Last month, I mused about whether I would go for the Million Mile Challenge via SAS EuroBonus. Some personal and professional matters needed to fall into place for me to do this and they now have, meaning the challenge is accepted and the trip is on. But I’m not going alone…I’ve decided to take my 8-year-old son Augustine with me on the trip, throwing in a whole extra layer of complexity…and fun.
SAS Million Mile Challenge Accepted
If you’re not sure what I’m talking about, check out my post from a few weeks back where I outlined the SAS Million Mile challenge. Put simply, if you fly on 15 SkyTeam carriers and credit the flights to SAS, you’ll earn 1,000,000 EuroBonus miles. That’s a sweet deal…so sweet I’m doing a double or nothing and taking my son along so we can earn 2,000,000 miles.
I’m used to traveling alone, especially for these sorts of trips, but Augustine and I had such a wonderful time on our Caribbean cruise earlier this year that I strongly suspect he will do well on this trip too.
There’s a problem, though, with Augustine…school. He is off the entire Thanksgiving week, but we also are not willing to miss Thanksgiving with my family (family first, miles second…) and that means he’ll need to miss a week of school. Ideal? No. But he is second grade, so I do fall into the “travel is more educational” camp and we’ll take his claswork along to help him pass time on some of the longer flights.
I’m trying hard to limit this to one major trip around the world and then one trip to Mexico and back in which we can fly Aeromexico and Delta. That’s looking increasingly difficult with the time constraitns I am under, meaning we may have to make one trip to Asia and then a separate round-the-world trip with more focus on Europe.
Yes, I’ve already got a very solid idea of how this will look, but I wanted to seek your advice and insight as well, since Live And Let’s Fly readers often come back with excellent tips.
Here are my thoughts:
- We are going to stay in economy class for most of this trip, if not all of it, so I can’t do eight overnight flights in a row…we are going to have to break it up just a little bit.
- I have other professional obligations that require my daily attention, so this will not be a holiday – I need time to work each day, which means flights must have wi-fi or I need long layovers/overnights to get work done.
- Ideally, I’d be able to introduce Augustine to some great cities and we could stay at various Hyatt hotels (even though I’ll lose my Globalist status next year).
- The trip will necessarily include China Eastern and Xiamen Air, meaning we will need to travel through. Mainland China I have a visa, but Augustine does not…but China does have a generous visa waiver for transit passengers.
- Speaking of visas, I will get him a visa to Vietnam since we’ll need to fly Vietnam Airlines and I would love to return to the Park Hyatt Saigon (and also visit Hanoi for the first time, though I do not know if there will be time).
- There are cheap Saudia fares out of Cairo and I definitely want to spend a day in Cairo so Augustine can see the pyramids and we can check out the recently-opened new Egyptian Museum.
- Since we’ll be flying Garuda Indonesia, I’d love to spend a night or two in Jakarta or even take Augustine to Bali.
- I want to take a Fifth Freedom KLM flight.
- As for European overnights, I’m thinking Madrid (Air Europa) and perhaps Bucharest (Tarom).
- Ideally, we’d fly at least premium economy on the intercontinental segments, but I’m not willing to spend (all that) much more…and I think an economy class review would be a lot of fun for the blog.
I know SAS EuroBonus miles are not the most valuable, but I would argue they are valuable, especially if you fly SAS. We all tend to have flexibility in our schedule and having two million miles to put toward premium economy or business class redemptions will hopefully get us back and forth between the USA and Germany many times.
So yes, I’m doing this. And leaving soon, I hope.
Well said that family is more important than miles . ( Good thinking .)
Also More important are school , friends and sports . ( Some child actors miss out on all of these , and have arid lives .)
Most Important are religion , decency , and lawful behaviour . ( These are Fundamental , and without them is disaster .)
The danger of serious illness must also be considered .
The transit visa situation in China is a bit complicated if you want to enter and exit from different parts of China AND you want to stay in China for more than 24 hours. Just to be safe, I recommend choosing a city that is served by both China Eastern and Xiamen and sticking to that city.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Visa_policy_of_mainland_China
Most are 144 hour transit now for A-B-C, no?
Yes but you cannot travel within Chiha
I love it! You might need a school board approval ( or something similar ), but given the educational value, it’s hard to imagine that would be a problem. My first thought was the new Egyptian Museum! Augustine is so fortunate.
