Aegean Miles+Bonus Program Guide: Everything You Need to Know

The Mediterranean nation of Greece, known for its rich history and beautiful islands, is a popular vacation destination for U.S. citizens. If you’ve ever flown to Greece before, there’s a pretty good chance that you’ve flown with Aegean Airlines, Greece’s flagship carrier and the country’s largest airline by fleet size, passengers carried and number of destinations served. Aegean Airlines also has its own frequent flyer program known as Miles+Bonus, which allows members to collect miles and then redeem those miles for flights on Aegean Airlines, Olympic Air (Aegean’s low-cost subsidiary) or any of its Star Alliance partners.

So, even if you’ve never flown with Aegean Airlines, it’s worth getting familiar with the Miles+Bonus program as it has a highly favorable award chart that’s full of sweet spots. Aegean miles can also take you almost anywhere in the world due to the wide reach of Star Alliance. Plus, Aegean miles don’t expire for a whopping 60 months, which is far longer than most other frequent flyer miles.

Unfortunately, the one major drawback of Aegean Miles+Bonus is that the program isn’t a transfer partner of any major credit card rewards program. Aegean is currently a transfer partner of Marriott Bonvoy. However, Marriott Bonvoy offers a pretty lousy transfer ratio of 3:1, which means that transferring Bonvoy points to Miles+Bonus is usually a bad idea.

So, in terms of boosting your Aegean miles balance, the best way to do so for most U.S.-based travelers is going to be to credit Star Alliance flights to your Miles+Bonus account. But, doing so might be a good move considering the excellent redemption rates available through this program.

In this article, we’re going to cover everything you need to know about the Aegean Miles+Bonus program, including elite status, how to earn miles, how to redeem miles and which of those redemption options offer the most value.

Aegean Miles+Bonus Program Overview

Aegean Airlines is a relatively new player in the airline industry, having only been formed in 1995 and commencing operations in 1999. The airline’s hubs are at Athens International Airport and Thessaloniki Airport, both of which are in Greece.

In 2005, Aegean Airlines entered into a strategic partnership with Lufthansa. Then, in 2006, the airline announced a cooperation agreement with TAP Air Portugal and, in 2008, another cooperation agreement with Brussels. As all three of these airlines are members of Star Alliance, it came as no surprise when Aegean Airlines also joined the world’s largest airline alliance in 2010.

Now, Aegean Miles+Bonus members have the option to earn and redeem Aegean miles on flights with any other Star Alliance. Here’s a list of all 26 Star Alliance member airlines:

On top of the previously listed Star Alliance partners, Aegean Airlines also has partnership agreements with several other non-Star Alliance airlines. Unfortunately, you can’t earn Aegean miles when flying with these airlines and you can’t redeem miles for flights with these airlines. Nevertheless, here are Aegean’s other partner airlines:

Once again, while Aegean Airlines may market flights from these airlines, Aegean miles can only be earned and redeemed on Star Alliance airlines.

You can also earn tier miles (the metric used to track Miles+Bonus elite status) on any Star Alliance partner airline.

Once again, while Aegean Airlines may market flights from these airlines, Aegean miles can only be earned and redeemed on Star Alliance airlines.

You can also earn tier miles (the metric used to track Miles+Bonus elite status) on any Star Alliance partner airline.

Aegean Miles+Bonus Elite Status

Like many other frequent flyer programs, Aegean Miles+Bonus has its own elite status program that rewards those who fly regularly with Aegean Airlines or one of its Star Alliance partners. To earn elite status, you need to earn a certain number of tier miles (which can be earned by flying with Aegean Airlines, Olympic Air or any Star Alliance partner) within a 12-month period.

Tier miles can also be earned by activating an Aegean Bonus Visa card (issued by Alpha Bank) or an Aegean Mastercard (issued by Bank of Cyprus), neither of which are available in the United States. You also have the option to purchase tier miles if you’re close to an upgrade or you need more tier miles to retain your current status. You can either purchase 500 tier miles for 50 euros or 1,000 tier miles for 100 euros, both of which are a pretty poor deal. In either case, you’re looking at paying a little over 10 cents per tier mile, which is very high.

