The new “Who Wants To Be A EuroBonus Millionaire” promotion from SAS has caught me by surprise and captivated me. I’m seriously considering going for it in the weeks ahead…
Cool SAS EuroBonus Promo: Fly 15 SkyTeam Airlines In 2024, Earn One Million Points
I didn’t even bother to check out this promotion until today, assuming it was a contest or sweepstakes of some kind that I had no desire to even waste my time reading about. But I was wrong…very wrong. On the contrary, SAS has a very attractive promotion that rewards you for the more SkyTeam carriers you fly between now and the end of the year:
- Travel on five different SkyTeam airlines, earn 10,000 SAS EuroBonus bonus points
- Travel on 10 different SkyTeam airlines, earn 100,000 SAS EuroBonus bonus points
- Travel on 15 different SkyTeam airlines, earn 1,000,000 SAS EuroBonus bonus points
The promotion period began on October 8, 2024 and runs through December 31, 2024.
SkyTeam has 20 members (19 if you leave off Aeroflot Russian Airlines, which is currently suspended). SAS also leaves off ITA Airways (which plans to join the Lufthansa Group and exit SkyTeam) and Middle East Airlines (based in Beirut, which is hardly a safe destination or transit point these days). That means that to get the 1 million miles, you must fly 15 of the 17 remaining carriers.
Additional stipulations:
- Registration is required only via the SAS app
- For a flight to count for this promotion, EuroBonus points must be earned or redeemed to pay for the flight, so even award flights (if booked through EuroBonus) would qualify
There’s no doubt that SAS EuroBonus is not one of the most valuable loyalty programs. On the other hand, the redemption rates are respectable for SAS flights and I love flying SAS…earning enough points for 20 one-ways in business class between North American and Copenhagen is a big deal and EuroBonus releases more space to its own members than to partners.
So yes, I’m thinking about it:
- In the Americas, I can rather easily fly Delta and Aeromexico and would skip Aerolineas Argentinas (1, 2)
- In Europe, I could fly SAS, Air Europa, Air France, KLM, and Tarom on one trip (3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8)
- To Europe I could fly Virgin Atlantic (9)
- In the Middle East, flying Saudia is often reasonable (10)
- In East Asia, I could link up Vietnam Airlines, Xiamen Airlines, Kenya Airways (on its Fifth Freedom Bangkok – Guangzhou route), Garuda Indonesia, China Eastern, and Chian Airlines in one big trip (11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16)
That’s 16 carriers so I could even leave out one…
Now my mind is spinning about possible routes.
What do you think? Is anyone else going to take advantage of this very cool promotion?
Matt, I just graduated university and am travelling this year with my partner so it is feasible. My problem is this: if there are any tech issues with crediting the points, or if SAS decides to play cheeky with the fine print, I/we will have zero (0) recourse. I have had similar bad experiences with Turkish Airlines (I took advantage of their promo during the pandemic to refund flights for miles instead of cash, and didn’t receive the miles ever for most of my bookings…)
Am I being paranoid?
Is your concern valid? Yes, it is. Would that stop me from doing it? Probably not. I’m just deciding whether to take Agustine along or not…
2 million miles would go a long way. If I had a travel job, I’d certainly go for it. Would make for some interesting reading (hint…hint…)
I’ve got your headline, feel free to use “Father and Son’s Million Mile Journey”
You’re Welcome 🙂
The real sweet spot is if a family with young children have access to SAS credit cards while racking up a million miles each from this promo. Then they may also have access to the 2-for-1 awards earned from SAS credit card use with enough spend on the cards. That’s a very lucrative combination.
If you take one or both of your kids on the journeys, you could benefit from child discounts on some routes to lower the average cost of each 1 million SAS miles/points earned. That assumes you avoid any boondoggles with getting all the required flights to credit and use the EuroBonus points before the expiration date.
@Matthew Klint
https://www.headforpoints.com/2024/10/11/confusion-over-sas-one-million-bonus-miles-promotion/
The problems begin… proceed with caution…
Go for it …sounds like a lot of fun and you say you like SAS.
Would love to read this!
I think most of your readers would like to see you give it a shot. Yes there are risks, that’s why it’s called a Challenge. It’s not suppose to be easy. Go for it while you are healthy. You will have so much experiences to write about.
Matt, how much (ballpark) do you think the flights would cost to get the million miles? (Or how much do you think it would be worth to spend?) And how many weeks do you think it would take?
I don’t think the flights will cost that much, especially if I do Fifth Freedom flights.
