$600 round trip tickets for LAX to Dublin are not necessarily a great deal in these days of $350 to $450 tickets from California to Europe, unless you want to quickly earn elite status with Star Alliance.
I wrote about earning Aegean Miles + Bonus Silver elite last week after 12,000 Tier miles + 2 Aegean flight segments, primarily by flying one SAS Stockholm to San Francisco round trip ticket $557 and one $100 ticket from Sofia, Bulgaria to Athens to Warsaw in February.
Aegean Silver elite and 17,000 miles to Star Alliance Gold
I now need 24,000 Tier Miles in Aegean Miles + Bonus and four Aegean/Olympic flight segments by the end of July 2018 to earn Star Alliance Gold elite. I have already flown 7,000 Tier Miles and I am searching for ticketing opportunities to fill the gap. I am looking for low fares with maximum Tier Miles earning in Aegean Miles + Bonus.
SAS and Ethiopian earn 100% flight miles as Aegean Tier Miles
The basic deal I share in this post is the opportunity to use SAS and Ethiopian Airlines tickets to earn 100% Aegean Tier Miles for LAX to Dublin, Ireland flights. Cheap economy class tickets on Ethiopian are Q booking code and earn 100% flight miles as Aegean Tier Miles. All SAS booking codes for economy class earn 100% flight miles as Aegean Tier Miles.
Ethiopian flies LAX-Dublin nonstop. Ticket prices are currently around $670 round trip, however, the price drops to $485 round trip for Dublin to LAX.
SAS currently has tickets for LAX or SFO to Dublin at $605-$625 round trip. SAS has LAX to Malaga, Spain AGP at $605 for over 15,000 Tier Miles.
SAS for maximum flight miles or nest tickets using both Ethiopian and SAS.
SAS flights transit through Copenhagen or Stockholm on the way to Dublin. This adds more potential Tier Miles to the ticket.
Ethiopian is a simple nonstop for quicker travel.
SAS $605.36 round trip
Wed Oct 11 Los Angeles LAX – Stockholm ARN (overnight 20h 50m) – Dublin DUB arrive Oct 13 earns 6,534 Aegean Tier Miles.
Fri Nov 24 Dublin DUB – Stockholm ARN (overnight 19h 55m) – Los Angeles LAX earns 6,534 Aegean Tier Miles.
13,068 Aegean Tier Miles from a single SAS ticket + 2 Aegean flight segments earns Aegean Star Alliance Silver elite. Or fly an additional 10,932 Tier Miles with any Star Alliance carrier to earn Silver elite with 24,000 Tier Miles and no Aegean flights.
Ethiopian 411.67 EUR = $485.20 USD
Dublin DUB – Los Angeles LAX – Dublin DUB earns 10,363 Tier Miles
Wed Oct 18 – Sun Nov 19
Tip: SAS ticket prices tend to be lower price through online travel agencies, whereas Ethiopian tickets tend to be lower price through the Ethiopian Airlines booking site.
Nested Tickets
These two nested tickets pick up 23,431 Tier Miles for $1,090 with two trips to Europe flying to Dublin Tue Oct 11 – Wed Oct 18 and again Sun Nov 19 – Fri Nov 24.
This is just one example of the opportunities to earn Star Alliance elite status with Aegean Miles + Bonus.
Ethiopian ticket prices were down to $400 round trip for Dublin to Los Angeles in May 2017. I expect they will drop again.
SAS ticket prices are currently approaching $500 round trip from Oslo and Stockholm to LAX or SFO.