Once you achieve a certain elite status tier, you’ll retain that status for 12 months from the date that you upgraded. Within those 12 months, you’ll need to meet the minimum threshold of tier miles to retain your current status.

The following table includes the amount of tier miles you need to upgrade to a certain elite status as well as the amount of tier miles you need to retain that status:

So, for instance, in order to earn Silver status, you could earn 12,000 tier miles and take at least two flights on either Aegean Airlines or Olympic Air. To be clear, not all 12,000 tier miles need to be earned on flights with one of these two airlines. Alternatively, you could earn 35,000 tier miles by flying with any Star Alliance airline and qualify for Silver status.

Then, once you meet one of the above requirements, your Silver status will be valid for the next 12 months. Within those 12 months, you either need to earn 8,000 tier miles and fly with either Aegean Airlines or Olympic Air at least twice or earn 35,000 miles with any Star Alliance airline to retain your status.

The following table includes the benefits that you’ll receive at each elite status tier with Aegean Airlines, Star Alliance partners and non-airline partners:

If you live in Greece or travel there fairly often, then earning Silver tier status is fairly easy (requiring just 12,000 tier miles and two flights on either Aegean Airlines or Olympic Air) and comes with some solid benefits. These include 10% bonus miles, two seat upgrades, four coupons for Aegean Business Lounge access and two coupons for security fast track.

To earn Gold status, you’ll need to rack up 24,000 tier points and take at least four flights on Aegean Airlines or Olympic Air, which is also pretty achievable if you live in Greece or travel there often. This elite status tier comes with excellent perks such as 20% bonus miles, a 50% discount on all Up Front seat selections, four-seat upgrades, unlimited Aegean Business Lounge access and a free extra piece of luggage.

You can also earn Silver or Gold tier status without ever stepping on an Aegean Airlines or Olympic Air flight (Silver tier can be earned with 35,000 tier miles on Star Alliance flights and Gold tier can be earned with 70,000 tier miles on Star Alliance flights). However, if you don’t take at least two flights with Aegean Airlines or Olympic per year anyway, then you’re probably better off crediting those Star Alliance flights to a different frequent flyer program.

How to Earn Aegean Miles

When you fly with Aegean Airlines, Olympic Air or any Star Alliance partner, not only will you earn tier miles, but you’ll also earn award miles, which can be redeemed for award flights and other awards.

However, taking flights isn’t the only way to rack up Aegean award miles. You can also earn miles by spending on co-branded credit cards, booking hotels, shopping, renting cars, dining and more.

In the following sections, we’ll go into all of the different ways that you can boost your Aegean miles balance and start saving up for that next award flight.

Flying with Aegean Airlines and Olympic Air

The most obvious way to earn Aegean miles is to take flights with either Aegean Airlines or its low-cost regional subsidiary Olympic Air. Miles earned from flights on Aegean Airlines or Olympic Air should appear in your account balance within 72 hours after the completion of your flight.

The number of award miles that you’ll earn for a specific flight with Aegean Airlines or Olympic Air depends on the actual flight distance, whether your flight is domestic or international, your fare class and your membership tier within the Miles+Bonus program. Once again, Silver tier members earn 10% more miles on Aegean Airlines and Olympic Air flights and Gold tier members earn 20% more on these flights.

The following table displays what percentage of actual mileage flown you’ll earn in award miles depending on the fare class you’re booked in for international flights:

The values above represent the mileage earnings for Blue tier members. For instance, if you were a Blue tier member and you took a 1,000-mile flight in Economy ComfortFlex (fare code B), you’d earn 2,000 award miles. However, if you took the same flight as a Silver tier member, you’d earn 2,200 award miles with your 10% tier bonus. Gold tier members would earn 2,400 award miles on the same flight with their 20% tier bonus.

Unlike international flights, domestic flights on Aegean Airlines and Olympic Air earn a fixed number of miles depending on your fare class. Here’s how many miles you’ll earn in each fare class for domestic flights within Greece on Aegean Airlines or Olympic Air:

To make matters easier for you, Aegean Airlines has a Miles Calculator tool on their website that can tell you exactly how many tier miles and award miles you’ll earn on any Aegean Airlines or Olympic Air flight based on your membership tier, travel dates, origin and destination and cabin class.

