Scandinavian Airlines (SAS) has just joined the SkyTeam alliance, having switched from Star Alliance. This came after the airline emerged from bankruptcy protection, and is now partly owned by Air France-KLM.
Well, the airline has just launched what I’d consider to be the most fun and gamified promotion we’ve seen from any airline loyalty program in a really long time.
In this post:
Fly 15 SkyTeam airlines, earn one million points
SAS’ EuroBonus frequent flyer program is giving members an incredible incentive to try flying different SkyTeam airlines this fall. The more SkyTeam airlines you fly, the more bonus points you earn:
- Fly five different SkyTeam airlines, earn 10,000 SAS EuroBonus bonus points
- Fly 10 different SkyTeam airlines, earn 100,000 SAS EuroBonus bonus points
- Fly 15 different SkyTeam airlines, earn 1,000,000 SAS EuroBonus bonus points
That’s right, if you fly 15 SkyTeam airline, you can earn a million bonus points. When I first saw the airline marketing a “who wants to be a EuroBonus millionaire” promotion, I figured it was a gimmick, and that maybe one lucky person would win that in a sweepstakes. But nope, anyone can earn this.
You’ll of course want to consult all the terms yourself before investing much time in this, but let me highlight what I view as the biggest points:
- Registration is required through the carrier’s app
- You must travel between October 8 and December 31, 2024
- For a flight to be eligible, EuroBonus points must be earned or redeemed to pay for the flight, so even award flights (if booked through EuroBonus) would qualify
- The number of airlines is based on the operating carrier, rather than the marketing carrier
According to SAS EuroBonus’ partner page, there are 17 SkyTeam airlines, so you can skip two of those airlines. The partner page doesn’t list ITA Airways or Middle East Airlines, and then you could leave out two additional ones.
Purely in terms of geography, it would probably be easiest to leave out Aerolineas Argentins and Kenya Airways. You can easily fly Delta and Aeromexico in North America, and otherwise all the airlines are in Europe and Asia (including the Middle East).
I love the concept behind this promotion
While airline frequent flyer programs are still incredibly useful, there’s no denying that they’re a lot less fun than they used to be a decade or more ago. I think a lot of loyalty program executives have lost the desire to have promotions that create incredible engagement, and which can be gamified a bit.
Look, I get it. Often it’s hard to show the direct return on that. Furthermore, in the age of everyone being on the internet, interest in things can sometimes get out of hand, in the event that an offer is too generous.
So that’s why I love this promotion so much. The reward here is potentially massive, this could get people to do something they wouldn’t otherwise do, and for those that earn a million points, this is something they’ll probably be talking about for the rest of their life.
A decade ago, when I was single, I would’ve jumped on this in a heartbeat. Heck, I’m almost tempted to give this a shot anyway, because it’s just such a puzzle! Now, for those purely “mileage running” this, you’re essentially earning 67,000 bonus points per SkyTeam airline you fly.
If you were to take some SkyTeam flights anyway, perhaps it makes sense to do the math based on the return of the flights you wouldn’t take otherwise.
The issue is that EuroBonus otherwise isn’t that compelling of a loyalty program. I’d value those points at no more than a cent each. So you can definitely come out ahead here, but I’m not sure it’ll be worth most peoples’ time.
In the long run, it’s rumored that SAS will adopt Flying Blue as its loyalty program, but it’s anyone’s guess if or when that will happen.
Bottom line
SAS EuroBonus has a cool promotion, celebrating the carrier joining the SkyTeam alliance. The maximum reward is one million bonus points, which you can unlock if you fly 15 SkyTeam airlines before the end of the year. It has been a long time since we’ve seen a program offer a promotion this fun… well done, SAS!
I’m curious how many people will successfully complete this. None? A few? Dozens?
What do you make of this SAS EuroBonus promotion?
Is it true that the miles expire within 5 years without any ability to extend them? If so, I would say this is far less valuable than it appears.
I'm sure that a few lucky ones will get this done. Reading what Ben writes here, just not the Lucky one. Not me, either.
