In the post “Hunt for Star Alliance Gold” I described why I wanted Star Alliance Gold status (lounge access!), and I told the story about a crazy Rube Goldberg-ish approach to status matching that I attempted.
The match to Taj to Shargri-La to Singapore status approach ultimately failed, but a reader named Geo left a very interesting comment:
If you travel often with your family, look into crediting to Egyptair Plus, apparently you can pool miles AND status.
What, really? Could I sign up my family for this program and then simply credit a few family trips on Star Alliance flights to Egyptair in order to get and keep Star Alliance Gold status?
The answer appears to be yes.
A quick Google search showed me that all of the details were already posted by the AwardWallet blog (hat tip to Mommy Points for hat tipping AwardWallet).
Here are the basics:
- Egypt Air’s loyalty program is called EgyptAir Plus (found here).
- EgyptAir Plus offers 3 elite tiers: Silver, Gold, and Platinum.
- EgyptAir Plus Gold status gives you Star Alliance Gold status.
- To pool accounts, you must provide evidence of a direct family relationship.
- Up to 5 family members can pool together.
- To get Silver status you must earn 30,000 miles (there doesn’t appear to be a time limit for earning this first tier).
- To get to Gold status, you must get to Silver status and then earn 30,000 additional miles to get to Gold status. You have two years from the time you earn Silver status to achieve this.
- You can renew Gold status by earning 30,000 miles within 2 years from the time that you previously earned or renewed status.
- If accounts are pooled, only the primary member earns status.
Both AwardWallet and Mommy Points give mileage running examples. The basic idea is that you can earn status very easily by flying as a couple or a family.
Maybe 2 is the perfect number
With EgyptAir Plus, the bigger your family that travels together, the quicker you’ll get to Gold status. That said, Star Alliance Gold status only guarantees lounge access for yourself and one guest (found here). We discovered that the hard way at the Frankfurt airport when my wife had to wait outside the Senator Lounge. So, flying with a family is great for getting elite status, but not great for using the most valuable perk of that status.
Now that my son is about to start college in the fall, we’ll more often fly as a pair instead of a trio. So, we should be the perfect candidates to mileage run for Egypt Air status. When our son does fly with us, we can use him to help us earn and keep status, but we’ll plan to enjoy the lounge access perks when it’s just the two of us.