Aegean Miles + Bonus Asiana Airlines Asiana Club frequent flyer program Turkish Airlines Miles & Smiles

Aegean, Asiana and Turkish Airlines Star Alliance Gold qualification requirements compared

by Ric Garrido
January 28, 2019
8 Comments
2938 Views

Aegean, Asiana and Turkish Airlines are three Star Alliance member frequent flyer programs with more favorable conditions for earning Star Alliance Gold elite membership on deep discount economy fares compared to the high spend requirements necessary for United Mileage Plus elite qualification.

Last week I ticketed Aegean/Olympic and SAS Scandinavian Airlines flights in February and March to qualify for Aegean Miles+Bonus Gold elite. Over the past two years I have been asked, “Why did I choose Aegean as my primary frequent flyer program instead of Asiana or Turkish Airlines?”

This article looks at elite member qualification requirements for these three programs and why I chose Aegean Miles+Bonus. The simple answer is I think it will cost less for me to earn Star Alliance Gold elite through Aegean Miles+Bonus than either Asiana Club or Turkish Miles&Smiles.

A deeper analysis would also consider the program benefits and differences between the three frequent flyer programs for elite members. Honestly, I have not looked deeply into the elite benefit features of these three different frequent flyer programs. My motivation to study the benefits of elite membership status for my travel will increase once I earn Aegean Miles+Bonus Gold elite in March.

I may find frequent flyer awards, complimentary upgrades, and other status related benefits might be more useful to me as an elite member in Asiana Club or Turkish Miles&Smiles in the long run. Or I may find elite membership in any frequent flyer program is not worth the cost of focusing my flights on Star Alliance airlines.

In previous posts I compared Aegean Miles+Bonus and Turkish Miles&Smiles. I have not previously compared Asiana Club to Aegean or Turkish on Loyalty Traveler.

One of the main advantages of Asiana is two years of elite membership status once you qualify. Another aspect of elite status in all three of these programs is elite re-qualification for the status you have earned requires fewer elite miles to maintain in subsequent years.

Star Alliance Gold Elite Qualification for Aegean Miles+Bonus, Asiana Club and Turkish Miles&Smiles

Aegean Miles+Bonus has two elite levels, while Turkish Miles & Smiles and Asiana Club have three elite levels.

Aegean Miles + Bonus Silver elite: earn 12,000 Tier Miles + 2 Aegean flights or 24,000 Tier Miles with no Aegean flights in 12 months. Elite membership year is 12 months. Star Alliance Silver elite.

Aegean Miles + Bonus Silver elite requalification:Â earnÂ 8,000Â Tier Miles + 2 Aegean flights or 16,000 Tier Miles with no Aegean flights in 12 months.

Aegean Miles + Bonus Gold elite:Â earn 24,000 Tier Miles + 4 Aegean flights or 48,000 Tier Miles with no Aegean flights. Members have 12 months after Silver elite qualification to reach Gold elite. Star Alliance Gold elite.

Aegean Miles + Bonus Gold elite requalification: earnÂ 12,000 Tier Miles + 4 Aegean flight segments or 24,000 Tier Miles with no Aegean flights within 12 months to maintain Gold elite.

Aegean Miles + Bonus Gold elite membership year is 12 months and requires annual requalification.

Turkish Miles & Smiles Classic Plus (Star Alliance Silver) requires 25,000 status miles in 12 months. Maintaining Silver elite requires 17,000 Status Miles in 12 months or 35,000 Status Miles in 24 months. Classic Plus membership lasts 2 years.

Turkish Miles & Smiles Elite (Star Alliance Gold) requires 40,000 Status Miles in 12 months to upgrade from Classic Plus (Silver). Membership validity is 2 years. Maintain Miles & Smiles Elite membership with 25,000 Status Miles within one year or 37,500 Status Miles in 2 years. (Residents of Turkey need 30,000/one year or 45,000/2 years).

Turkish Miles & Smiles Elite Plus (Star Alliance Gold)Â requires 80,000 Status Miles in 12 months to upgrade from Elite (Gold). Membership validity is 2 years. Maintain Miles & Smiles Elite Plus membership with 40,000 Status Miles within one year or 60,000 Status Miles in 2 years.

Turkish Airlines Miles & Smiles program details.

Asiana Club

Asiana Club Elite membership details.

One of the main differences with Asiana Club is 24 months to reach elite qualification requirements.

Asiana Club Gold (Star Alliance Silver). Membership lasts 24 months.

20,000 elite miles or
30 Asiana flights or
15,000+ elite miles + Asiana affiliate credit card milesÂ for 20,000 elite miles.

Asiana Club Gold requalification in 24 months (Star Alliance Silver)

15,000 elite miles or
20 Asiana flights or
10,000+ elite miles + Asiana affiliate credit card miles for 15,000 elite miles.