I've been looking into this and tried to make it work. But I'm afraid I have to skip for a few reasons:
- the time frame and possibility for planning this is extremely short. One really has to drop everything, buy semi last minute flights and get on a trip...
I'm sure that a few lucky ones will get this done. Reading what Ben writes here, just not the Lucky one. Not me, either.
I've been looking into this and tried to make it work. But I'm afraid I have to skip for a few reasons:
- the time frame and possibility for planning this is extremely short. One really has to drop everything, buy semi last minute flights and get on a trip around the world instantly.
- two relatively 'easy' airlines (or 3, if you include CSA) are left out, as ITA and MEA have hubs close to other SkyTeam members, so they could be covered with just a few short hops.
- a few airlines can apparently only be counted with point redemption flights, if I understand this correctly, and I don't have enough EB points for that. Buying EB points is not profitable (12.000 Swedish Kronor for 60.000 points in their EuroBonus shop). And only flights in booking classes that actually earn EuroBonus points count, for what I understand.
- Apart from suddenly finding a few weeks time to get this done, I also noticed the actual monetary costs of this. The airlines and routes I was considering would add up to over $25.000 in cash for just economy flights (leaving out Delta and Aerolineas). That's also because flying in December is very expensive, October is halfway through already and last minutes aren't cheap in Europe, so that basically leaves November. Add to that that some SkyTeam members ask as much for a return flight as they do for a one way (or even more, for some reason - looking at you KL), and things gets quite costly very fast, also because all the flights have to be in booking classes that actually earn points on EuroBonus, for what I understand.
- Another reason to avoid December is that, if for some reason a flight doesn't show up on your account, one has to retroactively credit it before December 20, apparently. Which basically can't be done with anything flown in December.
- And the 1 million point carrot might actually not be so fresh. Persistent rumors about EB changes to align more with FlyingBlue or even convert to FlyingBlue have been going around for quite a while now. It would mean that the actual redemption value of these points would be... not so big. In that case it would end up more like a great story to tell the grandchildren one day: 'There was a time when your grand(ma/pa) dropped everything and went on a spontaneous $25.000 trip around the world on 15 airlines in a million points challenge. Little did we know that those points could only get them on a one way economy seat from Århus to Copenhagen one year later... Anyway, that's where your potential inheritance went.'
Wow, that will soon be worth 2 business class between Amsterdam and Paris or 2 Delta F class between Atlanta and Tallahassee.
Sorry to get off topic, but can SAS award tickets be booked through Air France's Flying Blue site yet?
Can't speak for FB but I recently booked SAS on Virgin Atlantic so I would assume so.
I have used AF’s app to use FlyingBlue miles to book award ticket flights operated by SAS. But such flights won’t count toward this promo.
Hello !
I’m looking to do this ! Can someone help booking these flights please ?
I’m departing from Paris CDG !
Thanks a lot for helping !
You can contact me on IG with the same nickname !
Do your own research, mate. Earn those miles.
Resurrect the Baht Run circa 2001 labor pool
Long time, amigo. Exactly what I was thinking. But this requires passports and perhaps some visas.
Yup- no Thai handicapped masseuses or off season rice farmers this go - round
I will be doing this. Also will be tapping a couple of others to do it. I was going to be around to hit up 8 or 9 of these airlines anyways, so it’s just a matter of my getting in 6 or 7 more SkyTeam airlines on the list. I am also likely teaming up with some other close associates to do this at mostly my expense. Note that ITA and MEA don’t count...
I will be doing this. Also will be tapping a couple of others to do it. I was going to be around to hit up 8 or 9 of these airlines anyways, so it’s just a matter of my getting in 6 or 7 more SkyTeam airlines on the list. I am also likely teaming up with some other close associates to do this at mostly my expense. Note that ITA and MEA don’t count for this promotion. And also note that there is a risk that the flights don’t credit or credit on time. Also note that registration is required in advance of travel. There are risks of this not working out with getting the 1 million miles despite flying, so tread carefully.
I'm sitting here figuring out a route to start in Dublin and go east taking in Dubai, BKK, LAX, NY - every thing else is a stopover/box ticking. Let me know if are you looking to expense more peoples trips? :P
Hi there !
I’d like to make it but dont know where to start, i’m from paris CDG, would you please help me on the search for this ?
Thaaanks !
Same nickname on IG if you want to contact
Lucky - Can you please figure out what is the most efficient routing in order to be able to take advantage of this? Would be amazing if there was a way to do it in a few days.
There's stuff on flyertalk about it. Two interesting observations I have made while playing with possible routings: VS only sell competitively priced one way tickets from DXB and S. Africa (haven't checked LOS, not brave enough for that), and SV offer some great one way business class deals from TUN to KUL/CGK/BKK. I'm keen to have a go at this but less keen on long flights in Y.
Note that Air Europa is only available for redemptions, not earnings. Thus you can only count them if you have enough EB points to redeem a ticket on them, not by buying a cash ticket. So that would be the one airline I'd skip, another one being Delta since entering the US is a PITA (so is China, but in case of China it can at least be partially avoided/softened by only having a transfer there). At least I assume DL has no fifth freedom flights?
SAS has now adjusted the circumstances and Air Europa now counts for tickets bought for $ as long as the booking class is in a mileage earning inventory per SAS’s chart. Same for Aerolineas Argentina.
I think Eurobonus is a good program, at least it was with star alliance
- Mileage earning was much better than miles & more
- it is / was an Amex transfer in certain countries
- Silver status was easy to get
- You could share accounts with 5 people and add up their miles at no cost
- Most importantly redemptions are fixed between regions, their definition of regions...
I think Eurobonus is a good program, at least it was with star alliance
- Mileage earning was much better than miles & more
- it is / was an Amex transfer in certain countries
- Silver status was easy to get
- You could share accounts with 5 people and add up their miles at no cost
- Most importantly redemptions are fixed between regions, their definition of regions presented some interesting opportunities (e.g fly turkish real business class within Europe and connecting or fly within south America 15k)
- Availability was good
- Taxes were cheap
Yeah Delta is not having any of that. The program will drastically change and be devalued to match Skymiles.
Delta has zero say in how SAS manages their program.
Delta and Air France-KLM will have influence on how SAS manages EuroBonus award pricing and availability and what the consequences are for award space on SAS’s own flights when trying to use SAS points. And it will be worse if SAS gets government approvals to become one with the Delta-AF/KL-led joint venture.
Ben you should do this!! I would love to read about it. Chance of a lifetime!
I'm not sure I see the attraction of this. For any date I look at point.me for BOS-CPH in business class, the price is between 1.4 and 1.5 million points. Is that a glitch with point.me?
That just means there are no ‘pure’ award seats left. Award seats have fixed prices unless they’re all booked, then you can purchase them for points relative to the cash price, hence the ridiculous high points price.
If you're looking at SAS bonus flights, it simply means that no 'regular' bonus flights are available. What you may be looking at is their 'cash & points' redemption, where prices can be extremely steep. Have you considered verifying this on the SAS site directly instead of a third party app? There's a few tools there for reward flights.
Spent some time playing with Google Flights. If you're paying cash, you could do it for around $3-4000 all in (with hotels) if you flew basic economy on all 15 legs and only brought a carryon. You could bring that down by redeeming points for hotels and flights.
It looks like the best bet for an American is to first fly Aeromexico to Mexico city, and from there fly Delta/Virgin Atlantic to Europe, bounce around...
Spent some time playing with Google Flights. If you're paying cash, you could do it for around $3-4000 all in (with hotels) if you flew basic economy on all 15 legs and only brought a carryon. You could bring that down by redeeming points for hotels and flights.
It looks like the best bet for an American is to first fly Aeromexico to Mexico city, and from there fly Delta/Virgin Atlantic to Europe, bounce around on short cheap flights there (with a little detour over to Bucharest), and end up at CDG.
Then, Saudia has some cheap flights from CDG to GCK (Jakarta), and from there you can take Garuda Indonesia up into Asia for the legs there, ending up somewhere you can fly back to the US.
I don't have the free time in the next few months to do it, or I'd totally be all over this. A million SAS points seems to be worth about $10,000.
Just 10 thousands? You can easily get 6 return EU-Asia tickets out of it (sure, taxes excluded but still).