Flying with Star Alliance Partners

You can also earn Aegean miles by flying with any other member airline of Star Alliance. To do this, you simply need to select Aegean Miles+Bonus as your frequent flyer program of choice and enter your membership number when making your booking. Aegean miles earned on flights with Star Alliance partners should appear in your account balance within seven days after the completion of your flight.

The number of miles that you’ll earn on a flight with a Star Alliance partner depends on the specific partner that you’re flying with, the actual distance of the flight and the fare class that you’re flying in. However, every Star Alliance partner has its own mileage accrual chart. So, if you want to know how many miles you’ll earn on a Star Alliance flight, you need to find the partner that you’re flying with in the Partners directory on the Aegean Airlines website and then navigate to the “How to earn” section on that partner’s page.

For instance, here’s the mileage accrual chart for international flights on Brussels Airlines:

So, if you were to take a flight with a distance of 1,000 miles on Brussels Airlines in Business Reduced class (fare code Z), you’d earn 1,500 Aegean award miles for that flight (regardless of what your tier status in the Miles+Bonus program is). Tier bonuses only apply to miles earned on flights with Aegean Airlines and Olympic Air.

Transfer Partners

One major disadvantage of the Aegean Miles+Bonus program is that you can’t transfer points from any of the major transferable credit card rewards programs (such as American Express Membership Rewards, Capital One Rewards, Chase Ultimate Rewards or Citi ThankYou Rewards). So, unfortunately, U.S. consumers won’t be able to boost their Aegean miles balances through credit card spending and transfers.

Aegean Miles+Bonus does, however, offer the ability to transfer points from Marriott Bonvoy at a 3:1 ratio. Plus, you’ll receive a bonus of 5,000 Aegean miles for every 60,000 Marriott Bonvoy points you transfer in a single transaction.

For instance, if you were to transfer 36,000 Marriott Bonvoy points at once, you would receive 12,000 Aegean miles. However, if you were to transfer 60,000 Marriott Bonvoy points at once, you would receive 25,000 Aegean miles with the 5,000-mile bonus.

Unfortunately, even with this bonus, transferring Marriott Bonvoy points to Aegean Miles+Bonus is typically a bad use of your Bonvoy points as you can get much more value out of them by redeeming them for hotel stays.

You can also transfer Accor Live Limitless (ALL) Rewards points to Aegean Miles+Bonus at a 2:1 ratio. However, while this transfer ratio is slightly more favorable than Marriott Bonvoy’s, you can still get much more value out of your ALL Rewards points by redeeming them for hotel stays through the Accor Live Limitless program.

Spending on Co-Branded Credit Cards

Aegean Airlines currently offers several co-branded credit cards (as well as one debit card) that allow consumers to earn Aegean miles on their everyday purchases. Alpha Bank, a major Greek bank, issues the Aegean Bonus Visa Debit card, the Aegean Bonus Visa card and the Aegean Bonus Visa Premium card, all of which earn points that can then be converted to Aegean miles. Unfortunately, these cards aren’t available to U.S. consumers.

Aegean Airlines also has two co-branded credit cards issued by the Bank of Cyprus: the Aegean Mastercard and the Aegean Mastercard Business, both of which allow you to earn Aegean miles for every euro you spend. However, these cards also aren’t available in the United States.

If you live in Greece or Cyprus and you fly with Aegean Airlines or Olympic Air often, then it’s certainly worth looking into an Aegean Airlines co-branded credit card. However, if you live in most other countries, you won’t be able to earn Aegean miles for your credit card spending.

Hotel Stays

In addition to converting Accor Live Limitless (ALL) Rewards points and Marriott Bonvoy points to Aegean miles, you can also elect to earn Aegean miles directly for other certain hotel stays. To do so, just select Aegean Miles+Bonus as your rewards program of choice and provide your membership number when making your reservation.

