The news about the alliance change of SAS Scandinavian Airlines could hardly be missed here on Travel-Dealz. Before they officially joined SkyTeam on September 1, there were new developments almost every week, which we reported on.
SAS is now celebrating this with a very special bonus promotion. It allows you to earn up to 1 million EuroBonus points (worth approx. €10,000) in one go. However, the required effort is correspondingly high, because if you want to become a points millionaire, you’ll have to fly with 15 different SkyTeam airlines by December 31, 2024.
Other options are available in this promotion, but they are considerably less appealing.
- 5 different SkyTeam airlines = 10,000 points
- 10 different SkyTeam airlines = 100,000 points
- 15 different SkyTeam airlines = 1,000,000 points
All tickets where either EuroBonus points are earned or redeemed count, i.e. you can also redeem miles to get to the 15 airlines. Before participating, you must register for the promotion. This is only possible in the SAS app for iOS or Android.
To receive the 1,000,000 miles, you must choose 15 of the following 17 airlines:
- SAS
- Aerolineas Argentinas1
- Aeromexico
- Air Europa2
- Air France
- China Airlines
- China Eastern
- Delta Air Lines
- Garuda Indonesia
- Kenya Airways
- KLM
- Korean Air
- Saudia
- TAROM
- Vietnam Airlines
- Virgin Atlantic
- Xiamen Airlines
1 – only valid for award flights, according to the partner page. However, there is also a mileage table for earning points that should apply to paid tickets
2 – only valid for award flights, according to the partner page. However, there is also a mileage table for earning points that should apply to paid tickets
Conditions
The following rules must be followed:
- Only airlines where EuroBonus points are either earned or redeemed count
- Flights with Czech Airlines are excluded (will cease all flights at the end of October anyway), MEA is also not on the list of partners
- You only get award points as a bonus, no status points
- Missing mileage credits will only count if the application for them to be credited is submitted by December 20, 2024, at the latest
- The operating airline counts
- Those who have successfully participated will be notified in January 2025
- SAS employees are not allowed to participate
- In the event of misuse, SAS reserves the right to withdraw the points
- The complete conditions can be found here
Both the potential cost and return are very high here. Even one missing mileage credit could mean that you only get 100,000 miles instead of 1,000,000 miles!
Routing Example: 1,010,000 Miles for €2,475
Completing this mother of all mileage runs is no easy task, but it can be done if you invest roughly €2,475 and over a month of your time.
Here’s a possible routing:
| SkyTeam? | Airline | Date | Routing | Booking Class | Price | Note |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| # 1 | SAS | 05.11. | CPH - ATH | O | €94 | only personal item1 |
| # 2 | TAROM | 08.11. | ATH - OTP | V | €83 | |
| ✈️ | Ryanair | 09.11. | OTP - BVA | – | €43 | €29 + €14 carry-on |
| 🚌 | – | 09.11. | – | – | €17 | Transfer BVA – Paris |
| # 3 | Air France | 13.11. | CDG - MAN | T | ⬇️ | |
| # 4 | Virgin Atl. | 13.11. | MAN - JFK | T | €428 | Book r/t but only use the outbound flight |
| # 5 | Delta | 17.11. | LGA - DFW | V | ⬇️ | |
| # 6 | AeroMexico | 17.11. | DFW - MEX - PVR | V | €202 | Book Main Cabin2 |
| ✈️ | Delta | 21.11. | PVR - LAX | E | €139 | No miles because Basic Economy3 |
| # 7 | Saudia | 25.11. | LAX - JED - SIN | V | €394 | |
| 🚌 | – | 27.11. | – | – | €10 | Transfer SIN – KUL |
| # 8 | KLM | 28.11. | KUL - CGK | R | €50 | |
| # 9 | Garuda Ind. | 30.11. | CGK - KUL | H | ⬇️ | |
| # 10 | Vietnam Air | 30.11. | KUL - SGN | E | €206 | |
| # 11 | China Airlines | 01.12. | SGN - TPE | N | €146 | |
| # 12 | Xiamen Airl. | 03.12. | TSA - XMN | Q | €151 | ⚠️ Booking class4 |
| 🚅 | – | 05.12. | – | – | €40 | Train Xiamen – Guangzhou |
| # 13 | Kenya Airways | 07.12. | CAN - BKK | N | €122 | |
| # 14 | China Eastern | 08.12. | BKK - KMG - PVG | T | €115 | |
| # 15 | Korean Air | 10.12. | PVG - ICN | T | €81 | |
| ✈️ | China Southern | 11.12. | ICN - SHE - FRA | – | €153 | |
| €2,474 |
- 1 – only a personal item (except for EuroBonus Gold / Diamond members)
- 2 – in Delta Basic Economy, you earn no miles/points at EuroBonus, so choose “Main Cabin”
- 3 – in Basic Economy, no miles are earned at EuroBonus. In this case, it doesn’t matter since the necessary Delta segment has already been flown
- 4 – the cheapest tickets for around €130 are in booking class P, which doesn’t give any miles. According to ITA Matrix, tickets in booking class Q should be available for €152. However, these can’t simply be booked online. You may need to try calling the airline or consult a traditional travel agency.
