How to get Star Alliance Gold with just one flight as a family

EgyptAir Plus

EgyptAir plus is the loyalty scheme of EgyptAir and a member of Star Alliance. You can earn Star Alliance Gold status by earning the equivalent EgyptAir plus membership level, which is the Golden Card.

To get there, you will first need to obtain 30000 for the Silver Card (it seems that there is no time limit in achieving silver) and then 30000 more miles within two additional years to reach the gold level. Summarized you will need 60000 miles at EgyptAir Plus for your Star Alliance Gold membership. Once the gold level is reached, it will be valid for 24 months and you can enjoy all the benefits of a Star Alliance Gold membership at each an every star alliance member.

Once qualified for gold, you will only need 30000 miles or 32 segments during 24 months to extend your status by another 24 months, which seems generous.

Combine your status miles with an EgyptAir plus family account

One big advantage, and probably the only airline allowing this, is that you can combine status miles from up to 5 family members to one account with an EgyptAir Plus family account. This means that if you are travelling as a family of 4 for example, the status and award miles earned by each individual will count towards the status level of the main account holder.

All members must have a first-degree family relationship to the main family account holder, must be at least 2 years old and have their own EgyptAir Plus membership number under which they will earn miles. However, miles earned from travel onboard EgyptAir as well as Star Alliance Carriers will be added to the main member’s account if you enroll for an EgyptAir Plus family account.

Therefore you have to send a copy of each member’s passport and advise their relations to customeraff@egyptair.com .
(Father-Mother-Wife/Husband-Children) with their full details (Full name – relationship – date of birth – contacts).

Full terms & conditions of EgyptAir plus family account can be seen here.

How many miles do I earn at EgyptAir plus for my flight

On this site you can see how many miles each person of your family will earn at the different Star Alliance carriers depending on your travel class.

And on the site here how many if you fly on EgyptAir metal.

As you can see the earning rates are distance based.

There are many airlines where some booking classes are exempted from earning miles at EgyptAir, so you have to check exactly on which booking class you fly before crediting them to an EgyptAir plus family account.

One round trip from Frankfurt to the West coast of the United States for examples are roughly 12000 miles without an additional stop. If you travel as a family of 5 on a booking class which earns you 100% of the miles, the Gold status would already be achieved with one single return trip.

Some aspects of this strategy to keep in mind

One thing you have to keep in mind is that only the main member of the family will earn a status and award miles, so all other members will stay at the lowest tier. This is especially frustrating if you are always travelling as a family of more than 2 because on further non premium flights, as only the main account holder and one guest will have lounge access. However travelling as a couple solely or if the main family member is travelling often alone on economy flights, this negative aspect will not count.

Another thing to keep in mind is that redeemable miles are also only earned by the head of the family and you have to redeem them at EgyptAir. The good news is that you can redeem your EgyptAir Plus family miles on all Star alliance carriers in all classes, which means you can fly from Europe to North America in business class for 60000 miles or in first for 90000 miles.

The bad news is that you have to call EgyptAir’s call center to make an award reservation and you have to search for availability using other carriers search tools like for example United.

Conclusion

This strategy is a nice way to earn the Star Alliance Gold status relatively easy with a low amount of flights if you are travelling as a family on the right booking classes. The re-qualification requirement of only 30000 miles is really generous.

However only one person will achieve the Star alliance gold status using this strategy and it might be painful to use the miles you earned efficiently afterwards.

http://premium-flights.com/2018/12/17/all-about-miles-more-and-star-alliance-status/