How to Buy & Redeem Aegean Miles+Bonus Miles

How to Buy & Redeem Aegean Miles+Bonus Miles
Aegean Airlines Airbus A320. Photo: Aegean.

Did you know that Aegean Airlines sells miles? The Greek Star Alliance member is even currently offering a 100% Black Friday bonus when buying Aegean Miles+Bonus miles!

This is the highest nominal amount of bonus miles that Aegean has ever offered. However, it comes just days after Aegean devalued its award chart without notice. This is very poor etiquette for a frequent flyer program and undermines the trust that Aegean’s frequent flyers have with the program. Most airlines at least provide notice before increasing the cost of award flights!

The latest devaluation does not affect flights to or from Australia, however intra-Asia redemptions (among various others) have increased in mileage. Luckily, the intra-South America sweet spot with Aegean remains.

Aegean miles can be redeemed for flights on any Star Alliance airline including Singapore Airlines, Thai Airways, United, Turkish Airlines and Air China. Buying miles during a promotion and then redeeming for premium cabin flights can be a clever way to save money and travel in style. So it’s worth taking some time to learn about the Aegean Miles+Bonus program.

Aegean Airlines is not the only Star Alliance carrier to sell miles. You could also buy United miles, buy Air Canada Aeroplan miles or purchase Avianca LifeMiles, and redeem those for flights on Star Alliance airlines. But it could make sense to instead buy Aegean miles for specific types of redemptions – especially longer flights within a single geographical zone.

How to Buy Aegean Miles

You can buy Aegean Miles+Bonus miles on the Aegean Airlines website. It costs €25 (approximately $40) per thousand to buy Aegean miles. But from time to time, Aegean does offer bonus miles on purchases. Right now, for example, you can earn 100% bonus Aegean Miles+Bonus miles on any purchase. When buying miles online, they will usually credit to your account instantly.

There is an annual purchase limit of 30,000 Aegean miles, excluding bonus miles. This increases to 50,000 award miles if you’ve credited at least one flight to your Miles+Bonus account. It means Aegean Miles+Bonus is not the ideal program if you wish to redeem for long-haul Business and First Class flights.

When there is a 100% bonus promo, you could purchase up to 100,000 miles. For context, a one-way Business Class award from Australia to North America or Europe would cost 75,000 Aegean miles. First Class costs 100,000 miles – which you could buy for €1,250 during the current promotion.

Special Deals on Buying Aegean Miles

Aegean Airlines offers bonus miles on purchases a few times per year. The typical bonus amount is 20-50%, but Aegean is currently offering 100% bonus miles on purchases of any amount. The current deal expires on 30 November 2019.

Buy miles on the Aegean Airlines website
Buy miles on the Aegean Airlines website

If you were to buy the maximum 50,000 Aegean miles during the current promotion, you would receive 100,000 miles at a cost of €1,250.

How to Redeem Aegean Miles

You can use Aegean Miles+Bonus miles to book flights on any Star Alliance airline:

Star Alliance airlines in 2020
Star Alliance member airlines.

But there are various Aegean Miles+Bonus award routing rules – some of which are quite restrictive:

  • Maximum of two flight sectors per one-way booking
  • No stopovers (over 24 hours) are allowed
  • Mixed-class bookings are not permitted
  • Premium Economy awards are not available

The Aegean award charts list the miles required for round-trip awards. But one-way bookings are permitted and cost half the miles of a return award booking.

It is now possible to make most Star Alliance award bookings on the Aegean Airlines website. That said, we’d recommend using the United or Aeroplan websites to find Star Alliance award availability. Once you’ve found available flights, you can then book on the Aegean website. You can also book Aegean awards over the phone, and the English-speaking Miles+Bonus call centre staff are surprisingly helpful.

When to Buy and Redeem Aegean Miles

The Aegean Miles+Bonus award charts are region-based. This presents some interesting opportunities for two reasons:

  1. The award regions are extremely large and include a lot of countries.
  2. Most intra-zone redemptions are priced relatively low.

You can probably see where we’re going with this. Longer flights that are considered to be within a single zone are very good value, especially when you buy Aegean miles and redeem for Star Alliance flights in Business or First Class!

Most intra-zone awards cost 12,500 miles in Economy or 21,000 miles in Business Class. During a 100% bonus miles promotion, it would cost €275 to purchase the 21,000 miles required for a Business Class ticket. Here are some examples of intra-zone redemptions you could then redeem those miles for:

  • Dakar to Mauritius with South African Airways
  • Avianca award flights within South America

Want to learn more about buying points for cheap premium cabin flights?

Australian Frequent Flyer offers a comprehensive training program which includes an entire course on buying points for discounted premium travel! This course covers numerous frequent flyer programs in detail, including Aegean Miles+Bonus. In the unit on Aegean Miles+Bonus, you’ll also find a full analysis of Aegean award sweet spots. View course →

The editor of Australian Frequent Flyer, Matt's passion for travel has taken him to over 70 countries… with the help of frequent flyer points, of course!
Matt's favourite destinations (so far) are Germany, Brazil & Kazakhstan. His interests include economics, aviation & foreign languages, and he has a soft spot for good food and red wine.

You can connect with Matt by posting on the Australian Frequent Flyer community forum and tagging @AFF Editor.
________________________

Related Articles

2 Comments
oldest
newest
Inline Feedbacks
View all comments
con retsas

can the gift miles be credited to the member buying the award miles?

AFF Editor

No, you can only gift Aegean miles to another member. However you can buy award miles for yourself, provided you have not exceeded your annual purchase limit.