Aeroplan today announced that Olympic Air that is a subsidiary of Aegean has become partner of the program where members can also earn elite qualifying miles.

Aegean has farmed out most of the domestic flying to Olympic Air (or at least under the Olympic Air code) and this has created problems for many Star Alliance frequent flier program members where to credit these flights and lack of status recognition (lounge access in Athens).

You can access Aeroplan’s page for Olympic Air here.

Here’s the Olympic Air partner info:

Earn miles when you purchase an eligible booking class and travel on flights operated by Olympic Air. Some exceptions may apply. Aeroplan Miles earned on all eligible Olympic Air flights are also Altitude Qualifying Miles and count towards Air Canada Altitude™ status. For more details, please consult altitude.aircanada.com. Be sure to provide your Aeroplan number when you make a reservation. Always save your itinerary receipt, ticket (where available) and boarding pass until the miles have been credited to your account. If the miles for a recent activity have not been credited to your Aeroplan account, you can request to have the missing miles within eleven months of the activity date. Learn more about Requesting Mileage Credit. Please refer to the charts below to see how many miles you will earn. For codeshare flights marketed by Olympic Air but operated by another Star Alliance member airline, the operating airline determines how many miles you earn for your flight. Therefore, the booking class that appears on your ticket may differ from the booking class that the operating airline uses to determine flight miles earned. Refer to the Eligible Flights Tab of the operating carrier. Mileage earned is based on actual miles flown and the percentage of booking class accumulation. Charter flights operated by Olympic Air are not eligible. Codeshare flights marketed by Olympic Air and operated by non-Star Alliance airlines are not eligible. Please refer to the Terms & Conditions Tab for additional information regarding flight activities.

Aeroplan Olympic Air earning chart:

Conclusion

The situation surrounding some of these “Olympic Air” flights has been surreal because they have been actually operated by Aegean as if there had been “wet lease” between the airlines.

I guess that the real reason must have been the denial of Star Alliance benefits from fliers from other programs that end up on these OA flights and don’t get lounge access, any luggage allowance and none of the priority services. So, basically Aegean/Olympic Air have charged for all these.

Interesting to see if Olympic Air becomes partner with other Star Alliance programs beyond Air Canada’s and whether Aegean brings it to Star Alliance. Olympic Air today is more of an “express carrier” for Aegean that flies these domestic hops.

I took Olympic Air flight or two few years ago when I was in Greece. Cannot remember from where this exact flight was from/to. Pulled out the eticket receipts from Expedia and all I had purchased were Aegean flights…..