The following list includes all of the hotel chains, individual hotels and hotel booking engines with which you can earn Aegean miles:

Many of the previously listed hotels offer at least 250 Aegean miles per night with some of them offering significantly more. So, if you plan on staying at any of these hotels in the future, then you may want to consider earning some Aegean miles for your stay.

Aegean Vacation Packages

Aegean Airlines also gives you the option to book vacation packages that bundle flights and hotels and also earn some Aegean miles while you’re at it.

For vacation packages located within Greece, you’ll earn 200 miles per night on your hotel stays. Plus, for each flight, you’ll either earn 300 miles (for booking classes U, P and T), 600 miles (for booking classes L, W, V, O, G, Q, K, J, S, E, H and F) or 800 miles (for booking classes Y, M and B).

If your Aegean Vacation Package includes international travel, you’ll still earn 200 miles per night on your hotel stays. However, the number of miles you’ll earn on flights will depend on the actual distance of the flight as well as your booking class. Mileage earnings on flights as part of Aegean Vacation Packages will follow this table:

So, for a flight with a distance of 800 miles in booking class G, you’d earn 1,000 award miles, the minimum miles earned. For a flight with a distance of 1,000 miles in booking class G, you’d also earn 1,000 award miles. For a flight with a distance of 1,500 miles in booking class G, you’d earn 1,500 award miles. However, for a flight with a distance of 1,500 miles in booking class Y, you’d earn 2,250 award miles.

Rental Cars

Aegean Miles+Bonus has a partnership with Hertz that allows members to earn Aegean miles for using certain Hertz services in Greece, Cyprus, Bulgaria, Romania, Serbia, Ukraine, Croatia and Montenegro. You can’t earn Aegean miles for using Hertz services outside of these countries. Here are the three Hertz services for which you can earn Aegean miles:

• Fly & Drive: daily and monthly car rentals
• Autohellas Hertz Leasing: long-term car rentals
• Flex Drive: subscription-based car rentals from one month and for as long as you need it

For Fly & Drive services, the amount of miles you’ll earn depends on the length of your rental as detailed in the following table:

For Autohellas Hertz Leasing services, you’ll earn 3 Aegean miles for every 2 euros spent on the offer’s monthly rate. For Flex Drive services, you’ll earn 3 Aegean miles for every 1 euro spent on your monthly car rental (in Greece and Cyprus only).

Food & Drink Partners

The Aegean Mile+Bonus program has many food and drink partners around Greece and Cyprus that allow you to earn Aegean miles for dining or drinking with them. You can view the full list of these partners and their respective earnings rates on the Aegean Miles+Bonus website here.

If you live in Greece or Cyprus or you happen to be traveling in one of those countries, then you should keep this list handy so you can earn Aegean miles while you’re dining or drinking at some of the fine establishments in the region.

Culture & Entertainment Partners

You can also earn miles by spending money with one of Aegean Airlines’s “Culture & Entertainment” partners. These include businesses around Greece and Cyprus such as waterparks, amusement parks, museums, vineyards, cinemas, concert halls and more. You can view all Culture & Entertainment partners and their respective earnings rates on the Aegean Miles+Bonus website here.

Shopping Partners

You can earn Aegean miles by shopping with certain retail partners, most of which are located in Greece. However, you can also earn Aegean miles by making retail purchases onboard flights with Aegean Shop in the Clouds. You can view the full list of Aegean Miles+Bonus Shopping partners on the website here.

Purchasing Miles

Another option for boosting your Aegean miles balance is to purchase miles. But, this is an option that should generally be avoided. Miles can be purchased in quantities of either 500 for 50 euros or 1,000 for 100 euros. In either case, you’ll be paying a little over 10 cents per mile (based on the current conversion rate). And, considering that Aegean miles are worth about 1 cent apiece with most redemption methods, purchasing miles is definitely worth it.

The only case in which you may want to consider purchasing miles is if you’re just a few hundred short of an award flight. But, even then, you might just be better off buying that flight with cash.

