I Won 250,000 Airline Miles!

It seems I never win anything but I guess when you consider how we get to travel for so little, that is quite a bit like winning so I am ok with that! But, when you win miles, that makes it all even better!

I Won 250,000 Airline Miles

Background

Just a quick blurb about this “how” question. There is something that is held every year or so called a MegaDO. It is organized by some great people that you may know from their blogs or Inside Flyer and gives participants an opportunity to have many unique opportunities to go behind the scenes in areas of aviation and score some great perks as well.

For 2016, it was held in conjunction with Aegean Airlines and was called the Star MegaDO 7 (“Star” for being held with the cooperation and attendance of Star Alliance airlines and executives). Since Aegean is the airline I use to fly most of the time I fly (at least for the first and last leg of a trip), I had to sign-up for this event and finally see what these MegaDOs were all about. They signed up very quickly – like in under an hour. I was flying at the time the registration opened and by the time I landed, it was filled. Fortunately, I was able to get a ticket from someone else who wasn’t able to attend.

The Aegean Promo

Aegean offered a very nice promo to the SMD participants as a way to encourage more flights on their airline (which is excellent!). This was in addition to giving all participants Aegean Miles + Bonus Gold (so Star Alliance Gold) as well! It is just too bad that I had already qualified again. 🙂

So, here were the prizes and how you would win:

• The participant who earns the most points will be awarded AegeanMiles+Bonus Gold status for 5 years!
• The participant in second place will be awarded 250,000 Miles+Bonus  award miles.
• The participant in third place will be awarded 100,000 Miles+Bonus award miles.

How to earn points:

• Fly on an Aegean flight in Economy Class: 5 points.
• Fly on an Aegean flight in Business Class: 10 points.
• Fly on a Star Alliance flight in Economy Class: 1 point.
• Fly on a Star Alliance flight in Business or First Class: 2 points.
• Fly through 5 airports in Greece served by Aegean or Olympic: 20 points.
• Fly through 10 airports in Greece served by Aegean or Olympic: 50 points

I had big plans to hit the 10 airports and get a ton of points but my schedule filled up too quickly. So, I had to just go with the miles I had to fly anyway. Since most of the trips were on Aegean, it helped me tremendously. For instance, if someone flew (paid) business class on Lufthansa from the US to Europe, they would earn 2 points. For flying from Athens to Thessaloniki on Aegean, I would earn 5 points. So, it was definitely helpful for Aegean flyers – which was what Aegean wanted to encourage.

I wanted to make sure I won something but I did not want to earn first place! See, I am able to earn Aegean Gold (Star Alliance Gold) very quickly each year and that is not a problem for me. I wanted to earn the second prize – the 250,000 airline miles. It turns out that it was a good thing I didn’t do that extra flying because I came in second place and won 250,000 airline miles!

What I Will Do With 250,000 Miles

I actually just wrote this post recently about 4 reasons to consider Aegean for premium awards – and I didn’t even find out about winning until yesterday! So, check out this post to see why I loved Aegean so much for awards.

With 250,000 miles, there are plenty of things I can do but one of my favorite sweet spots is North America <-> Europe in business class on airlines like Turkish, Lufthansa, Austrian, United, etc. That only costs 45,000 miles for one way. And that is what we will use them for. The next time we travel to the US, our family will use them for business class tickets for all 6 of us. Yes, I will be a little short but I have enough on my own to make up the difference and they are a transfer partner of SPG Starpoints.

Think About the Next MegaDO!

They will announce soon what the next MegaDO will be but it will be held September 19 – 22, 2017. Check out the webpage for more information.

I have no idea what, or any, promos may be offered but the trip by itself was fantastic! I would love to do it again – winning 250,000 airline miles is just like the (very big) icing on the cake.

Have you been on a MegaDO before?

Thanks to the MegaDO and Aegean Airlines for putting on this great promo!