In 2024, Scandinavian Airlines (SAS) transitioned from Star Alliance to SkyTeam. To celebrate this, the airline ran one of the most interesting promotions we’ve seen from an airline loyalty program in years. The company has now shared some statistics about participation in this promotion, and there are some details I’m shocked by.
In this post:
Basics of SAS’ EuroBonus million points SkyTeam promotion
To celebrate joining the SkyTeam alliance, SAS’ EuroBonus frequent flyer program offered a very cool promotion, giving members an incentive to fly on SkyTeam partner airlines. With this promotion, the more SkyTeam airlines members flew, the more bonus points they could earn. For travel between October 8 and December 31, 2024:
- You could earn 10,000 SAS EuroBonus bonus points for flying five SkyTeam airlines
- You could earn 100,000 SAS EuroBonus bonus points for flying 10 SkyTeam airlines
- You could earn 1,000,000 SAS EuroBonus bonus points for flying 15 SkyTeam airlines
So by flying 15 different SkyTeam airlines, you could become a EuroBonus “millionaire.” I could be wrong, but I have to imagine that when the airline launched the promotion, it expected that maybe a handful of people would take advantage of the full offer, and that more than anything, it would generate some media buzz. However, that’s not how the promotion turned out…
SAS’ EuroBonus million points promotion in numbers
LoyaltyLobby shares some statistics that the airline provided him about the EuroBonus million points promotion, now that it has concluded. So, how many people took advantage of this, where were they from, etc.? This is some incredible data:
- 42,718 people registered for the promotion, and 6,886 (16%) of those people enrolled in the EuroBonus program after the campaign started
- 900+ people successfully completed the promotion, and earned one million points; of those 900+ people, 722 (78%) enrolled in the program after the campaign started
- 70% of the people who completed the challenge were male, while 30% were female
- Most people were 30-39 years old, though the average age was 40 years old
- The oldest person to complete the challenge was 73, and 12 people under the age of 18 completed the promotion, with the youngest person being four years old and from Japan
- Of those who completed the promotion, 77% had no EuroBonus status, 8% had EuroBonus Silver status, 12% had EuroBonus Gold status, and 2% had EuroBonus Diamond status
- The newest member who completed the promotion only enrolled in the EuroBonus program on December 16, 2024, while the longest standing member enrolled in the EuroBonus program on May 5, 1992
- 85% of those who completed the promotion enrolled in the EuroBonus program in the past two years
- The average person who completed the challenge visited four continents, 17 countries, and 23 airports, during the promotion period
- All people who completed the promotion visited China at least once
- 92% of flights completed for the promotion were in economy
- Nine people visited six continents, while 22% of people visited at least five continents
So, where were the people who completed the challenge from, primarily? Here are the top five countries, based on the addresses listed in their accounts:
- 276 people (30%) were from South Korea
- 129 people (14%) were from the United States
- 111 people (12%) were from Japan
- 83 people (9%) were from China
- 54 people (6%) were from North Korea
Reflecting on the amazing SAS EuroBonus promotion
First and foremost, huge kudos to SAS for offering such a fun promotion, and for actually fully honoring it, and for not cutting off registration early. I have to imagine that participation in this promotion ended up being way higher than expected, and this is a not-insignificant expense for the airline.
Members ended up earning at least 900 million points with this promotion. If you were to value those at one cent each, that would be like nine million dollars. Admittedly the carrier’s cost for those miles is probably a bit lower, but still, this cost at least several million bucks to offer.
Here’s what stands out to me most about the statistics:
- How did 54 North Koreans participate in the promotion?!?Are these South Koreans who accidentally put the wrong address, foreign diplomats (or something) in North Korea, or what?
- It’s pretty incredible that someone registered for SAS EuroBonus on December 16, 2024, and completed the promotion, given that travel had to be completed by December 31, 2024
- It’s interesting how this promotion was so popular with people who weren’t otherwise engaged in the program, and with people who don’t even live in SAS’ core markets; Sweden had only the sixth highest number of participants, while Norway had the eighth highest number of participants
- For South Korea and Japan, I’m curious if there was one person who was planning trips for a bunch of people, or if nearly everyone completed the offer independently
- I can’t help but wonder if some people may have actually just been mileage run “mules,” and were paid a certain amount to take the flights, with the person managing the process keeping the miles
In retrospect, I can’t help but wonder if SAS EuroBonus executives would offer this promotion again, or if they learned some lessons and wouldn’t. On the one hand, it generated a lot of publicity, which is great. On the other hand, will this actually lead to an increase in long term business?
The way I see it, SAS EuroBonus just isn’t a very compelling frequent flyer program, so even for those who earn a million points, I can’t imagine they’ll necessarily be that much more engaged in the program, aside from redeeming the points they’ve already earned.