The number of miles that you’re allowed to purchase per 12 months depends on your status tier in the Miles+Bonus program. Blue tier members can buy up to 1,000 miles per 12 months, Silver tier members can buy up to 2,000 miles per 12 months and Gold tier members can buy up to 3,000 miles per 12 months.

How to Redeem Aegean Miles

In general, the best way to maximize the value of your Aegean miles is going to be to redeem them for flights on Aegean Airlines or another Star Alliance partner. However, not all award flights offer the same value. So, it’s important to compare the award price of a flight to its cash price in order to determine the value of the redemption.

There are also several other ways to redeem Aegean miles aside from award flights, such as booking hotel stays, purchasing flight extras, buying merchandise, renting cars and more. However, these redemption options tend to provide significantly less value than award flight redemptions.

Nevertheless, in the following sections, we’re going to cover all of the different ways to redeem Aegean miles and the value that each of these redemption methods offers.

Award Flights with Aegean Airlines or Olympic Air

Of course, the most straightforward way to redeem Aegean miles is to redeem them for award flights on Aegean Airlines or Olympic Air. Aegean Airlines charges a fixed award rate for domestic flights within Greece on Aegean Airlines or Olympic Air based on the cabin class that you’re booked in (regardless of the distance of the flight). When it comes to international flights on these airlines, award prices are determined as a multiplier of the actual distance of the flight (which is very unique in the world of airline miles).

Here is the award chart for domestic and international flights on Aegean Airlines and Olympic Air:

So, for instance, if you wanted to book an international flight on Aegean Airlines in Economy Flex with an actual distance of 2,000 miles, it would cost you 16,000 Aegean miles (2,000 miles flown * 8 = 16,000 Aegean award miles).

As you can see, there are some solid deals to be found on both domestic and international flights with Aegean Airlines and Olympic Air, with domestic flights starting at only 5,000 miles. Additionally, any international flight with a distance under 875 miles will cost you 7,000 Aegean miles. For instance, Aegean Airlines operates flights from its hub at Athens to all of the following cities that are under 875 miles in distance (meaning they should all cost 7,000 miles in Economy Flex class):

• Bucharest, Romania
• Budapest, Hungary
• Cairo, Egypt
• Istanbul, Turkey
• Rome, Italy
• Sofia, Bulgaria
• Tel Aviv, Israel
• Vienna, Austria

One important thing to note, however, is that Aegean Miles+Bonus doesn’t allow you to view award availability online unless you have enough miles in your account to purchase that specific award. So, you’ll want to search for awards through another Star Alliance program such as United Airlines MileagePlus or Air Canada Aeroplan in order to find award availability.

You can also call Aegean Miles+Bonus customer service to confirm that an award you found through a partner program is available through Miles+Bonus. If you plan on transferring points into the Miles+Bonus program (whether from Accor Live Limitless or Marriott Bonvoy), you’ll definitely want to make sure that there’s a worthwhile award before making your transfer.

Award Flights with Star Alliance Partners

You can also use your Aegean award miles to book flights with any Star Alliance member airline. Just like with Aegean Airlines-operated flights, you can search for Star Alliance awards through the Aegean Miles+Bonus website. However, these awards will not appear unless you have enough miles in your account to purchase them. So, if you want to search for a Star Alliance award, you may be better off doing so through another Star Alliance program such as United Airlines MileagePlus or Air Canada Aeroplan.

Star Alliance partner awards are priced according to region-based award charts. Each Star Alliance partner has its own award chart, which you can view by going to the “Partners” page on the Aegean Miles+Bonus website, filtering for “Spend miles” and then clicking on the specific Star Alliance partner that you’re interested in flying with.

The fact that each Star Alliance partner has its own award chart in the Aegean Miles+Bonus program makes it a bit more difficult to identify sweet spots. However, many of these award charts offer pretty stellar prices.

So, to get you started on your search, here are a few sweet spots in the Miles+Bonu program to be aware of:

Fly from the United States to South Africa in Lufthansa First Class for 75,000 Miles One-Way

Lufthansa’s first class product is known as one of the best premium cabins in the airline industry and cash prices for these tickets can often be astronomical, particularly on ultra-long-haul flights (such as flights from the United States to South Africa). However, according to the Miles+Bonus award chart for Lufthansa, you can book first class flights on Lufthansa between North America and South Africa for 75,000 miles one-way or 150,000 miles round-trip.

