miikka

Oh, they could bring back the certificate and disallow distant upgrades or then they could make a list of passengers wanting to upgrade and then someone would take that list to some EB service center instead of calling them ... there is plenty of ways to make things even worse or even more manual when it is SK in question

How are they able to do it other way in China? I have never managed to see them to call anywhere in PVG - they just ask me to fill the paper and they give me the upgrade in check-in. Why we have to go to the China to see perfect process when home markets are suffering the incompetence?

THD

Ah but you are forgetting something, much of what happens in China is building from scratch. I'm willing to bet some (most?) of what happens at SK is simply "because we've always done it that way". You can see that through the airlines in the US with huge legacy systems and no consistency anywhere due to haphazard mergers and acquisitions.

berra0619

As far as i know EBS can only check-in at Biz when flying SK metal, but I don't have any experience of how strictly this rule is applied e.g. when you fly with another Star Alliance member. Any one who knows?

Gustaf

Well, priority check-in is not on the official *S benefits list...
http://www.staralliance.com/en/trave...er_status.html

Gnopps

I took a look at this as well and was surprised to see that it isn't, thought that was standard as both Oneworld and SkyTeam has it as a listed benefit.

miikka

Oh right ... so basically *S is just useless card and will bring nothing (yeah, yeah, priority on the lists and all sort of useless stuff).

As the new cards started to come (MasterCard was the first one to arrive), I decided to actually study those EBS benefits (from the brochure).

Airline
- Priority on waiting lists on SK/KF (useless, I haven't had to waitlist many times in my trips and if that happens and it doesn't clear then I will just choose another airline)
- Business Check-in (they forgot to mention that it applies apparently only for SK/KF)
- additional 10kg luggage on SK/KF (except USA) (not useful for me)
- 5% discount from Duty Free in HEL and OUL (my home airport is TMP)
- SAS HotLine (yeah, like I would call SAS)

Hotels (Radisson SAS/Radisson Edwardian/Park Inn/Scandic/Rica/Best Western Scandinavia/Sol Melia)
- 2 person room with one person price if possible
- Priority on waitlist (again, totally useless as I will choose another hotel if I am waitlisted, or then use Amex to test if they will give me priority)
- Upgrade within the same category (so basically not an upgrade and only if available)
- Early check-in / Late check-out (which in most cases you will get just by asking)

Car rental
- Hertz: up to 25% (Amex gives you 30% and additional benefits which even EBG doesn't receive)
- Avis: up to 25% (I don't remember the Amex discount)
- Sixt: up to 25% (Sixt Gold give you the same)

And the best ... I can receive my statements as email. They don't specify whether the statements are going to be up-to-date when they send those, usually I have just received statements, which are very old and actually have false information as they are showing my path to Gold as it is for the current year (showing me qualified as Gold when I have actually just started a new qualification year and they should provide me information how close I am fo re-qualification).

So happy to be EBS again, feel appreciated again But I must say that the new card looks kind of nice.

esv

It's not offical, but nevertheless it exists as an "unpublished" benefit, somewhat similar to LH seat blocking for *G.

A few years ago when I was EBS and checking in at the Y desk somewhere in Germany, an LH check in agent specifically told me "with this card you can use the business checkin instead". She read this information from her computer screen so it was documented in LH's internal systems, even though it's not communicated towards customers in any way.

In the same way, any *S is allowed to use the C checkin at ARN, even though it's "officially" only for EBS. I'd guess this only applies to airports which have three levels of checkin desks (Y, C/Silver, F/Gold).

Point_Chaser

I was surprised when I received my EB statement via e-mail a few weeks ago... It was VERY unexciting, and as you point out - out of date (albeit only 2 weeks)...
The e-mail basically just stated that I within a week would receive a mini-magazine with news etc, which still hasn't shown up.
It also had a link to Freddie Awards voting... Dream on...
Funny also that underneath the total points in the e-mail itself, it said where I could go - Tokyo, Beijing or Shanghai... Great! Please free up some seats and maybe I will!

The attached PDF statement was an exact copy of the white "backpage" of the old paper statement with just a listing of the flights and redemptions since last statement -> black text on white background! WOW...

I had actually opted out of receiving point statements via e-mail as I still wanted the paper versions, but apparently they didn't care...

FT Guest xyzpdq

Interesting topic - we have discussed this a couple of times. We have also brought this up at meeting with SAS EB in October of 05 and in September 06 - and nothing has happened. I have given up on SAS on this one.

I honestly think (as was posted above) that SAS considers EBS a carrot to get you to EBG (and to fly more with SAS) - or a stick for EBGs. EB does not give a rats ... about EBS members. And with the little attention they give to EBG - why should they?

miikka

Why should they provide anything for EBS members? What are we bringing to them? I got a really nice standard letter where they were really sorry that I didn't qualify for EBG but they appreciated my effort to fly with them anyway. And reminded that I will be EBG as soon as I fly again the required amount.

And they also reminded how huge amount of exclusive benefits I receive as EBS.

EBS members do not fly much - we get the EBS quite easily and we do not give much to SK. We are just a pain in their member community. We become marginally useful when we are EBG. SK doesn't get enough from us to give anything for us and they know that most of the EB members are actually quite loyal.

ramo

I got the letter too. Now we will just have to get used to visiting the PP and DC lounges instead of the SK ones...

miikka

I have used PP lounges many times already - over a year now. SK lounges are always so full that I switched to PP long time ago. Many PP lounges are actually very nice - in HEL you have one lounge in the Schengen area (I think SN uses that too at least) and one in International area (Finnair).

CPH has two PP lounges and ARN one (same lounge used with DC).

As I have said earlier, SK lounges are not an issue for me. My next task is to figure out how to get FastTrack in different airports - I am pretty sure those can be purchased

Robbiedeluxe

I know it sounds kinda stupid, but I'd like to have the EBS luggage tags back again.

miikka

Hehe ... aren't the Amex and DC tags much nicer? At least the latest SK tags were kind of cheap looking when for example DC provided much more classical and good looking tags.

Robbiedeluxe

DinersClub luggage tags? Uhmm... Have I missed something?