Look into routing via Shenzen for Xiamen. The train from airport to Hong Kong is under an hour.
I mapped out the whole trip to see what it would look like, and that was my plan. I love Hong Kong, so that was my long layover/get work done city.
3 cheers for flying economy instead of having a fat head and insisting on business class with doors.
3 cheers for seeing more than aircraft interiors and lounges but seeing Egypt.
If your son would have a German passport as his mother, he would not need a visa to mainland China neither Vietnam.
Exactly my thought. He does not hold a German passport?
Oh, did not know that! Yes, he has a German passport. Perfect!
The child fare will lower the cost per EuroBonus point earned.
Quite the adventure!
For Vietnam the Park Hyatt is lovely and it’s a nice place to visit for a night or two if you’re in a hurry. Given your time constraints I’d try Hanoi another time.
I love Bali and visit pretty much every year but you’d be shortchanging both the island and your son if you visit for less than a week.
On the Indonesia note, Yogyakarta might actually be more interesting for a young one than Bali. Especially if just for a night or two.
Your headline makes no sense.
You are not “ TWO MILLION MILES WITH SAS MILLION MILE CHALLENGE”
You and your son are.
And by the way, how can you go for 2 million when the challenge is for ONE MILLION miles??
Duh.
P/S hi to Augustine. I can’t believe he’s 8yo already!!
I’m not going to use profanity, but I really want to say F Yeah! I’ve loved the content Frequent Miler has been putting up, and I’m going to enjoy reading about your journey as well. Bringing along your son will be fascinating, even for me, who doesn’t have any kids.
I said the same thing on Ben’s blog today, but the Waldorf Astoria in Cairo really is a great new addition. Near the airport, and in a quiet neighborhood with nice coffee shops. Not very expensive, and you can use the Amex Credit.
I really hate that I’m not doing it too, and think in the future I will regret not having done it. I’m a remote worker, and I have the means, but I have business travel sprinkled throughout the rest of the year that I can’t really cancel.
I know the Park Hyatt Saigon is great, but Hanoi is worth a visit if you haven’t been. If you go there I highly recommend the Sofitel Legend Metropole in the historic wing (the rooms in the modern Opera wing are larger and arguably more luxurious
, but it sort of defeats the purpose of staying there). It’s one of my favorite hotels I have ever stayed at and you can even tour the bunker where Jane Fonda and other guests would go for safety during the war. It’s kind of perfect for a whirlwind trip like this because IMHO, the hotel is a destination unto itself.
Depending on how long you are there, the “Hanoi Hilton” prison is a 5-10 minute walk as is the Vietnam War Museum, which presents a very different, if biased, perspective on the War. There’s also a great place to get pho, in an alley off the lake in the middle of the city not too far away.
Regardless, this sounds like a great adventure for you and Augustine and I hope you enjoy!
I don’t know if you’re looking at staying in KUL but if so the Grand Hyatt is well priced, has an amazing location near the Petronas Towers, the best breakfast I’ve seen, a very nice swimming pool, and an incredible club lounge that even has a play room inside the lounge for kids to be kids. It’d be a wonderful place to spend a night or two blending time for you to work and Augustine to have fun and explore a little bit.
Augustine could use his German passport for China and Vietnam without visa requirements as far as I know
You are correct – that makes this trip much easier. Maybe I show him the Great Wall of China?
Though I suspect we’ll fly through Xiamen and I’ve never been there. Look like there is a nice Hyatt Regency there, though the “Great Fire Wall” will make work tough.
Wonderful!!! I thought long and hard about this but I think I’d rather have 1m alaskan miles for $12k through the Hawaiian sale just due to lack of time.
If you’re planning on stopping a few times in Asia then it’s going to take 2 weeks to do the whole challenge im guessing ?
For ease I’d skip Hanoi. Ho Chi Minh City is brilliant and you can get a great taste of se Asia and history there. Brilliant for kids.
Obviously the Kenya airways fifth freedom flight in Asia is handy.
I got tied up in trying to book the right booking classs to actually accrue miles as lots of fares get zero euro bonus miles.
I am hoping to finish this 1 million points challenge before Thanksgiving.
I am sort of surprised that no one has put out a consolidated helper on how to at least make sure the SAS EuroBonus number gets loaded properly for each of the SkyTeam carriers.