Asiana Club Diamond (Star Alliance Gold). Membership lasts 24 months.

40,000 elite miles or
50 Asiana flights or
30,000+ elite miles + Asiana affiliate credit card milesÂ for 40,000 elite miles.

Asiana Club Diamond requalification in 24 months (Star Alliance Gold)

30,000 elite miles or
30 Asiana flights or
20,000+ elite miles + Asiana affiliate credit card miles for 30,000 elite miles.

Asiana Club Diamond Plus (Star Alliance Gold). Membership lasts 24 months.

100,000 elite miles or
100 Asiana flights or
75,000+ elite miles + Asiana affiliate credit card milesÂ for 100,000 elite miles.

Asiana Club Diamond Plus requalification in 24 months (Star Alliance Gold)

75,000 elite miles or
60 Asiana flights or
50,000+ elite miles + Asiana affiliate credit card miles for 75,000 elite miles.

Earning Elite Miles in Aegean, Asiana and Turkish frequent flyer programs.

Each of these frequent flyer programs counts elite miles for Star Alliance flights and this is one of the greatest differences between the three programs depending on the airline and fare class you travel.

I am a deep discount economy flyer typically flying between California and Europe for under $500 round trip. My flight pattern favors Aegean Miles + Bonus due to the ability to earn more elite miles on low cost tickets compared to the other two programs.

The main advantage of Aegean Miles+Bonus for me is the ability to earn 100% Aegean Miles+Bonus Tier Points when flying deep-discount economy class tickets on SAS Scandinavian and Ethiopian operated flights. My next two transatlantic flights are United Airlines and SAS Scandinavian economy class flights.

United economy K class earning 50% flight miles as Aegean Tier Miles and also earns 50% elite miles with Asiana and Turkish.

SAS economy L class earns 100% flight miles as Aegean Tier Miles. Asiana Club earns 50% flight miles as elite miles and Turkish Miles&Smiles only earns 25% elite miles on SK economy L class flights. The fact that SAS flies San Francisco to Copenhagen nonstop and earns 100% flight miles as elite Tier Points in Aegean is why I favored Aegean Miles+Bonus for my Star Alliance Gold elite quest.

$500 round trip ticket flying Scandinavian SAS San Francisco to Stockholm SFO-CPH-ARN-CPH-SFO earns 12,175 Aegean Tier Points. Aegean awards a minimum 600 Tier Points for an SAS international flight, so CPH-ARN-CPH earns 1,200 Tier Points for the two flight segments, significantly more elite miles than the 680 flight miles distance for the two segments.

There are some deep-discount economy fare classes with Star Alliance airlines that earn more elite miles with Asiana or Turkish than Aegean.

Elite Miles Earned in deep-discount economy class on Star Alliance airlines

Asiana and Turkish elite members have 24 months to meet elite renewal requirements and maintain elite membership level. Aegean elite members must requalify every 12 months to maintain elite membership level.

For me the opportunity to pick up 12,000 Aegean Tier Points with one $500 SAS ticket makes Aegean the low cost leader when compared to Asiana and Turkish. Four Aegean flight segments is an inexpensive requirement too. My Aegean ticket for Warsaw-Athens-Chania, Crete round trip in March 2019 cost $136 for 4 Aegean/Olympic Airlines flight segments.

Asiana Club only requires 30,000 elite miles in 24 months to maintain Diamond elite, the lower elite level with Star Alliance Gold recognition. But that might mean having to fly as many as 60,000 flight miles on Star Alliance deep discount tickets.

Turkish Miles & Smiles requires 30,000 elite miles in 12 months or 45,000 elite miles in 24 months to maintain Elite with Star Alliance Gold member recognition.

I sampled a few airlines for their deep-discount economy class booking codes and elite miles earned among the three programs for Aegean, Asiana and Turkish.

Copa L class(Chicago-ORD to Quito, Ecuador $367 round trip = 5,918 flight miles)

Aegean 50% flight miles = 2,959 elite miles.
Asiana 70% flight miles = 4,142 elite miles.
Turkish 50%Â flight milesÂ = 2,959 elite miles.

Air China L class (Los Angeles – Shenzhen, China $440 round trip = 14,495 flight miles)

Aegean 25% flight miles = 3,624 elite miles.
Asiana 25% flight miles = 3,624 elite miles.
Turkish 25%Â flight milesÂ = 3,624 elite miles.

Asiana T class (Los Angeles – Manila MNL, Philippines $548 round trip = 15,219 flight miles)

Aegean 0% flight miles = 0 elite miles.
Asiana 50% flight miles = 7,610 elite miles.
Turkish 50%Â flight milesÂ = 7,610 elite miles.