The downside here is that you may be charged as much as $1,000 in taxes and fees for booking these flights using Aegean miles. However, when one-way flights from New York to Johannesburg in Lufthansa first class routinely cost over $11,000, you can still get amazing value out of your Aegean miles by redeeming them this way.

As you can see, these one-way first class flights from New York to Johannesburg on Lufthansa above are listed for $11,640 (or more) in cash. So, if you were able to purchase one of these flights through Miles+Bonus, you would pay 75,000 miles. After considering the $1,000 in taxes and fees that you’d have to pay to book one of these flights with Aegean miles, these redemptions would give you an incredibly high value of about 14.1 cents per mile.

So, if you happen to have a large sum of Aegean miles, one of the best ways to spend them is by flying first class with Lufthansa on the 20-hour trip from the U.S. to South Africa.

Fly within the Far East in ANA Business Class for 32,500 Miles One-Way

Another amazing way to use Aegean miles is to book flights on ANA Business Class within the Far East region for 32,500 one-way or 65,000 miles round-trip. These flights could be a great option for Miles+Bonus members who live in East Asia or plan on taking an extended vacation to the region. Plus, taxes and fees on these flights typically won’t exceed $250 and you can still get great value on these flights despite these taxes and fees.

For instance, you could fly from Tokyo to Ho Chi Minh City, Singapore, Bangkok or Jakarta, all of which are considered part of the Far East region. Additionally, cash prices for business class flights on these routes can be very expensive. For instance, one-way ANA Business Class flights from Tokyo to Ho Chi Minh City were all going for a minimum of $2,933 in cash through the ANA website.

So, if you were able to book one of these flights through Miles+Bonus for 32,500 miles, you’d be getting a value of over 9 cents per mile, which is great.

Plus, ANA Business Class comes with excellent amenities such as access to ANA Lounges, special “Business Class Dining” meals on-board and room-like seats with closable doors for maximum privacy on certain flights.

Fly from Europe to the Middle East in SWISS International Airlines Business Class for 30,000 Miles One-Way

You can also get great value out of your Aegean miles by booking business class flights on SWISS International Airlines between Europe and the Middle East for 30,000 miles one-way or 60,000 miles round-trip. These flights can carry very high cash prices, which means that you can get fantastic value by booking them with miles.

For instance, we searched for a one-way business class flight between Zurich and Dubai through the SWISS International Airlines website and the cheapest option that we found was over 4,122 Swiss francs (which is equal to about $4,644 at the current conversion rate).

If you were to book one of these flights through Aegean Miles+Bonus, you’d only pay 30,000 miles. However, you may have to pay as much as $200 in taxes and fees. But, still, even factoring in those taxes and fees, you’re looking at a value of about 14.8 cents per mile, which is fantastic.

Plus, SWISS Business Class features amenities such as a two-meter-long lie-flat bed, seasonal delicacies created by top-notch Swiss chefs and access to SWISS and Star Alliance Business Class lounges all around the world.

Business Class Upgrade Awards

If you’re currently booked in an economy class seat on an Aegean Airlines flight (whether domestic or international), you can use your miles to upgrade your seat to business class. The following chart explains how many miles you’ll need to upgrade from economy to business class on any Aegean Airlines flight:

So, for instance, if you were booked on a one-way Aegean Airlines international flight in economy class, you could pay 10,000 miles to upgrade to a business class seat.

Seat upgrade awards can be booked up to 24 hours before the respective flight departure and are subject to business class seat availability. You can book a maximum of four seat upgrades at one time. All miles earned for travel using upgrade awards are based on the original class of service purchased (economy class).

Depending on the distance of your Aegean Airlines flight and the cash cost of upgrading, using your miles to purchase upgrades to business class can provide solid value. You can usually get much more value by purchasing award tickets. However, if you already have an Aegean Airlines flight booked and you want to improve your experience, booking a business class upgrade award isn’t a bad idea.