The real problem will be time…time is money too. I imagine this will take a good two weeks and I’d break it into three or four trips.
Thanks! if you choose to go, would you be able to share your itinerary? Would be neat to see if maybe it’s feasible to do here too!
Yes, I certainly will!
Is this a serious question? Yes, he’d share his journey.
This doesn’t even remotely take two weeks…with ST status and the use of lounges and the willingness to just pack clothing you’re happy leaving behind and showering in said lounges, you can leave on 12NOV from the east coast of the States and be back on 20NOV…crazy yes, but isn’t this anyway? I put together a bonkers itinerary that doesn’t run afoul of SK only recognizing 17 of the ST members. Eco on short-hauls, PremEco on long-hauls, taking advantage of upgrades on long-hauls, easy peasy (yet exhausting)…but for 1mm – worth it.
Care to share itinerary? I’m putting it together. May take my son along.
I think I’ll get it down to under $3100. Maybe even down to around $2200.
I will be applying for some visas, but I would have had to get some anyway. Have enough hotel points with hotel programs that provide me breakfast and/or lounge access that I don’t even anticipate much in the way of food costs.
I live in Orlando, FL (USA), and I’ve been looking at the economics of doing this challenge. I was able to piece together a round-the-world trip flying 15 Skyteam carriers for $2,730 for all flights (and all in December – between December 10 to 30th). And prices are slightly higher during this time for some routes due to the increased holiday demand. My routing is the following (doing them all in one trip): MCO-BOS-LHR-OSL-CDG-BCN-MAD-OTP-CAI-RUH-DMM-PEK-ICN-PVG-XMN-HKG, CAN-BKK-CGK-KUL-SGN-TPE-LAX-MCO, all in Economy.
The most expensive flight in this routing is from Ho Chi Mihn City (SGN) to LAX, which is $550 on China Airlines. I can do the entire challenge for $2,100 if I just want to cross off all the airlines, bit that leaves me in Asia without a way home. But you can use award miles, so I may do that from SGN to JFK, and then book a $92 DL ticket back to MCO. And I’d change the routing a bit to squeeze in a cheap China Airlines ticket from HKG to TPE for $120. Hope this helps!
Certainly a fun adventure BUT….1M points within Sky Team might net you three one ways to Europe in J. Hardly a trade off for what you are going to spend to get 15 different airlines flown.
Only if I had the time.
Indeed a very cool promo for us AV-geeks, I’m quite tempted myself! But no surprise it’s getting hammered by the environmentalist in the Scandinavian media 😀
As a long time SAS flyer out of Norway, one thing I would definitely factor in is that SK IT is notoriously slow and incompetent. The transition to SkyTeam has been quite rough on the IT side, and if the automated crediting fails, retroactively crediting miles from several of the SkyTeam airlines can be painful. So I would recommend to build in some buffer (aim to do all 17, or at least 16), and leave ample time between the flights and the end of the promo for everything to register properly. Or be prepared to take the fight with (the outsourced) CS after the fact…
Just do it.
No way you’re gonna do this in Y
Wouldn’t that be something…lol.
I will do it mainly in economy class, beside the Delta, SAS and Virgin ones that were already paid before this promo was announced.
Is it just me or did you count wrong? You counted 16 but only listed 15.
Second bullet point at the end only has 5 airlines yet it looks like you counted 6.
“SkyTeam has 20 members”
They also left out Czech Airlines, which makes sense, given they will be gone by the end of month.
Exactly. I didn’t even bother to mention it…and so sad I never flew it.
Is SAS not counting it as a valid airline? If it is counting it, then you have till Oct 27, provided you fly either PRG-MAD or PRG-CDG…
I’ve flown CSA. You’re not missing anything in terms of experience other than the ease of flying to Prague when you want to go to Prague.
CSA used to be a brilliant airline in the noughties, they had the best FFP in the whole of Europe (segment qualification and unlimited complimentary upgrades for elites) and excellent service onboard and in the lounges. Unfortunately they got caught up between politics and an avalanche of LCCs invading PRG and didn’t have the (material or even tacit) state support from which airlines such as TAP and even LX have benefitted.
Czech, ITA and MEA are the excluded current members of SkyTeam, per the SAS terms applicable to this promo. Aeroflot is suspended from SkyTeam.
Yes, I know all of that, but thanks for telling us all again.
I think you should do it. As to Augustine, that’s a lot for a kid but you’re choice of course. I thought he was in school.
He is in school! Probably a bad idea.
Go for it. When I saw this promotion, it tickled my interest as well but I probably will not end up doing it
Im contemplating doing it as well. Could do the Asia legs with you?
