In my opinion, the "Who Wants to be a Millionaire" initiative has gotten out of hand for SAS.
Eurobonus program gives 1 million miles to those who complete 15 flights by year's end with as many Skyteam carriers
Scandinavian Airlines (SAS)
SkyTeam
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If you frequent this site, or follow our social channels, you may have noticed that I'm all over Asia chasing the Million Mile Eurobonus SAS promises.
In this article:
In these 5 days of getting on/off planes, I met many "colleagues" hunting for the same treasure and I have a feeling that the balance assumed by SAS will be decidedly different when the sums are drawn on December 31.
Why SAS launched this initiative
The first of September Scandinavian airline has moved from Star Alliance to Skyteam, a small earthquake since it had been one of the founders of the largest aviation alliance. The reason is that Air France KLM and an American fund entered the share capital, thus leading the carrier to the natural transition to Skyteam.
Among the many marketing initiatives In mid-October, the carrier also released the "Who wants to be a millionaire" campaign That is, a challenge to all frequent flyers in the world. The first prize is precisely 1 million SAS miles.. It is not a race, the prize is not only for the first person who can cross the finish line of Fly with at least 15 Skyteam carriers, but to all who will succeed in the venture.
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After a couple of days of study, I realized that it was a feasible challenge, without too much fuss, I have decided to participate in the hunt as well and I am writing this article from Bangkok while waiting to board my 13th qualifying flight for this challenge.
The world is talking about it (in Italy only me)
To understand the difference in the world penetration of the points and frequent flyer issue compared to Italy, one only has to look at the echo of this initiative. Richard Quest talked about it on his CNN show, the Times and a great many other newspapers have devoted rivers of words to the initiative.
Thousands of bloggers around the world have written about the challenge, hundreds have decided to participate and tell itineraries, strategies and problems. On a Norwegian forum there are over 600 posts in which itineraries are explained, how to avoid problems along the way, and tricks for maximizing this challenge.
Needless to say, I could not find any other articles in Italy talking about this opportunity, perhaps also because ITA Airways along with Aerolineas Argentinas is one of the two Skyteam companies that were not included in the challenge.
Easy, but not super easy
I make a necessary premise, feasible does not mean easy. Inconveniences are around the corner, in recent days a snowstorm paralyzed Seoul airport for an entire day, same fate in Paris and Amsterdam. Three hubs of Korean, Air France and KLM, three pivotal carriers for this challenge. Being "rerouted" to a different carrier, a different airport risks thwarting the hunt, the same if your flight is delayed and you miss the next one, because we are talking about separate PNRs, untied reservations, and if you have tight connections, as many are doing, the inconvenience breaks the bank.
The biggest mistake for some was also booking tickets in non-qualifying classes for the purpose of the challenge, in some cases the error has been resolved in others it has not and there are only 16 companies available worldwide, missing a flight means only having one plan B.
So here are many who risk getting to 14 flights and being left with only the consolation award of 100k Eurobonus miles.
Because, in my opinion, in SAS they have miscalculated.
Yesterday I took the "key" flight of this challenge, namely Kenya Airways' 5th freedom connection from Guangzhou to Bangkok, a flight that the African airline operates 3 times a week. Taking this flight avoids going all the way to Nairobi, and so 99 out of 100 competitors are likely to find themselves flying in either direction.
I have read about posts on various blogs about flights with over 40 "mileage hunters", especially in the opposite direction, that is, from Thailand to China. I can hardly believe it when I think that yesterday, on the opposite route, there were definitely 13 of us on board the flight for that reason.
Talking with some of these colleagues, we tried to speculate on real numbers, not those of SAS, which talks about a few hundred. And it is evident of how there could be several thousand users who will make it to the top prize, that is, the one million prize.
From the U.S. to Asia via Europe, I am sure that to cross the final finish line at the end there will be (I do not owl myself, but I hope to be there) no less than three to four thousand, as opposed to the few hundred assumed by SAS. The point is that the loyalty program could end up spending over 4billion points in early 2025 and those points will then be turned into flights, in the most lucrative way possible by those who receive them.
Those who set out for this challenge are the rational users, such as the two Norwegians they met in China who, starting from Cancun, reached Hong Kong, Spending only 54k thousand eurobonus miles in 2, but flying 5 valid carriers for the challenge.
In conclusion
Now we just have to wait and see if SAS will give the final numbers of the initiative, because to date SAS only has an idea of who has registered, but does not see how far along a user is until they receive credit for flights and as is often the case this is delayed by days and in the case of award tickets the credit is done manually after the user has sent the tickets flown, so at the moment SAS only has a slight idea of how many points they will have to shell out. We will see.
