I’m generally a fan of promotions. Those that are both engaging and rewarding are the best. It’s rare that I see one that is truly surprising, but this SAS million points promotion is one that certainly caught my attention! And it is as uniquely challenging as it is potentially rewarding.
SAS EuroBonus Million Points Promotion
As the newest member of the SkyTeam alliance, SAS is offering a promotion this fall that rewards flyers for choosing SkyTeam for their travels. Here’s how you can earn up to 1,000,000 EuroBonus points:
- Travel with 5 different SkyTeam airlines – get 10,000 Bonus points
- Travel with 10 different SkyTeam airlines – get 100,000 Bonus points
- Travel with 15 different SkyTeam airlines – get 1,000,000 Bonus points
Travel must be completed between October 8 and December 31, 2024.
As always with promotions, there are terms and conditions to be aware of. Keep the promotion rules in mind (pulled from the promotion page):
- EuroBonus points must be earned on or used to pay for the flight for it to count toward the total.
- You will be rewarded Bonus points (not Level points).
- In case of retroactive registration of a flight, it has to be submitted by December 20, 2024.
- Both regular and award trips (paid with points) count.
- It is the operating carrier that counts (i.e. you can book partner flights either with cash or EuroBonus points and have them still count)
- If you book a flight where one segment is with e.g. SAS and the other with e.g. Delta, it counts as two partners for the challenge.
- You will be notified of the outcome in January 2025.
- You can participate only once, and you will be notified that points have been credited after the campaign.
- SAS employees are not eligible to participate.
- EuroBonus reserves the right to deny point rewards in case of misuse.
- If you are not able to add your EuroBonus number into the booking, please ask the check in staff for help.
The ability to earn up to 1,000,000 EuroBonus points definitely turned my head. I doubt many fliers complete the full challenge of 15 SkyTeam airlines, but I bet there are a few who do. I’m not all that familiar with the best uses of EuroBonus points, but I know of at least one. Business class between the U.S. and Europe can be booked for just 50,000 points. So 1,000,000 of them are worth a huge amount.
How to accomplish flying fifteen SkyTeam airlines?
I’m sure there are a million ways to do this to get the million EuroBonus points. But I did try to piece together an itinerary that would be as fat as possible. Well, fast is relative. It would require the minimal number of flights and let you see a great variety of places, if desired.
My proposed flight plan touches four continents. Given that there are no SkyTeam airlines in Australia or New Zealand, that’s an easy skip. And with only Kenya Airways in Africa, that was a skip as well.Things are highly concentrated in Europe and Asia.
The full route: SFO-LAX-MEX-EZE/AEP-GRU-MAD-CDG-FCO-AMS-CPH-LHR-BEY-RUH-DEL-SGN-TPE-XMN-PVG-ICN-SFO
I’d forgotten about Middle East Airlines (MEA) when starting the plan out a route. That was easy enough to work in. MEA and Xiamen were the two I had to add after forming an initial around-the-world route through to make it to 15 arlines.
There are only a couple extra stops in this route There is Los Angeles (since my starting point is SFO) and then Delhi, which needed to be a transfer point, since I couldn’t find another place where two SkyTeam airlines met in Asia. Other than that, it can be done with a single segment per airline.
Don’t ask me the cost. This would be a lot, even if all the flights are booked in economy. The need to book one-way tickets doesn’t help.
Final Thoughts
If I had three weeks to travel around the globe and the money to put into this promotion, I might consider it. SAS is offering quite the prize in redeemable miles.
Anyone willing to plan a huge trip (or multiple trips) to take advantage of the SAS million points promotion?