This promotion did get a lot of press, so does that get the airline anything? I’m not sure, especially since the promotion was all about flying SkyTeam partners anyway. Perhaps the goal was in part to get those who are loyal to other SkyTeam airlines to be aware that SAS has now joined the alliance, and consider flying with the airline?
Bottom line
The SAS EuroBonus million points promotion is now over, and the program has revealed some details about participation. 900+ people successfully completed the promotion, and perhaps most interesting of all is that 54 North Koreans reportedly participated. Kudos to SAS for offering this promotion, and for even sharing statistics about participation!
What do you make of these SAS EuroBonus million points promotion statistics?
I dont think they ever really expected anyone other than bloggers to do it which is why it had such a tight end date.
The biggest problem is that skyteam is such a mess and relying on them being able to credit flights to other alliance members - especially a new one - was so high risk given the small margin of error.
I'd like to know the stats on the number of people...
I dont think they ever really expected anyone other than bloggers to do it which is why it had such a tight end date.
The biggest problem is that skyteam is such a mess and relying on them being able to credit flights to other alliance members - especially a new one - was so high risk given the small margin of error.
I'd like to know the stats on the number of people who did it but are still missing 1 or 2 flights that either didnt get credited or which were in the wrong booking classes.
Thanks for this very interesting post. I've seen lots of posts in Korea about this challenge. There were even paid consultants who arranges tickets and help claiming missing miles, etc. After hearing too many stories about it (in Korean), especially how many challengers were in KQ's CAN-BKK flight, 900+ is probably much lower number than I expected. But then there were so many Koreans, north and south combined.
We often confuse NK and SK...
Thanks for this very interesting post. I've seen lots of posts in Korea about this challenge. There were even paid consultants who arranges tickets and help claiming missing miles, etc. After hearing too many stories about it (in Korean), especially how many challengers were in KQ's CAN-BKK flight, 900+ is probably much lower number than I expected. But then there were so many Koreans, north and south combined.
We often confuse NK and SK online, because NK often appear as Democratic something Korea and SK as Republic something Korea. Not sure how it appears in SAS website but this confusion has never flag anything as they all assume it's a mistake.
I don't know what games SAS/eurobonus is playing here...
I know I have completed the challenge, all my flights haven't been credited though so either
these statistics are incomplete thus totally useless
or
Eurobonus knows I won and hasn't informed me nor posted my 1000000 miles which means I am not able to book awards even though I should be...
Can’t wait to see the program be further devaluated. Award tickets are hard enough to come by, especially when people wait up till 00:01 AM at night to book the moment tickets are released 330 days in advance.
Can’t imagine how hard it will be with 900 eurobonus millionaires wanting to spend their miles
SAS awards can be tricky to find, however there's plenty of availability with partner airlines, and the programme does have a few sweet spots. I'm planning to recoup the cost with two business class trips to Africa then have another 800k to play with.
I did all of the flights in December for this promotion. I was 20 at the time (21 now). Over 21 days, I took 28 flights on 19 airlines (15 Skyteam + ITA Airways, Air Serbia, Etihad, and Cathay Pacific), went through 24 airports, cleared immigration in 14 countries, went outside the airport in 18 cities, stayed overnight in 15 cities, and spent more than one night in Cairo, Seoul, Hong Kong, and Ho Chi...
I did all of the flights in December for this promotion. I was 20 at the time (21 now). Over 21 days, I took 28 flights on 19 airlines (15 Skyteam + ITA Airways, Air Serbia, Etihad, and Cathay Pacific), went through 24 airports, cleared immigration in 14 countries, went outside the airport in 18 cities, stayed overnight in 15 cities, and spent more than one night in Cairo, Seoul, Hong Kong, and Ho Chi Minh City.
I originally started planning for this trip in late October, but some commitments meant I probably wouldn't be able to do it. However, they fell through in early December. So, I looked into this promotion again, and I was able to make an itinerary which was only 3% more expensive than the previous one (despite the flights being booked last minute). I registered with SAS EuroBonus on December 4th, and I started my itinerary on December 7th. In the end, I spent about $3K USD on the flights (all in Economy and paid with cash), and I spent about $5K all in for this adventure. I found some people who wanted some of the SAS miles in exchange for giving me some cash to help me fund this adventure (given that I'm a college student so I have limited income). In the end, I paid about $1,500 out of pocket on my own (which I had set aside anyway for an adventure over the holidays). This adventure gave me memories of a lifetime. I've been reading OMAAT for about 9 years now (since I was a pre-teen), and I had always wanted to do a trip like this. The bonus SAS miles are just the icing on the cake for me :)
Wow - impressively low cost for all that flying! Absolutely the right age to do things like this. The likelihood you'll want or be able to as you get older diminishes quickly (not for everyone but it's a risk) and it's a great story and experience. Hopefully you'll have a chance for some splurge trips in business class with the miles now.