Please attempt this Lucky, the content will be incredible to read, one of the most compelling trip reports you’ll have ever done.
I would immediately take out Saudia and Kenyan Airways that way I can concentrate on where most of them are which is Asia and Europe. the Asia portion could be easily done with a bunch of short flights over a span of 3-4 days. Same for Europe. WHere it gets complicated is with A. Argentinas.
Thinking.........................
Saudia is the best way for getting between Europe and Asia.
No need to go to Africa. Kenya Airways offer a fifth freedom flight between BKK and CAN which can even be done as a relatively quick and cost-effective turnaround flying MU in the opposite direction.
14 out of the 15 airlines can be done in the Eastern hemisphere alone, then either hop on a quick DL transatlantic or alternatively redeem some miles to Brazil/Chile/Uruguay and take AR for some quality time off in BUE over Christmas!
Not 15 airlies earns miles to EB yet!!! only 14
The first major obstacle that many here will not relalize that SK is still struggeling getting all those carriers to credit in EuroBonus. I am EB Gold and despite the major hassle to enter the odd number ranges that they use into any airlines booking systems (e.g. EBG1234567 for Gold or EBB1234567 for Basic), even if they are in, they dont credit automatically. None of them. SK credits miles real time, so the moment you...
The first major obstacle that many here will not relalize that SK is still struggeling getting all those carriers to credit in EuroBonus. I am EB Gold and despite the major hassle to enter the odd number ranges that they use into any airlines booking systems (e.g. EBG1234567 for Gold or EBB1234567 for Basic), even if they are in, they dont credit automatically. None of them. SK credits miles real time, so the moment you touch down the miles are in your account. This works.
But 6 weeks into the move to SkyTeam, I am chasing flight credits on KL, AF, SV, MU and UX. None of them are credited. So the whole promotion has a big potential for shit to hit the fan, once people realize this is gonna be really bad.
Their gold line blames everything on IT issues. However its also a management issue and the total negliance of handling the issues (which are currently outsourced to Accenture in India).
All my AFKL flights have posted automatically to SK.
The same can’t be said by all of us for SkyTeam flights which are neither SAS flights nor flights by SAS’s 20% owner Air France-KLM. Did you get Aeromexico to credit to your SAS account? Si o no?
What happened to Latinpass?
note that per your screenshot Aerolineas Argentinas and Air Europa are only mileage redemption partners, not mileage earning partners, so unless something changes between now and the end of the year I expect those will be the two most people need to drop.
I expect Kenya Airways' BKK-CAN fifth freedom flight will be popular with folks pursing this…
So CSA is not included?
They are still flying till Oct 26..
No, they're not an Eurobonus partner. Neither is ITA.
CSA is leaving SkyTeam on October 26th.
The airline is dropping its AOC and will only serve as a holding company for the LCC Smartwings.
@Juraj - That's what Polarbear said..
CSA, MEA and ITA are excluded current SkyTeam members for this promotion.
This makes no sense to me: "In case of retroactive registration of a flight, it has to be submitted by December 20, 2024."
So, you're SOL if your flights from ~12/15 or so until 12/31 don't post? I could understand if the deadline was January 20, 2025, but Dec. 20 is ridiculous.
Anyone want to help me build an itinerary out of SFO?
I’m in! Seriously considering doing it!
I’m scheduled already to fly KLm, AF, Gaurda and KE….just need to credit these to their program!?
yes you need to first sign up. Then see my comment above, you need to try hard to get the EB Number into the other airline systems - good luck and then you need to fight with their Indian support center on getting the flights credited.
I just graduated university and was planning to travel for a few months with my partner ... she will kill me if I even suggest this but the timing really is perfect :)))
A huge hit is coming...15 members (or more?) in a week...by Yours Truly
I can’t believe you’re not doing it Ben. I get you have a family but… this is what we all come to the blog for!
I’d do it if I was between jobs, but unfortunately couldn’t manage this while holding down my current job even tho it’s remote
Kenya Airways doesn’t seem terribly hard to include but absolutely one should leave out Aerolineas Argentinas
I work remotely and going to find a way to do it…