Miles+Cash

You can also cover a portion of the cash price of an Aegean Airlines or Olympic Air flight ticket with miles using the Miles+Cash option. However, to use the Miles+Cash option, you need to be signed into your Miles+Bonus account and you must have at least 2,500 Aegean miles in your account. Otherwise, the Miles+Cash slider won’t appear for you on the checkout page.

The amount of value per mile you’ll get by redeeming this way varies based on the flights selected, the number of miles available to the member and any additional services or extras you’ve added to your itinerary. However, in general, redeeming your miles with the Miles+Cash option will yield considerably less than 1 cent per mile.

And, as you’ve seen from examples in previous sections, you can get some amazing value out of your Aegean miles by redeeming them for award flights (purchased entirely with miles). So, it’s best to avoid using the Miles+Cash option.

Flight Extras

You can also use your Aegean miles to cover the price of certain flight extras including:

• Extra baggage
• Sports equipment
• Traveling with pets
• Security fast track
• Seat selection

To redeem your miles for one of these flight extras, you can log in to your Miles+Bonus account and go to the “My Bookings” section. From there, you can choose the additional services that you wish to add to your upcoming flight and choose to pay with miles.

You can redeem your Aegean miles this way at a rate of 1 euro per 200 Aegean miles. That means you’d be getting a value of slightly over 0.5 cents per mile (at the current euro to USD conversion rate) when using your Aegean miles this way. That’s a pretty poor value, especially considering that you can get such amazing value by redeeming your miles for award flights.

Hotel Stays

You can also redeem your Aegean miles for hotel stays at certain hotel partners (many of which also allow you to accrue miles for booking paid stays with cash). To see all of the hotels at which you can redeem Aegean miles, you’ll need to go to the “Partners” page on the Miles+Bonus website here and then filter for “Spend miles” options only. From there, you can scroll through the list of partners and look for the ones with an “Accommodation” label on them.

When you click on one of these partners, you can scroll down to the bottom of that partner’s page and then click on the “Redeem Miles” drop-down menu. Then, you should either see a redemption table explaining the rates for certain rooms or further instructions on how to book stays at that hotel with Aegean miles.

For instance, here’s the award chart for stays at the Perianth Hotel in Athens:

As you can see, the per-night rate for a Classic Room at the Perianth Hotel in December would be 30,000 Aegean miles. When we searched for the cash rate for a Classic Room in December on the Perianth Hotel website, the cheapest rate we could find was 149 euros per night (which is equal to about $162 at the current conversion rate).

So, by booking this room with Aegean miles, you’d be getting a value of about 0.5 cents per point, which is lousy.

In general, this is about the value that you’ll get from redeeming Aegean miles for hotel stays. So, most of the time, it’s better to book your hotel stays with cash and save your Aegean miles for an award flight redemption.

Car Rentals

In addition to earning miles on cash car rentals with Hertz, the Miles+Bonus program also gives you the option to redeem miles for car rentals with Hertz. Miles can be redeemed for the following types of Hertz products: Fly & Drive and Flex Drive.

To redeem miles for Fly & Drive services, you’ll need to log in to your Miles+Bonus account and submit an online redemption request at least two working days prior to the required car rental date. The number of miles required for your rental depends on the number of days you want to rent for and whether you’re renting during low, medium or high season. To view the low, medium and high season award charts for Hertz Fly & Drive car rentals, you can visit the Hertz partner page on the Miles+Bonus website.

In order to redeem Aegean miles for Hertz Flex Drive rentals (which allow you to drive the car for as long as you need it), you’ll need to contact Autohellas Hertz via email at flexdrive@hertz.gr at least five working days before the start of your next rental month. Aegean miles can be redeemed at a rate of 200 miles per 1 euro spent.

If you redeem your miles for Hertz Flex Drive rentals, then you’ll get a value of about 0.5 cents per mile, which is very poor. Hertz Fly & Drive rentals also offer a very similar value. So, if you want to get good value out of your Aegean miles, it’s best to avoid spending them on Hertz car rentals.