In this case, we assumed that all tickets were purchased as paid tickets. However, award flights booked with SAS points also count towards the challenge. The tickets themselves will also get you another roughly 10,000 points, regardless of the promotion.
This could potentially help reduce the overall cost. However, it doesn’t help much with the expensive Virgin Atlantic segment, as an award ticket from Europe to New York in economy costs more than 40,000 EuroBonus points.
Conclusion
The offer has the potential to become the deal of the year … or the flop of the year, if there are problems with crediting miles, some airlines not accepting the EuroBonus number, etc.
One thing is foreseeable though: there probably won’t be an easier way to collect one million miles in one go anytime soon. It’s also important to note that SAS miles expire after 4-5 years, except for EuroBonus Diamond status holders.
Translated and edited by Ditmar
Cover Picture: Ditmar Lange
Comments (12)
Great post, my wife and I started from Oslo and made a 18 days trip around the world. Some flights have not credited yet and we spent around 10k€ including everything – flights, food, hotel, local excursions, taxis etc. We are waiting for approx. 2 weeks and have still not received a confirmation from SAS that we completed this challenge. We got credit from 11 airlines, 2 airlines (with valid booking class with Eurobonus registered on the boarding pass) are still pending; and 2 airlines booked with points in a single PNR. We did not pay attention to this post earlier and could have saved 1000€ and 1 day as we booked wrong Xiamen airlines class from Taipei to Guangzhou. Fingers crossed !
I haven’t gotten any congratulations e-mail either.
To me it looks like so far only people without award flights have gotten their points. I’m in the same boat with “2 airlines booked with points in a single PNR” and haven’t gotten any e-mail either despite all tickets (except the awards) having posted.
But I wouldn’t worry about this too much. The main aspect for you needs to be having all revenue flights posted. Did the retrocredit form not work for you?
Delta Basic Economy can not earn miles in Delta SkyMiles Program, but works for SAS EuroBonus. Basically you only need to check the cabin code. If its listed, you can definitely earn the miles.
Delta’s Booking Class for Basic Economy is E and therefore ineligible to earn EuroBonus miles per https://www.flysas.com/en/eurobonus/partners/airlines/delta/
Booking a KLM / Air France codeshare operated by Delta may work, even on a Light / Basic fare.
I reserved two Delta basic economy which fare code is V, and they are eligible earning EuroBonus miles. Basically its still based on the fare code rather than its basic economy ticket or not.
I think some delta basic gives miles, if fare code V, for example air france marketed?
Would transferring Amex points to SAS to use for booking an award ticket on an eligible partner count?
What a deal. Hopefully there are no “tricks” along the way. Following this :-).
Sounds good, I am very interested :-).
Does Etihad count as skyteam?
No
Guys, it’s so nice that you actually took time and researched an optimal route. Well done.