Cuts in SAS earning [GoLight to zero, PE/J reducing from 1st Apr 2021]
 

I saw over an the EuroBonus forum that SAS are cutting the earnings for the SAS Go fares from December 1st. Will Aegean announce a devaluation of SAS earnings soon?

https://www.flyertalk.com/forum/sas-...-earnings.html

I imagine this will have a significant impact on a lot of European Miles&Bonus members. I recently almost booked Scandinavian to requalify for Gold before next March, but in the end I booked UA.....I'm glad I did!

I have 4 SAS sectors coming up in October. I don't see any devaluation coming before then, but if it does I won't be re-qualifying this year for sure. We've been talking about this subject for years. It's bound to happen but I'll and sounds more likely now, but I'll believe it when I see it.

I'd say it's pretty certain now. Why would anyone credit to EuroBonus when Miles&Bonus earns 100%!

I'd probably change my tactics...book a SAS Plus (premium economy) trip to straddle 2 earning years. :D

It will affect earning on M+B too, otherwise it would be non-sensical. SAS went really far, with the lowest fare bucket earning 200 to 240 miles per leg on long-haul. Imagine that if A3 keep the same earning, you would get 15 times more miles with M+B than with EB.

I am also suspecting a dramatic devaluation of miles on SK flights in Miles&Bonus. I'm stepping out of the A3G requalification game now, but it's not because of this or any other single reason - but if M&B cuts even nearly as much as Eurobonus did yesterday, I wouldn't requalify anyway. If M&B also cut earnings on SK flights, it's going to start getting tricky for people from Northern/Central Europe requalifying as A3G unless one really flies Aegean metal.

yeah, i paid 280eur for arn-cph-sfo-cph-arn and it earn 100%... I would be a bit mad if they will change the chart (anyway, it should not affect current bookings IMO but later ones made after the changes) but somehow I will understand... you cannot get 12k miles for 280eur :D
my trip is at the end of nov.

SAS Plus still has good earnings though, even though economy fares seem gutted. I like the idea of headingwest, a roundtrip that crosses the requalification threshold to either Asia or N.A. in Plus should yield enough miles for two years. Then you just need the 4 segments.

Well only the cheapest fare buckets were affected: if you fly semi-flex or Plus (or buy a super cheap Go Light but bid for upgrade and win), then nothing changes.

I know Plus is not affected, and this change is not the main reason for me stepping out of Gold re-qualification: I have mostly earned my miles on SK flights (both Plus and Go) Germany<->Scandinavia, and the demise of Air Berlin exactly one year ago unfortunately made SK tickets overall much more expensive and much less attractive regarding timetables, at least on my routes.
The change yesterday is mainly going to affect those who travel in work with employer "cheapest fare" restrictions. I'm not envious..

I'd tend to agree this makes a cut more likely given there will now be a large disparity between Eurobonus and M+B earning in Y.

However, there are some commercial considerations which might mean SK continues at the current levels.

SK historicially used to give very poor earnings with *A partners. When I was a BD*G, Y fares earned 125 miles (and BD were one of the more generous). There was clearly a change in strategy to attract more passengers when SK hit financial troubles, and at that point earnings went up significantly for both Eurobonus and external FFPs.

I would think now the airline is more financially stable it will look to address the liabilities on its balance sheet, of which a significant factor will be Eurobonus earnings following several years at improved earning rates. There may be some incentive to burn as well in the short term, and longer term increasing redemption rates has the same effect - they're for the SK forum to deliberate - but the first step is to stop the position becoming worse. It would also be catastrophic to announce both earnings cuts and redemption increases at the same time!

Now of course what other FFPs offer doesn't affect SK's liabilities, so they will still want to attract passengers from other countries - indeed they may need to, because domestic numbers will take a hit in the short term (AF/KL being a good example when they destroyed Flying Blue on April Fool's Day a few years ago). It's therefore in their interests to continue to pay other FFPs decent money so, in turn, they can offer decent earnings.

I also don't see a massive number of people jumping ship - to re-qualify from scratch, certainly if we use M+B as an example, is still harder than remaining with your current programme. By the nature of the current earning table, most Eurobonus members will qualify by flying in Y+ or Business. Earnings on those remain untouched (and are less generous than M+B still). What SK is doing is cutting out the low margin sector of its home customer base now those passengers are surplus to requirement.

SK still remains a viable route for M+B re-qual by buying Y+ or higher, and indeed that's how I retained Gold last year. I don't currently see that changing, and indeed it might well persuade me to buy up on intra-Europe routes if the Y earnings do plummet.

Just to add that SAS has quite decent sales on SAS Plus fares from time to time, so actual costs can be kept down if you need to keep to a budget.

At the moment I guess it's possible to book say ARN-CPH-LAX return in Go for around 300 EUR, but that would yield enough miles for one qualification year (plus the additional cost of 4 A3 segments of course). But I think it's possible to pick up a cheap SAS Plus return for around 450 EUR in the sales. That would provide enough miles (if straddled) for 2 qualification years, so it would work out cheaper - i.e. 225 EUR per year, instead of 300 EUR - and you'd be travelling in more comfort anyway (I'm thinking free booze! :D )

I hadn't realised that Plus rates are unchanged. Lets just hope that's reflected in any cut that IS made to M&B earnings. After all, there are many nonsensical 'mappings' out there where a particular fare class earns highly with one airline's program and earns nothing with another, or vice-versa.

And it's correct what people are saying about Plus sometimes offering good value, even in Europe. On my most common SAS route (ATH-ARN) I would typically pay around 90 Euro for the basic fare and sometimes only 40 Euro more for Plus. That's not so bad for double mileage. I think these lower Plus rates are mostly found on less premium-heavy routes anyway. With the recent dropping of the free checked bag for *G members on basic fares, Plus is even better value for those, like me, who often have a checked bag.

Anyway, for next year, I feel a long haul on Ethiopian may be on the cards...

Pretty sure some kind of devaluation is coming, but nobody here knows when. Don't except anything at least before 1 DEC when SAS new earnings kick in.

But to be serious who of us didn't think that these SAS earnings were not too generous in the past/now? :) I mean I can buy HEL-ARN-LAX-ARN-HEL with ~300€ and earn 12 242 miles to A3. So only needed to fly 4x cheap A3 segments to quality for *G and get 4 U/G vouchers.

Of course I'm hoping it will stay as it is or only a slight devaluation, but still..

Agreed, earnings on cheap SAS Y fares were probably too high anyways. I just hope that earnings on SAS Plus and Business remain unchanged :)