One problem raised in the forums is that a lot of programs don’t let you enter a SAS ff number atm. Emailing them retrospectively will be risky. Not being credited is my big fear. Don’t want to end up on 13-14 with a six month email chain rejected.
Also air Europa you have to redeem points for and supposedly they’re almost zero availability.
In terms of cost the fares have to earn points so some of the super cheap fares won’t count, ie very basic economy.
Anyho… I’m watching it unfold but I may be doing this trip too.
Why must Air Europa be redeemed?
As per your screen shot above it says “use points” only for air Europa and aerolíneas.
How strange.
Air Europa have plenty of availability, for a quick and cheap solution try MAD-BCN or one of their PMI routes.
I want to try and hit all 17 in order to have some margin of error.
Ok thanks that’s helpful!
I doubt VS sell cheap one-way tickets from the USA, you should consider flying them on the way back – they have decent pricing from India, DXB, JNB.
I’m thinking an inter-Carribean flight and also maybe the Air France island hopper as well.
I looked into that, the places they fly to in the Carribbean aren’t the CUNs and SDQs of the region, they are very niche and you’d probably need to end up flying Caicos Express Airways or something daft in order to get there and/or back.
Actually, a one-way ticket from Boston to London on Virgin Atlantic is $194 on most days. That seems to be the cheapest way to fly Virgin Atlantic, and that can position you to Europe to fly all of the European Skyteam carriers.
Need a Visa for Vietnam
Americans do, but many Europeans don’t. However, even if you need a visa, it’s very easy to apply online and not expensive at all.
Leave Garuda, China Airlines or Virgin Atlantic away. You can fly to Europe with KLM, Air France or SAS.
Plan various options…cheapest way, fastest way with reasonable connection times, and way that allows at least a few hours of sightseeing at most stoʻps
On further thought, the promotion is nice but not that great. It’s essentially a mileage run to earn 1 million points. If points are worth 1 cent then the budget is $10,000. Spend more and you paid too much. Of course, you’ll get points for the flights so maybe the budget can be $15,000. If you exceed the budget, it’s a bad deal. If you go under, that’s how much you’re ahead.
You can do it for far less than $3k, the German travel dealz blog has published an itinerary and there’s more on flyertalk.
If my wife would let me, I would totally do that.
I’m planning to fly SEA-TPE-SGN on CI, SGN-BKK on VN, BKK-KMG-BKK on MU, BKK-CGK on GA, CGK-XMN-BKK on MF, BKK-CAN-BKK on KQ, BKK-ICN-SEA on KE to fly CI, VN, MU, GA, MF, KQ, and KE.
Then SEA-MSP-MEX on DL, MEX-MIA on AM, and MIA-EZE-MIA on AR to get DL, AM, and AR.
Then SEA-MSP-AMS on DL, AMS-RUH on KL, RUH-CDG on SV, CDG-LHR on AF, and LHR-SEA on VS
I will also fit in something on SK in one of my already planned trips.
What do you think?
Will this work?
Looks good!
Hey, I’ve got another quick question, if you don’t mind.
So when booking a ticket on China Eastern, I wasn’t able to input my Eurobonus number in the ticket. So, I called up SAS and they told me to book the ticket and then call China Eastern to add the number. However, I tried calling China Eastern’s offices in San Francisco and Los Angeles, and their headquarters in Shanghai (https://us.ceair.com/newCMS/us/en/content/en_Header/HeaderTop/201903/t20190305_2721.html), and I am not able to be connected to an agent. What should I do here? Just hope for the best at the check-in counter or just not do the mileage run?
Amit, I wish I could help, but I don’t have any insight into this problem. Please keep me updated, though. It’s a very important issue. You might also want to ask Greg or Nick at Frequent Miler. If I find anything I will update this comment.
can you fly 15 airlines one way each???vs RT on each???
SAS partner availability in J is abysmal!! I’ve been searching all combinations for a huge date range and the hit rate is 2-3% on average. It’s probably a bit higher on SAS metal. So you tell me if this promotion is even worth it. Spend $3000 and earn a million ft of toilet paper.
I don’t care about partner availability – I care about transatlantic J and I do see that SK releases more space to its own members and only charges 50K one-way.
Well, a cursory search of even that routing yields peanuts. I mean i get it if it’s a thrill to accomplish the challenge for the fun of it, but this is a very poor frequent flyer program in a very problematic stage at the moment. Are you sure it’s worth the risk?
Are Fifth Freedom flights allowed???
yes, they are. KLM and Kenya Airways here I come!