There are quai 1000 SAS "millionaires", this initiative has cost the company over 1billion miles
Here are some numbers from SAS's "Who Wants to be a Millionaire" challenge; more citizens of North Korea than Italians won
Scandinavian Airlines (SAS)
SkyTeam
Those who read TFC often will surely be aware of the challenge that SAS had launched to all travelers around the world and in which I successfully participated.
In this article:
In recent days on various sites such as LoyaltyLobby some interesting data came out, for example, the final membership figure was over 40 thousand.
The exact number was 42,718 registered for the promotion and over 900 participants who managed to complete it successfully, that is, by winning the 1M-mile prize pool, there is no data on how many stopped within a flight of the finish line, or even how many of these 40,000 entrants took home any of the intermediate prizes, but I am willing to bet that the final balance of miles disbursed will be over a billion.
The goal of the challenge
The initiative was part of the package of actions to raise awareness of the Eurobonus loyalty program On the occasion of the transition from Star Alliance to Skyteam., basically the reverse path that ITA Airways will take in a few months.
A significant finding was that 77% of the participants who completed the challenge had no status in the EuroBonus program, while only 2% belonged to the Diamond category, the highest level. In addition, 85% of those who completed the challenge had only joined the program in the past two years, a sign that the promotion has attracted a new generation of loyal travelers to SAS.
I fall exactly into this framework, I had recently signed up on Eurobonus just because being a American Express partner program in Italy to transfer Membership Rewards points I needed it to check the availability of award places.
Of the 900 participants who completed the promotion, 78% enrolled in the program after the campaign began, demonstrating the strong appeal of the initiative. A total of 6,886 people joined EuroBonus as a result of the promotion, impossible to say whether it is a good result or not.
Who are the winners of the challenge?
The demographics of the winners tell an interesting story about travelers. 70% of the participants who completed the challenge were men. The most represented age group was between 30 and 39, with an average age of 40. However, the challenge also involved out-of-the-box participants: the oldest person to complete it was 73 years old, while the youngest, incredibly, was only four years old and Japanese.
I even met a Korean copy on my honeymoon, a sure sign that these initiatives have no boundaries or even a specific gender.
What is surprising (in a negative way), however, are the SAS user figures; given that Scandinavian is a carrier operating mainly from Denmark, Norway, and Sweden, it would have been logical to expect a boom in winners from these nations, but this was not the case.
| Country | Millionaires | % |
|---|---|---|
| South Korea | 276 | 30% |
| United States | 129 | 14% |
| Japan | 111 | 12% |
| China | 83 | 9% |
| North Korea | 54 | 6% |
| Sweden | 50 | 5% |
| Taiwan | 37 | 4% |
| Norway | 36 | 4% |
| United Kingdom | 27 | 3% |
| Denmark | 16 | 2% |
| Germany | 16 | 2% |
| Canada | 13 | 1% |
| France | 11 | 1% |
| Hong Kong | 11 | 1% |
I am not surprised by the South Korean figure, here there 'Korean and it is possible that many users thought of using the challenge and then flying with the home company, and neither is the American figure, I find it incredible, however, that in the TOP5 there are 54 users residing in North Korea, I thought it was complicated to travel with that passport, then considering that the challenge led to flying all over the world, I wonder if these users had a diplomatic passport to avoid having to go crazy with visas, or if they are expats who set Pyongyang as their residence!!!
The Nordics figure is really low with just over 100 users, 7 of whom I probably met on my Kenya Airways flight to Bangkok. I did not meet Japanese on my way, but several Koreans, Taiwanese, Americans, and Chinese.
I will try to retrieve the Italian figure, but as of today I estimate that we are less than 5, since besides Nanteo, only second Italian contacted me.
SAS mileage hunter statistics.
Travel was the focus of the challenge, and the numbers speak for themselves:
- On average, each winning participant visited four continents, 17 countries and 23 airports.
- Everyone who completed the challenge made at least one stop in China.
- The 92% of the flights taken was in economy class
- Nine people managed to touch six continents, while 22% visited at least five continents.
If I look at my stats they are more or less in line since, as I have recounted in my articles, I have been to America, Asia and Europe, I passed through China twice and visited 15 countries and 22 airports.
Who gained from it?
Data in hand gained us in nearly 1,000 users, Completing the challenge all in economy was a physical challenge, but not an economic one. Sure SAS has gotten a lot of media attention, but I think that removed the users of the "Nordics" no other participants will ever use the Scandinavian airline's card. The initiative has made people all over the world talk about the company, and maybe now a few more Japanese or Chinese will want to fly on SAS planes:
I for one have no intention at all of accumulating more points and my goal is to burn off the points I've earned and then forget I'm enrolled. As I wrote during my challenge, snd I am sure that numbers in hand the initiative cost much more than expected. even in this case I would be willing to bet that in hindsight, it would not be repurposed or would be repurposed in a very different way.
In conclusion
Considering that I still have two friends who haven't been credited for all the flights (I'm still missing one too) I say that eventually the milestone of 1000 SAS challenge winners will be crossed, But I would like someone to explain to me how more than 50 passports from North Korea were able to go around the world undisturbed chasing the miles.
