although the loophole previously available no longer exists, you can still earn Star Alliance Gold status with Aegean. There are just a few better options out there. What we did was have my husband status match to Turkish Airlines–so now he currently hold Star Alliance Gold status through TWO airlines (until November 2016).
“Members who hold a BLUE Card and who have earned at least 16,000 Tier Miles within twelve (12) consecutive months from their first miles-accruing flight on the previous tier will receive the GOLD Card. 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.”
Now, don’t think that you can just go about flying domestically on United metal with your A3 frequent flier number on your boarding pass and automatically earn every mile. It will take a little more creativity than that because not every fare class earns 100% of the miles. This page provides exact details for fare classes within every single Star Alliance partner. Let’s take Air New Zealand for example–an airline that is very near and dear to my heart: In order to earn 100% of your miles flown, you would need to fly on an E, O, U, A, Y, or B fare. For instance, class O is a confirmed flight in their Premium Economy cabin. All other economy or standby fares would either earn 70% or no miles. However, C, D, J, and Z in Business Class earn you 150%.
As you can see you will have to do a little bit of research before you book just any Star Alliance flight if you intend on taking advantage of this strategy. Yes it will cost you slightly more, but the reward is Star Alliance Gold status for life just by crediting one flight to A3 every 36 months. Definitely worth it. Make sure you check what the true price difference between booking a flight that
ITA automatically populates and only earns you 50% mileage credit compared to another fare class that earns you the full amount.
There are certainly some positives and negatives to earning Star Alliance status this way. Besides the increased cost of qualifying fares, since most US travelers do not habitually fly Aegean Airlines you would not be afforded the same benefits as those who are United Premier Gold (Economy Plus upgrades, elite mileage bonuses, only 1 checked bag, etc.). On the flip side–you will have access to United Clubs while flying domestically simply because you earned your status through a non-US airline. There are definitely ways to work around some of the drawbacks. Once you earn *G through A3 and would like to continue earning United miles while you fly throughout the US, you can always book your itinerary with your Aegean Airlines frequent flier number. Then after you take advantage of your free checked bag, lounge access, etc., have the gate agent apply your United frequent flier number before you board. Where there’s a will, there’s a way. I am currently in the process of doing this myself and seen miles post automatically, needed to retro claim a few, and still awaiting some more. Be patient when waiting for your miles to post! They will, in fact, post. My boyfriend and I have spent our time uselessly worrying only to find that the vast Star Alliance system is just a little slow.
Thanks for the great tips! I hope to start flying/traveling more!
No worries, Dawn! Hopefully you can start soon.
Greeks to the rescue, once again 😉
Seriously…yet another reason why the Greeks are the best 😉
Nice hack. I just don’t care much about most of these Gold benefits. What I want is a bit more space and free food and drink on the plane!
I totally agree! Do away with gold and elite class statuses and just give everyone comfort and service! Wouldn’t that be a utopian way of doing things? Seriously though how hard can it be?
As an ECON MA, I can tell you the miles business is perhaps the most sketchy thing on the planet. Our professors consistently told us that it’s better to focus on travel rewards from CC, where there’s a percentage cashback towards any sort of travel/stay. A lot of these airlines are also a hair-away from bankruptcy if the global environment for travel changes drastically.
Yes, I totally agree. Credit card bonuses and rewards are definitely key to the points/miles game.
Great tips! I had more or less given up on Gold with the recent developments so this is promising news. Thanks for sharing, as this may be the path 🙂
Hmm this is interesting! Although unfortunately, I never fly Aegean Airlines. Gold status would be nice though!
That’s the beauty of this strategy. You only CREDIT the miles to Aegean Airlines. So you can essentially fly on United (or any other Star Alliance airline) and just use an Aegean Airlines frequent flyer number to rack up the rewards.
Ooh OK! I misunderstood then – I was thinking you had to fly on Aegean at some point. I didn’t realize you could get their miles and bonus account without having ever flown with them.
Thanks for the tip! I got premiere status on United this year, but I don’t expect to qualify in the future based on the new rules.
Such a shame about the changes. Well enjoy your status–you earned it!
sounds like a plan!
Lufthansa is my primary airline of choice, so I’m not sure how, if at all, this would affect me. Although I’m sure it probably does. That said, I’ll take a train over a plane any day. 🙂
It totally does! Lufthansa is in the Star Alliance and you could 100% take advantage of this strategy and be Star Alliance Gold in no time. Please let me know if you have any questions. Would be happy to help.
Welcome to how most people outside of the US feels about air miles. The US have always been so far advanced in air miles/loyalty/rewards etc for flying than most of the rest of the world. I fly a LOT and find it difficult to accrue enough miles to utilise to any great benefit. Especially when they put a shelf life on them!
Totally agree!!!!
Living in a non hub city in the US definitely affects my ability to be loyal to one carrier.
You should view that as a positive in some ways, though! It gives you more flexibility and diversity of your loyalty programs
Nice! Definitely something to look into in the future!
Thanks for the helpful tips.
Any information that enables more travel is great! Airline mile programs can be tricky but worth it for making long haul flights and saving money.
Great tips, sounds like research is key to get the most out of your miles.
This is all Greek to me, I really haven’t a clue about collecting airline points, I’ve never done it. I really should look into it. Thanks for the post.
I like what you did there!
Thanks for helpful tips!
I’ve joined one or two airline loyalty schemes but I’ve never got the most out of them because I tend to fly with whoever goes to wherever I want to go, which isn’t the same every time! Perhaps I should look into it more.
I’ve given up on the miles idea but those are great tips! Thank you!