It is so depressing to see them already releasing statistics when they still cannot credit my VN flights. I have been sitting at 14/15 for 2 months now and now I feel so depressed that they have already forgotten about people like me. 10+ emails, 10+ phone calls and they cannot do a thing.
2 Koreans I was with on the same flight got their miles, this was a joke and will always be a joke to me.
@Lucky Unrelated, but you should write an article taking a look at how Trump's proposed tariffs will affect A220 sales/deliveries.
I actually disagree that EB is uncompetitive (and not just because I invested £2k and 10 days into completing this challenge!).
50k & no fees for Europe - US/ICN/NRT/BKK in SAS J?
30k for KE J flights within North / Central / South Asia (including, for some reason, India?)
Not to mention, US/CA/Mexico flights at 15k Y / 30k J.
I think I’d much rather have 1m EB points than 1m with DL...
I actually disagree that EB is uncompetitive (and not just because I invested £2k and 10 days into completing this challenge!).
50k & no fees for Europe - US/ICN/NRT/BKK in SAS J?
30k for KE J flights within North / Central / South Asia (including, for some reason, India?)
Not to mention, US/CA/Mexico flights at 15k Y / 30k J.
I think I’d much rather have 1m EB points than 1m with DL / UA. Too bad more airlines don’t leverage creative promotions like this to create new fans.
As a long time EuroBonus Gold member: good luck trying to use the points!
On some points it’s a usable program with zone pricing etc.
But getting those tickets? Not easy at all.
I know hundreds of people who sit up at night just to book the few award tickets that open up exactly 330 days in advance.
Sure, but you also need to factor in availability in J.
ICN: No seats have been released yet.
NRT: Difficult.
BKK: Even harder to find.
Return flights to Scandinavia are especially challenging to find. Also, there are no tickets without fees.
Well good luck finding any available award seats for long haul flights that sre not in economy.
If you are lucky you will find a one way award but would then have to pay a higher price for a one way paid ticket to get home again...
I completed the 15 airlines but despite registering a missing flight request in December, I'm still showing only 14 airlines. Anyone have an email that I can use to communicate with SAS on this, as the links on the Eurobonus site are not helpful.
Submit a manual claim via their website or email them at [email protected]. They're very, very slow with the retroclaim process right now, so a fair bit of patience is necessary.
Nobody accidentally enters their address as North Korea. I’d bet those 54 people were just messing around or trolling. Wouldn’t surprise me if all of them are part of the cohort that signed up for the program after the promo started.
Could be NK passport holders permanently resident in Japan… although travelling on a NK passport must be bureaucratically a pain for transitting various countries…
It's a bug. My South Korean address was registered as North Korea, and even after I changed it it would revert back to NK a few times.
That makes a lot more sense than the idea that there are 54 North Koreans living outside of NK who are able to buy at least 15 air tickets, have the ability to use them all within a few months without visa issues, and have the knowledge, interest and ability to register for this promotion.
I mean with 1.000.000 Miles being worth roughly 10.000$ it should be quite easy to reach it with 15 flights and a bit of planning. That's 666$ budget per flight if you want to break even. Not sure if Bonusflights would have been counted, if so you could have a great return!
Has anyone calculated the cheapest possible routing in order to complete this challenge? Assuming a breakeven at $666 per flight, what is the potential net value in points earned?
I knew quite a few people who were able to do it for under $3K USD all in. They were all doing it like a mileage run though with back to back flights and limited overnights in hotels.
Meanwhile, I wanted to make it an adventure and I spent some time in various cities. I also had a one-night stay in 12 countries, and more than one-night stay in 4 countries. In all, I...
I knew quite a few people who were able to do it for under $3K USD all in. They were all doing it like a mileage run though with back to back flights and limited overnights in hotels.
Meanwhile, I wanted to make it an adventure and I spent some time in various cities. I also had a one-night stay in 12 countries, and more than one-night stay in 4 countries. In all, I was on the road for 21 days and I spent about $5K USD all in ($3K on flights). I also did it in the end of December so flights were a bit more expensive due to the holidays.
The Frequent Miler blog team had three of them try to promo, they wrote a lot about spend, value, ect. I would look over there for some insight.
A fair calculation would include hotel and meal expenses. As well as, the monetary value of work vacation days used (if applicable).
I spent c.£2k including hotels (and excl. meals), not even factoring in that I would have flown a few of the routes regardless, just not on SkyTeam. My benchmark for value is that 1m points = 10 round trip Europe - US/Asia SAS J tickets with 5 years to use them. Obviously, worth significantly more than £2k. YMMV of course
That's a good deal. Nice! Just bear in mind the program may devalue the miles value over the next 5 years at some point or even multiple times.