I have no clue on how many people are aiming to land the 1 million promo points for 15 or more SkyTeam flights before year-end, but it will be interesting to see in January or February how many met the requirement for the 1 million points. It will also be interesting to know how much of financial tolerance SAS has for the expense of this promo and what the breaking point number is for when there are “too many” successful 1 million point promo achievers.
Theoretically, it’s possible to have enough people fly 15 Skyteam airlines for under $3000 to generate enough flight credit to pretty much necessitate a bloodbath devaluation of the SAS points.
I don’t think it’s too problematic. Maybe 100 people do it? Points worth 6-7k? People flying empty seats on SAS that they wouldn’t have flown before so actual seat cost minimal.
Boat load of social media views and plenty of articles going forward about “how I redeemed my sas eurobonus points to fly to xyz”.
Would love to know how much the simply miles promotion cost American!!! I bought 1.5m miles in that alone. Cost of $6k
There are at least 500 people trying to get the 1 million points. Plenty may drop to a 100k point objective or even quit, but it could easily end up being a few hundred going for it.
I was going for it but dropped it when I realised how much time it would take me. Am assuming a lot of similar people. But yes will be interesting to see how many people achieve it.
I guess at worst they devalue and lower the cost of the giveaway. Would suck but bean counters may push it
Is there a particular flight that “everyone” is likely going to take? Like one of the KL 5th freedoms, or the KE 5th freedom? If you see other SAS runners on it, than that should tell you how many people are actually doing it.
KQ, not KE
Make sure the visa exempt travel for Germans to China is still good after November 30th.
http://gy.china-embassy.gov.cn/eng/lsfw/lszytz/202311/t20231128_11188664.htm
The extension un til 31,12,25 was already announced in May by Chinese president, now a new countries are added.
Travel now while he is young and missing school is no big deal. It gets a bit harder (but we still took our son out of school) when they get into late middle school and high school years.
You could fly KLM from SIN to DPS and stay a night at Mövenpick Jimbaran. Close to the airport and kids paradise, we are there right now and the little one loves it.
There are so many bloggers taking these trips now. I wish I had the time! Just a little jealous. 🙂
Have a great trip with your son.
I’m a college student right now, and I’m dying dp this challenge. I’ve been following LALF for years now, and other boarding area blogs since my pre-teen years. I’ve been dying to see a mileage run opportunity like the good old days. My only issue is the cost of accomodation. Anyone got any tips on how to get cheap (but comfortable) accomodation? And just to ask for the sake of it, anyone have any expiring hotel points their willing to give to a young guy trying to fund a lot of future trips to Europe to see family from his 1M SAS points bonus?
Looking forward to the trip report(s), but – as a long-time Eurobonus Diamond member with >2M SAS points – I think it sounds borderline awful. It’s simply not worth it.
Following the transition to Skyteam, partner points redemptions have been VERY difficult (except for the first two weeks), representing a HUGE devaluation. It’s almost impossible to redeem the points for TATL business class awards now. With Star Alliance, that was never an issue.
I would probably spend $5K or a bit more to buy 1M additional SAS points, but to endure (and spend time to plan, and take PTO for) economy class on 15 different Skyteam carriers … no thanks.
For that matter, I highly doubt that many Eurobonus members will follow-through on this challenge. If you have a job, a family, other vacations planned, and/or simply want to fly premium cabins (guilty as charged), it’s not feasible.
That being said, it’s probably a good PR trick for SAS, and I do look forward to your trip reports 🙂
An acquaintance had put out feelers to try to get some working age people in Oslo and Stockholm to do this. I was told that single parents with children every other week or every two weeks were among the ones who were more able to do this than others, but a lot of those people don’t have vacation time available at this point to go unless sacrificing sacrosanct Christmas holiday time.
Forget the miles, what a cool father son challenge adventure. He’s going to have a ball and learn a ton from the experience and people he meets. Fingers crossed for you.
Excellent stuff , particularly about taking your son with you!
I’m starting mine end of next week, managed to do it with zero overnight flights in Y and only one Y flight exceeding 4.5 hours. I’m unduly excited about it.
Hi, Matthew! We are also doing the challenge with our second grader! We should meet up and get the kids together for part of it so they don’t get bored out of their minds! We are traveling in Europe thanksgiving week and then Asia the first two weeks of December!
German passport holders don’t need a visa for 15 days travel to China
Dragging an 8 year old on an itinerary that would be challenging to fully grown men. Good Luck!