San Gottardo

FLying on SAS and then on Wideroe on a couple of intra-Norway routes. Are there any benefits? Fast track at security, early boarding? Pre-assignment of seats at time of booking? Access to better seats? Anything else?

I am a Star Gold cardholder through Swiss Miles & More.

Thanks

studentCPH

Wideroe is not a member of *A so no as far as I've understood. You won't get miles in other programs than EuroBonus either.
For SAS routes it should be the same as normal with SAS for *G. Best hint I can give for SAS at least with seats is to check in online 36 hours before depature, app doesn't let you do it til 22 hours before.

CPH-Flyer

Unless they have changed something quite recently, the web version does not allow it until 22 hours before the first flight of the ticket. There are ways to do it earlier via the app earlier. As the checkin systemwise opens about 36 hours before to allow for connecting flights to be checked through.

Flying in domestic in Norway is not going to get you many perks. There is a domestic lounge in Oslo, as far as I know the only domestic lounge in Norway. I am not sure about the access to fast track in Oslo as a domestic passenger, but it would be the only location that offered it.
Officially, SAS does not offer seat selection to *G other than their own, there are mixed reports on getting it anyway, so you can always try.
Priority boarding and SAS is a long and much discussed story. It is sometimes announced and even less frequently policed.

fransknorge

And even when they do announced priority boarding and actually do it, they do it wrong. My last 4 SK flights where ridiculous: one queue only, the GA call for SAS Plus passenger, Eurobonus Gold and *G card holders AND row 23 to 11 to board all at the same time. Massive queue of pretty much everybody who was in the gate area. On those flights the last row of SAS Plus was either 8 or 9. So the next announcement was for row 10 to 9, so only 6-12 passsengers.

Do not expect much from flying intra-Norway, lounges, fast track, priority boarding and better seats are all very much against Jante law. Enjoy your time there though

studentCPH

for at least the last 3 months it's been possible to check in online 36 hours before depature. I know you can also bug the app by changing the time on your phone, but I find it less of a pain to just open the browser.
Fast track is available for domestic from OSL.
Priority boarding is indeed hit and miss. I found that they do a much better job with it in CPH recently, and they also do send away passengers who aren't supposed to board here. But it has annoyed me as I'm usually in the front rows of GO and have been hold back with 12 passengers before lol.. 5k left to gold

San Gottardo

Thank you for all the explanations.

What are rows of SAS Plus? Do they put all the SAS Plus members in the front rows? Also Star Gold?

What is Jante law? Sorry for asking, but I don't know Norway that well so I have never heard of it.

Thanks

fransknorge

Intra-european and domestic flights with SAS have 2 cabin classes: SAS Go and SAS Plus. SAS Plus class is a C-- (or Y+): fast track, lounge access, free food (it is BYOB in SAS Go), double amount of miles if the pax is an EB member, double luggage allowance. Passengers with SAS Plus tickets seat at the front of the aircraft, but with the same seat as SAS Go (no middle seat free). There is a small divider on the last row of SAS Plus to indicate it.

As for Jante Law, here is the Wikipedia defintion:
It is an idea that everyone is on equal footing, whatever their social status or wealth, and that nobody should be treated better because of that.
As a result, flauntering wealth is very much frowned upon. Also the concept that some people should be treated differently because they are "most valued customers" does not follow the spirit of Jante Law.

UltraRant

I completely agree with the above statements.

I assume you come from outside Norway? Then you should pick up your luggage at the luggage belt and deliver it again at the check in counter. Ask to not get a Star priority label on it, as you will lose valuable time, because SAS will put your bag last on belt. Not sure if it's because Jante Law or just plain stupidity (or both), but you may easily miss your flight connection if you don't have enough time scheduled in Oslo and if you have checked luggage with SAS.

Yes, there is a lounge in Oslo. Don't expect much of it. It's usually more stuffed than a sausage and the facilities are spartan. There is fast track for SAS customers.

You can't collect points on Widerøe flights. You can only do so with a SAS account. I once understood that not even all Widerøe routes are eligible for earning points for anyone at all. Not sure about that one, though.

You can try OptionTown, as both Widerøe and SAS are active there with several possible advantages you may buy. Don't be too worried about lacking fast track or priority boarding with Widerøe, most of their aircraft have a capacity of 50 pax or less anyway.

ksu

Fast track is now available at SVG and TRD as well as at OSL. Lounge is only at OSL. Business check-in as well as an extra piece of luggage is given to EBG on SK/WF and *G on SK. I would try to get those benefits on WF as well, but YMMV.

