Fly 15 Times, Earn 1 Million Miles: SAS’s SkyTeam Challenge—Is It Worth The Effort?

Air France took a 20% ownership stake in Scandinavian Airlines. SAS moved from Star Alliance to SkyTeam last month. Now they want their customers to get to know their SkyTeam partner airlines – fly them instead of Star Alliance carriers like Lufthansa and United.

They’re offering up to 1 million bonus miles to customers who travel by the end of the year on different SkyTeam carriers:

  • 5 airlines = 10,000 bonus points
  • 10 airlines = 100,000 bonus points
  • 15 airlines = 1 million bonus points

So earn the bonus, you can buy paid tickets but SAS EuroBonus redemption tickets also count. While you have until December 31 to fly, you need to claim retro credit on any flights that don’t post to your SAS account automatically by December 20, 2024 which is a bit weird. I’d be sure to try to complete this by mid-December.

Note that if you book codeshare flights, it is the operating carrier that counts. You can’t pick up partners just by booking their codeshares, e.g. book several Delta flights through different SkyTeam partners. Miles will post in January 2025.

Here are the 17 airlines that qualify towards the promotion: SAS; Aerolineas Argentinas; Aeromexico; Air Europa; Air France; China Airlines; China Eastern; Delta; Garuda Indonesia; Kenya Airways; KLM; Korean Air; Saudia; TAROM; Vietnam Airlines; Virgin Atlantic; Xiamen Airlines

So how much would it cost to do this? Miles Earn and Burn says,

I believe it’s possible to do this at an approximate cost of $75 per ticket if you’re very flexible and able to sandwich it in-between other flights you’ve already got on the books, putting the lower minimum cost at approximately $1,125. If you’re less flexible or don’t have additional travel that you can piggyback on, you’re probably looking at $5,000 in tickets to pull this off.

The real cost here, of course, is the time. My former award booking partner Steve Belkin suggests,

Match up people that want the million miles but don’t have the time or inclination to do all that flying with people who have the time and interest to travel the world for free airfare.

…Instead of compressing the trip into a few days like the mileage hounds are trying to do, let it be a more leisurely itinerary that would appeal to a regular vacation seeker. Brand it and turn it into a competition for ‘travelers’ to submitted they should be chosen. The labor pool comes to you!!!!!!

You…open the SAS accounts under the traveler names of course. But all other info inviting password is yours. And they sign off that you control their accounts.

The trick since you’re putting out the money for the flights is picking people who will complete the tasks.

So is it worth it? Here’s a good overview of the SAS EuroBonus value proposition.

  • There are no fuel surcharges on SAS redemptions, uncommon for a European carrier.
  • And there are real sweet spots in their award chart, although some awards that are just too expensive
  • Bear in mind that this is SkyTeam, which is generally not as attractive as Star or even oneworld – both the airlines themselves overall, and the products.
  • Most long haul destinations are 50,000 miles each way in business class.
  • If you can find availability, Delta’s domestic premium cabin is 30,000 miles each way (not including Hawaii)
  • You can also fly 30,000 miles each way in business class between India, South Korea, Japan, China and the Maldives – so for instance Taipei – Seoul – Almaty. That’s pretty good.

On the other hand, miles expire after four years and there’s a 50 euro partner booking fee. Air Europa, Vietnam Airlines, and China Airlines all cost double the points listed on their award chart which basically excludes them from any reasonable redemption. And partner one-way redemptions cost 60% of roundtrip rather than half.

You aren’t going to be able to book SAS saver awards during the Christmas/New Year’s period or during the summer. However, East Coast – Europe on SAS is reasonably available outside this period and with a good price (50,000 in business).

Flying other airlines though is tough. You won’t find a lot of saver space on Delta, and Air France KLM’s best award availability is limited for redemption using their own currency. You can basically assume that for transpacific flying that Korean is your only real option.

When working on your own strategy for this challenge, don’t forget fifth freedom routes. You don’t have to fly Virgin Atlantic across the Atlantic, for instance. You can do that with another SkyTeam airline, and hop on a short Virgin flight in the Caribbean like Barbados to St. Vincent or Granada. Other carriers have similar unexpected short (and usually inexpensive) options too – such as KLM’s Singapore – Bali and Kuala Lumpur – Jakarta.

About Gary Leff

Gary Leff is one of the foremost experts in the field of miles, points, and frequent business travel - a topic he has covered since 2002. Co-founder of frequent flyer community InsideFlyer.com, emcee of the Freddie Awards, and named one of the "World's Top Travel Experts" by Conde' Nast Traveler (2010-Present) Gary has been a guest on most major news media, profiled in several top print publications, and published broadly on the topic of consumer loyalty. More About Gary »

More articles by Gary Leff »

Comments

  1. I looked at an award on KLM from ORD to NWI for Christmas, roundtrip in business was over 700,000 points. 1,000,000 is not going to last very long.

  2. Gary, is Steve going to do that? I’d be game if the flights are scheduled and paid for on my behalf.

  3. I have the time (and since I have status with Star and OW) I’m not really looking for points or status in another program. So if anyone wants to use my name to check this off, let me know. I also have all visas and one of the world’s best passports, so I can go to all countries without a visa.

  4. No historical context? Isn’t this similar to the Latinpass deal IIRC and maybe USscare?

    This is a nonstarter for me as I would never fly 60% of these carriers, especially not the chicoms.

  5. Great analysis. I was going to do it, but not with points expiring in four years. Can you please relink the Fifth Freedom link which isn’t working. Thanks.

  6. Steve/beaubo is looking at doing this.

    I too am looking at doing this and having some of my own folks do this. I also have the relatively good fortune of having some people eligible for the 2-for-1 awards from SAS, so that should make the 1 million points per account go a bit further.

  7. There are some serious risks for this flopping even if you take the flights. SAS and a lot of the SkyTeam airlines still don’t seem to get their act together with timely missing mileage credit for SAS accounts. And sometimes it’s a mess to even try to get the SAS FFP number loaded into the booking and/or make it show up on the boarding passes, so we can’t yet count on it working. Also some SkyTeam airlines don’t count for this promo — ITA, MEA, CSA — while some other SkyTeam airlines — AirEuropa and Aerolineas Argentinas — only count for this promo currently if you are able to redeem SAS points for their flights. And the other SkyTeam airlines are only useful for the promo if you make sure to book a mileage earning fare and can get the EuroBonus number linked to the flights.

    I suspect a fair number of people considering this promo will back out and that others will back-end when they do this promo and then be in a mad rush in the middle of December to hope they can get the flights to credit with the broken missing mileage claims with SAS so as to get all flights to post before December 20 or December 31.

  8. The SAS points expire after 4 years from earning, but they don’t expire for accounts with EuroBonus Diamond/Pandion status.

  9. I’m down to do this for anyone willing to pay for my flights and hotels. And you get the 1,000,000 bonus miles! Anyone interested?

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *