Aegean Airlines launches “Tier Hold” parental breaks!
Yesterday I mentioned a few ways you can maintain your British Airways elite status. One of the methods included requesting a suspension of re-qualification requirements if you have a new child.
Today Aegean Airlines, our favourite airline for Star Alliance Gold, announced the launch of a similar scheme. Here it is called “Tier Hold”.
Similar to British airways you have between the birthday of the new child until it is one year old. Members who are granted the tier hold are given a free year of status if they cannot re-qualify due to reduced flying. Not similar to BA though is that only one parent can apply for it at a time.
Members will need to apply for their tier hold here. Select the Miles+Bonus “My Status” as the category and fill in your details. You will need to attach the child's birth certificate and if you are the father you need additional paternity Leave proof.
(And as side note… could someone advise me whether discriminating between men and women this way is legal?)
Terms and conditions below:
- Eligible for tier hold are only the active Miles+Bonus members that belong to Silver or Gold tier.
- Eligible for tier hold are either the mother or the father of own child. There may be up to one-member parent on tier hold for the same child, at any one time.
- Members may apply once for each child, as soon as the child is born and up until the child reaches one year.
- It is clarified that, Tier miles added to member’s account in order to keep their tier, do not count for tier upgrades.
- It is clarified that, Tier hold cannot be changed or cancelled once approved.
- It is clarified that, eligible members can still enjoy their tier benefits while they are on tier hold.
- Miles+Bonus tier hold benefit is personal for the member who receives it and is not transferable for any reason.
- Members who are approved for tier hold can continue to earn and redeem miles.
- Eligible members may provide the below documents:
– For Mother: Birth Certificate
– For Father: Birth Certificate, Paternity Leave for at least 3 months- It is clarified that the documents will be destroyed for safety reasons, after their process.
- Miles+Bonus tier hold is a discretionary benefit and Aegean reserves the right to decline an application for, or to change the offer of, a Miles+Bonus tier hold at any time, at its own discretion.
- Aegean reserves the right to annul or modify at its own private discretion, anytime and with no previous notice the benefit's terms and conditions, as they are mentioned in this document. The new terms and conditions apply upon their publication.
- The application for the benefit implies the Member’s unconditional acceptance of the terms and conditions.
Interesting to note: if you do earn tier miles during your tier hold year then you cannot upgrade. Combined with the fact you cannot cancel the exemption, if you are Silver and for whatever reason do enough flying to hit Gold then it will not count.
It's all Greek to me.