This Asiana T flight that definitely favors Asiana or Turkish elite credit over Aegean.

Ethiopian E class (Frankfurt – Cape Town, South Africa $614 round trip = 13,112 flight miles)

Aegean 100% flight miles = 13,112 elite miles.
Asiana 0% flight miles = 0 elite miles.
Turkish 25%Â flight milesÂ = 3,278 elite miles.

This is just a small sample of Star Alliance flights. The ability to pick up 100% flight miles as Aegean Miles+Bonus elite miles on long-haul deep discount economy class airline tickets with SAS and Ethiopian is the factor I consider for my travels in choosing Aegean as my primary Star Alliance frequent flyer program. Aegean Miles+Bonus offers a cheap route to Star Alliance Gold elite for my travel pattern.

Some readers might find Asiana Club or Turkish Miles & Smiles or some other Star Alliance frequent flyer program offers more favorable elite miles earning based on your flight pattern.

Of course, there are many other elite member benefits to consider when comparing benefits across different Star Alliance programs besides elite member qualification requirements. Benefits as an elite member in a Star Alliance frequent flyer program and differences in benefits among different programs may be even more highly valued than the ease to reach elite membership.

Miles needed for flight awards, availability of award tickets and taxes on award tickets are other important considerations when choosing where to credit your flight miles.

Please share insight on the advantages or disadvantages of elite membership qualification and benefits for these Star Alliance airline frequent flyer programs and other programs that you find valuable. I am sure there are many other aspects of elite membership in these three programs and other programs I have not considered for competitive advantages.

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8 Comments

Ben January 28, 2019

I believe your information on Asiana might be mistaken. They only give you for 24 months. If you reach the status, say today to their Diamond status, then you get from today + 24 months. But not 48 months. Just FYI thanks for the post
Ric Garrido January 28, 2019

I corrected Turkish Miles and Smiles Elite requalification numbers. 30,000/45,000 Status Miles for requalification of Elite status (Star Alliance Gold) is lower for members who are not residents of Turkey at 25,000 Status Miles in 12 months or 37,500 Status Miles in two years.
Ric Garrido January 28, 2019

@Ben – definitely mistaken about 48 months. That was weird 2 years = 48 months math conversion on my part and I was amazed how many times I wrote that without noticing the mistake.

Thanks to all you reader editors.
B January 28, 2019

Hey Ric, great thread once again! There are tonnes of blogs out there comparing Oneworld and Skyteam, but not alot on Star Alliance, so it’s definitely welcome more ideas between comparing the best *A airlines for *A Gold qualification. I wished I had this resource when I started out my accrual.

Side note, if you can do post with a comparison on how much miles you can earn within the TK, OZ and A3 through flying discounted UA flights, that would be amazing. Most folks here fly alot domestically with UA but credits to mileage explorer, which I quickly learn that it was giving really poor value for status qualification and *A benefits due to EQD and no access to US lounges. It was only through flyertalk that I learnt that when you fly UA with a foreign *A gold that you get access to lounges domestically. This is a big deal for me as my work and personal travel patterns mostly deals with big UA hubs like LAX/EWR/ORD.
Ric Garrido January 28, 2019

United economy K earns 50% elite miles in Aegean, Asiana and Turkish. That is the most common deep discount economy international fares I commonly see.

United economy L is a fare class I found for Mexico City. Aegean and Asiana earn 50% and Turkish earns 75%.

United economy N and G earn 50% elite miles in Aegean, Asiana and Turkish. That is the most common deep discount economy domestic fares I commonly see.

United W fares earn 50% Aegean and 75% in Asiana and Turkish.

All depends on what fares you find on different routes and it might be worthwhile to pay for a higher fare class if there is better miles earning.
Richard January 28, 2019

One extra benefit that should be of value – although probably not more than $100 but definitely non zero – is the 4 Aegean upgrade coupons they give you. Yes the flights are not the longest, but still a guaranteed non middle seat with shoulder space, a bit nicer food, and first on and off the plane is worth something. And as you have to do four flights to requalify… you have ample opportunity to use them. And across the two years cycle, if you like doing little flights around Europe as part of your trips anyway, 8x upgrades doesn’t have to worth much per use to add up to being non trivial.
Bear January 30, 2019

Asiana Club Diamond requalification is 20,000+ miles with credit card, not 30,000+
Ric Garrido January 30, 2019

@Bear – thanks for the correction.

Definitely needed an editor on this piece.

@Richard – thanks for the reminder that I need to apply for my Warsaw-Athens upgrades.

…oh well, turns out upgrades are not valid on my GoLight economy fare. Needed to pay an extra $65 to upgrade to a higher economy fare for a chance to upgrade.