The reason not all WF routes give points is that points cannot be awarded on government sponsored routes. There is a list somewhere on www.wf.no. Generally domestic routes connecting two mainline SK airports, and all routes touching TRF are fine, the exception mostly some TOS-ALF.

HenrikP

As a *G(Not EBG) you will NOT have access to fast track when flying norwegian domestic. You will however have access to the newly opend domestic lounge at OSL when flying SAS.

Online Check In do open 36 hours before departure, even though the official time is 22 hours before departure. It has been like that since SAS switched to Altea over a year ago.

FlightCancelled

This is not true. *A pritags with SAS work great.

Again, not true. It might be fairly full during rush hours (as all lounges are), but you will always find a seat, some thing to drink and some light snack.

You do (obviously) not earn EB-points on PSO-routes. That only concerns the very smallest routes, and on most routes you will earn EB-points with Widerøe. Google it to get a complete list.

Optiontown (for upgrade) is only available on IC... And the seatblocking is really expensive with SAS. With Widerøe though it might be wort a shot, as they are a lot cheaper.

UltraRant

You either work for SAS or you've never flown to OSL (or you're trying to be ironic). If you're serious, then this is the biggest bulls* I've read in a while. I've literally NEVER gotten any bag among the first on belt in OSL with SK pritags and I've flown hundreds of times to OSL. Always dead last with baggage. 100% not first on hundreds of flights over the years is way to much to be incidental. In fact, maybe you remember that I was trying to find out if more people were bothered by this and if people wanted to join a court case about it? You don't do that if there's not a heap of evidence of the product failing or if something only goes incidentally wrong.

The few times I tried to use the domestic lounge is was packed. I haven't tried it now that it's summer time, but I guess it's much less packed as all business travelers (usually the ones with access there) are on vacation.

I'm not in the mood for Googling the PSO-routes of Widerøe. The reason? It's not relevant for me, the chances of me ending up on such a route are minimal, as most are in the far north and the west coast. I just know that some routes don't earn points, that's sufficient for me.

Optiontown does have a few options with Wideroe, like empty seat next to you and flexibility reward option. Not sure how much of a prick one needs to be if you can't sit next to someone in a turboprop for 40 minutes, but if someone thinks it's worth the money then there are ways.

FFlash

Makes me smile to hear this

All the stations in my history I have got my bag one of the last when tagged. I know, you know, we know...

Nowadays I ask not to put the tag on my bag (of course seldom have one checked). It would only call for pilfering at CPH

FlightCancelled

I am EuroBonus Diamond with well over 100 flights a year. I can count the number of times I don't check in luggage on one hand. The two most frequent airports I travel between is BGO and OSL. I can count the number of times my luggage hasn't been first on the other one hand. I can only remember two times: once at IAD (BGO-CPH-IAD) and once at HEL (CPH-ARN-HEL), where I didn't recieve my luggage among the pritagged ones. At IAD all luggage came random and at HEL my luggage must have been loaded wrong. To me it sounds like you are exaggerating somewhat extreme for an unknown reasons, and your downright negative attitude about so to speak everything doesn't excatly make it better...

You are always in such great mood here on flyertalk... ^

The reason? Because they are PSO-routes (Public service obligation-routes). It's self explanatory. They are given subsidy from the state for serving these routes, and of obvious reasons it wouldn't be legal to use the loyality program on these routes.

(For those interested: Wideroe is also under investigation by EFTA, the European Free Trade Association for cross-subsidization some of these routes to win the tendering process where they had competition. I am curious to what the result would be.)

You call someone a prick just because they appreciate the privacy and extra room of having the seat next to you free? In that case you're calling 99% (assumption made by me, might be even higher) of those in here, me including, a prick. Again, great attitude. ^

Adittionally, you think Wideroe flights are only 40m? There are routes well over 2 hours, such as TRF-BOO or BGO-TOS.

ksu

Actually, the one airport where priority tagging NEVER works, is the one both you and I list as our home airport, KSU. I have been told that the reason is that so many passengers are entitled to priority handling that it wouldn't matter. I don't really believe that, though. They usually don't tag outgoing luggage either.