Originally Posted by
DaTaco
Interesting, I'm 2 month 15ish days out and it's still $790. I'm trying to debate what price point it's worth it for me, I'm thinking it's less then 800 but more then 400. Yeah I'm a non-status as well.. so I guess I should keep that in mind. I haven't flown with SAS before so I don't really know how their premium seating is vs their business is.
What did you use for finding out how many seats were available?
I use ExpertFlyer.com to keep an eye on the seat map status, as well as how many tickets per booking class are still being sold. You don't need to rush in a bid. I don't think they base anything on who has bid earlier, only on the amount of the bid and EB status. I would wait until you are a month out and see if it drops at that time, then start monitoring as you get closer to the day of travel. You can easily update your bid anytime. I originally bid $325, then raised it twice before I settled on $400 a few days before the flight. My return trip (CPH-IAD) also dropped to $300 right at a month prior to the day of travel. I currently have a bid of $350 posted which is stated to be a 'weak bid' but there are still 19 unclaimed seats and they are still selling in C. I will adjust the bid as it gets closer to improve our chances based on how full the flight is as we get closer.
Re: premium seating vs business, I find the SAS premium economy to be one of the better of this class I've flown in. Admittedly, however, not a huge sample. It's better, IMO, than premium economy on Virgin, Lufthansa, United, Delta and Icelandair. Not as good as the PE on the Norwegian 787 Dreamliners before they stopped flying TATL (these had much greater pitch). If you don't need to sleep, SAS PE is fine for this flight. IAD-CPH was 7 hours 40 minutes, departing at 5:30 pm, so you arrive at the equivalent of 1:15 am EST (7:15 am local time). Unless you're desperate to get sleep, it's a fine seat to sit up all night and watch movies (great screens, 110 v. power at seat, decent food IMO, and you get fast track / lounge access in CPH).
Of course, it's all personal opinion on how you value the comfort of an 8 hour flight vs. cost. When I booked the tickets, C was ca. $8,500 return vs. $2,200 return in PE per person for our dates so there was no question. I was not going to purchase C, but I don't mind bidding up to ca. $500 each way to upgrade. My husband would not value this as he thinks we can survive the 8 hours in PE (luckily I'm in charge of arranging the flights, so I'll still do the bidding and he does enjoy the comfort when we get it).
Good luck!