Buying Merchandise with Shopping Partners

You can purchase merchandise with Aegean miles through several shopping partners, all of which you can find listed on the “Partners” page of the Miles+Bonus website. But, to make matters easier, here’s a full list of the shopping partners with which you can redeem Aegean miles for merchandise:

• ANTETOKOUNBROS Store
• Attica
• Cellier
• Fiorissimo.gr
• Gofas Jewelry
• Hellenic Duty Free Shops
• Marks & Spencer
• Mastiha Shop
• Shop in the Clouds
• Voyager Shop
• Yellow Korner

Unfortunately, redeeming your Aegean miles for merchandise typically yields fairly low value. For instance, when redeeming miles with the ANTETOKOUNBROS Store, you’ll receive 1 euro for every 300 miles. That means that this redemption would yield a value of about 0.4 cents per mile, which is very poor. Most of the other shopping partners offer a very similar value.

So, you’re better off not redeeming your Aegean miles for merchandise with shopping partners.

Dining and Entertainment

The Aegean Miles+Bonus program also has partnerships with several dining and entertainment businesses that allow you to redeem Aegean miles in exchange for their services. These include restaurants, bars, cafes, museums, an offshore racing club, a film festival and much more.

To view the dining and entertainment partners with which you can redeem Aegean miles, you can visit the “Partners” page on the Miles+Bonus website and then filter for “Spend Miles” options. From there, you can then filter for the type of partner, including Culture & Entertainment and Food & Drink.

Redemptions with these partners also don’t provide very good value per mile. For instance, you can redeem your miles at Coffee Island branches in Greece and Cyprus at a rate of 1 euro per 200 miles.

That means that this redemption would yield a rather poor value of about 0.5 cents per mile. Most of these dining and entertainment partners offer very similar value to this, so these redemptions should generally be avoided. You’re better off sticking to award flight redemptions.

Donate Miles

Like many frequent flyer programs, Aegean Miles+Bonus gives members the option to donate their miles to benefit partner charities. Aegean miles can be donated in increments of 100 and you can donate up to 50,000 miles within a period of 12 months. Here are the three charities that you can currently donate to through the Miles+Bonus program:

• SOS Children’s Villages Greece
• Together for Children
• Ark of the World

It’s unclear what the miles-to-cash conversion rate is in regard to donations made through the Miles+Bonus program. However, if you want to use your miles to benefit a good cause, donating them to one of these three charities is a great way to do so.

The Bottom Line

The Aegean Miles+Bonus program offers great award rates by any standard. You can find one-way flights operated by Aegean Airlines or Olympic Air for as little as 5,000 miles within Greece or as little as 7,000 miles internationally. Plus, you find incredible prices on Star Alliance partner award flights, including Lufthansa first class flights, ANA Business Class flights and SWISS International Airlines Business Class flights. Aegean Miles+Bonus is also a great program through which to book United Airlines flights, which is a more practical option for U.S.-based travelers.

Unfortunately, the Aegean Miles+Bonus program has one major drawback: you can’t transfer points from any of the major transferable credit card points programs into Aegean Miles+Bonus (such as American Express Membership Rewards, Capital One Rewards, Chase Ultimate Rewards or Citi ThankYou Rewards). You can, however, transfer points from both Accor Live Limitless (2:1 transfer ratio) and Marriott Bonvoy (3:1 transfer ratio). Unfortunately, neither of these hotel rewards programs offer very favorable transfer ratios and you’re better off redeeming ALL and Bonvoy points through their native rewards programs.

So, if you want to rack up a balance of Aegean miles, you’ll probably have to do it the old-fashioned way: by taking flights with Aegean Airlines, Aegean Airlines’s low-cost regional subsidiary Olympic Air or one of its Star Alliance partners. You can also make small contributions to your Aegean miles balance by booking stays with hotel partners, renting cars with Hertz or shopping with retail partners.

It might still be worth it to credit your Star Alliance flights to Aegean Miles+Bonus, considering this program has some incredible sweet spots that are worth taking advantage of. And, if you live in Greece or travel there often, this is definitely a program you should be using.