With the changes made by Aegean last year, there will be a lot of Aegean Silver and Gold members that will be losing that status come January 2016 (you have until November 24, 2015 to requalify, but if you do not, the status runs out in January 2016).
If that is you, do not leave extra miles on the table! This is an incredibly easy way to pick up at least 5,000 Aegean miles – maybe even more!
Pick Up At Least 5,000 Miles With Your Aegean Elite Status
When Aegean updated their program, one of the new elements for elite members was the “Together Account.” This was a new way to pool your miles into one account from up to 5 additional people.
I will get to the 5,000 free miles in a minute, but here is a great reason why everyone should sign-up for a frequent flyer account, no matter how many miles they may earn. If you have friends or family who do not fly enough on a carrier like United to get status, they could still earn miles on Aegean. If they let you take these otherwise worthless miles (because they may not travel much or they may not amount to any award), you, as an Aegean elite, can add that person to your Together “scheme” (as Aegean calls it) and those miles automatically transfer over.
This can also work if you have friends and family who have earned Aegean miles before for status but you all have just the 20,000 miles it took to get Gold in the past. If you pool all of those accounts, you can really have a hefty balance that can get some significant award tickets.
Rotate Through Accounts (if your status will remain past this year)
If you will continue with elite status with Aegean, you can pick up at least 10,000 Aegean award miles each year (see below for how people earn 1,000 miles) since you can remove people from your Together account once every 6 months. The great part is that when you remove them, their miles stay with you. So, if you will retain elite status, you could just generate 10,000 miles (5 members at a time and rotate every 6 months) every year and get some additional miles that way!
A Great Redemption For US and Europe In Business!
Aegean has some great redemption options. One that I recently took advantage of is 45,000 miles one way on business class between the US and Europe. That is a pretty great redemption, especially considering that United charges at least 57,500 miles for those same flights. Just be aware, Aegean does pass on fuel surcharges so if you want to keep the cash component low, choose to fly on carriers like United that do not charge the fuel surcharge.
What About The 1,000 Miles?
By utilizing the new Together account (which allows you to have up to 5 other people pool their miles with you) and the generous 1,000 mile sign-up bonus, you can get an easy 5,000 miles which may open up some different award options for you. At the very least, it is almost enough to get to some European destinations from Greece on discounted awards!
Step 1: Miles+Bonus Sign-Up Bonus
When a person joins Aegean’s Miles+Bonus program, they are rewarded for joining by being given 1,000 award miles. All you need to do to get these miles is to sign-up for a new account and you will instantly get 1,000 award miles in that account. For the next step, you will need the member number from the newly created account and you are ready to move on! application link
Step 2: Invite New Member Into Together Account
Now that you have a new member created, take the new member number and head over to your Together account (see the link above about Together accounts to setup your account) and send an invite to this new member. Note: You must use capital letters for the first and last name of the member to allow the system to accept the invitation.
Once you have done that, it will send an invite to the new member to accept to be apart of your Together account. Once they accept, their 1,000 miles for joining are automatically moved to your Together account! You are allowed up to 5 members (plus yourself) in your Together account so if 5 new members sign-up and are invited into your account, you will automatically receive an additional 5,000 award miles for use with Aegean or on any Star Alliance partner.
Here are a couple of things about the Together account. Once you invite someone and they join your account, you cannot remove them for 6 months after they have joined. I assume this is to keep people from adding and subtracting people constantly just to get the miles dumped into a single account.
So, what if you have 8 friends and family members and you want to pool them all in your account? Even though you cannot invite 3 of them for at least 6 months (after removing others from the account), their award miles will simply sit in their account and they will transfer to your Together account when you bring them in.
What Is The Use Of 5,000 Miles?
Aegean has some nice sweet spots on their award calendar for various uses. Of course, they are awards that require more than 5,000 miles but the 5,000 miles you can pickup using the information here may just put you in range of those awards. At the very least, you can redeem 12,500 miles for a domestic US oneway on United – these 5,000 miles put you almost half way there!
To see some of the great uses with Aegean miles, check out this post (I have to update #7 on the post as Aegean now uses a different system for calculating awards on their own flights) – 7 great uses for aegean miles
Summary
If you are Silver or Gold with Aegean, this makes a great way to get a little closer to that award that you may want. With 30,000 miles being a oneway to Europe from the US, this quick method puts you 1/6th of the way there with very little effort and no money!
Take about 7 minutes and go ahead and setup accounts for your family members and invite them into your Together account.
With your status possibly expiring in a few months, it is a great time to add your friends and family and get some free miles!
