Originally Posted by
AutismoSupremo
Still undecided whether I will keep the card. I am currently thinking I will cancel the card as I've only been paying the annual fee as a way to gain status points/
baspoäng with SAS. And after a breakdown in my relationship with SAS due to their Summer of Idiocy (which still isn't over for me as we are yet to be reimbursed three and a half months later), I am thinking of giving up on SAS completely.
Too bad Finnair folded their cards quickly after starting the direct route from Stockholm to L.A. I used to love the convenience of flying directly from ARN to LAX to see my SO before we got married. But now, living in a different country, waiting for a price hike in annual fee, suffering through "enhancements", limited award availability etc., it's getting to a point where it's very difficult to justify coughing up not SEK 1,495, but 1,855 a year for something that brings me no joy (Marie Kondo style)
I completely understand you. I had an okay experience with SAS this summer in spite of their best efforts. They expect our loyalty to be recurring, but their efforts towards us are transactional at best.
I thought about this some more this morning. My loyalty may be misguided (it's actually down to a stunning lack of rewards-based credit cards in Scandinavia), but most of my spend happens on SAS-branded credit cards. And because we don't have corporate credit cards where I work, the amount of spend I could put on the Mastercard would probably help me get status faster (but I prioritise meeting the requirements for the 2-4-1 AmEx vouchers since those are more useable for me than FlyPremium). But unless credit card spend would be considered as part of getting EB Pandion, once I achieve ED Diamond through a combo is flights and spend, the Mastercard would go back into the drawer because I wouldn't want to lose 25% of my points every month to status points that don't help me achieve status (they aren't baspöng so they won't be useable to redemptions).
I can see how this would be a good use case for some people (if you don't travel a lot, the concept helps you get beyond Silver if you spend a reasonable amount, provided you want abandon extra points for status points). However, "power spenders" get limited value from the card past a certain point. If they were really interested in building customer loyalty, they would integrate with the EB program to make it that all points earned are extra points once someone reaches EB Diamond to keep them using the card.
I'm still modelling scenarios.
Originally Posted by
GUWonder
I’m nudging some to move to the Nordic Choice Club credit card for those eligible and having use for hotel stays and hotel status in Sweden, Norway, Finland, and Denmark/Copenhagen. It too being SEB-issued, a devaluation of this card too wouldn’t surprise me — but for now it remains an especially cheap card to get for those who have Nordic Choice Club status at the Silver/Gold/Platinum level.
Thanks for suggesting this. Will definitely look into it.