Earn Lifetime Star Alliance Gold through Aegean Airlines

Kristina — Wed, 16 Jul 2014 12:56:46 +0000

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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.

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Earn Lifetime Star Alliance Gold through Aegean Airlines