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Old Oct 9, 2024 | 10:30 pm
  #89  
beyounged
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Join Date: Feb 2016
Location: YVR/TPE/PVG
Posts: 1,089
Did a bit of studying today about the program, and I know most folks here probably already know the EuroBonus system by heart, but I think it is worth highlighting some pro and con for people who have never touched SK before like me.
CON
  • miles expire after 4 years
  • all Skyteam partner bookings incur a 50EUR fee, which renders most short haul partner flights horrible value
  • Skyteam flights one way redemption is 60%, not half, of roundtrip cost
  • Hawaii and mainland US are considered separate regions
  • VN UX CI all require double points, rendering them useless as redemption partners

PRO
  • no YQ
  • Sweetspots
    • Short haul SAS within Europe and Scandinavia are great value
    • SAS long haul for 50k to most places is fantastic value
    • DL domestic US excluding Hawaii is 30k each way in J, if there is availability of course
    • India, Russia, Korea, China, Maldives, Japan, etc are all considered same region. So for 15k/30k for Y/J o/w, you can do
      • SVO-PVG-MLE, CTS-PVG-KMG when MU can be redeemed in the future
      • TPE-ICN-ALA, PEK-ICN-DEL
      • ICN-XMN-MLE
    • SEZ, LOS, CMN, IKA are all considered same region, 15k/30k for Y/J o/w
    • Greenland is considered Europe, so it is 15k in Y for CPH-SFJ for example if SK ever resumes it
    • Asia-Oceania is relatively cheap, for 78k you can do J one way SVO-PVG-AKL when you can do MU, ALA-ICN-SYD on KE, etc
    • 78k J EU to North America is not bad without YQ since it does not split between MEX/JFK/LAX etc
Availability on long haul (only talking about J)
  • SK metal
    • there is hard black out dates for "saver", which seems to be Dec 15-Jan 15, Jun 15-Sep 15
    • east coast US TATL on SK metal is relatively abundant, 50k one way is good deal, not absolutely jaw-dropping
    • west coast US TATL on SK metal is much rarer, but still can be found with a large degree of flexibility
    • Asia routes saver are non-existent
  • Partner metal
    • TATL is relatively poor, because DL is an abusive partner, AFKL offers way fewer saver seats to partners than their own program, and VS are rare
    • TPAC is only on KE because MU cannot be redeemed, and CI costs double, so very few as well. There are a few MF options but they fly to very few locations
    • EU-Asia consistently see KL releasing seats, so quite reliable, but remember saver for EU-BKK/SIN/DPS cost 110k+
CONCLUSION
I would value it at around 1cpm, so 1 million miles is 10k USD, maybe a bit less. This is largely due to requiring lots of flexibility for long haul/partner long haul for saver, while short haul requires 50EUR fee, making any flight that has LCC competition non-starter for redemptions. This may be more valuable to folks who are in east coast because NYC has the best availability. Best comparison I can compare it to is maybe the current version of QR: decent on own metal, ok-ish on partner long haul, unacceptable for partner short haul.

Last edited by beyounged; Oct 9, 2024 at 10:38 pm
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