Beware of SAS EBB program
 

Folks, SAS are quite a nice airline. But their EBB program has a condition that strikes me as a little unfair. In order to attain Silver or Gold level you need to earn your qualifying points (which differ by your country of residence) within a CALENDAR year based on the day you joined the program. Maybe this is commonoplace in their programs but it seems a bit cheap to me as it mitigates against people with irregular travel schedules

With SAS EB (same for all levels, not just EuroBonus Basic) you earn qualifying miles/segments during a 12 month period based on when you joined the program. Calendar year has nothing to do with it.

I don't however see how it mitigates against irregular travel? Irregular travel is by definition irregular, and therefore yes, the qualification period may affect whether or not you get status, but that may be to either direction.

If you flew a lot in late 2010 and then again in early 2011, having a qualifying period that is not a calendar year may help getting a (higher) status. If you fly a lot now, and again late 2011, it helps to have a qualifying period that is a calendar year. Or it may be the other way around, if you fly enough to qualify twice and therefore get a status for a longer term if the period breaks in between... it all depends.

The good thing with the EB system is that when you join, you immediately have a full year to qualify, whereas with a calendar year period, if you join say in September, chances are that those 3 first months easily go to waste.

Of course if you join EB in January, there's no difference.

Welcome to FT.

SAS are not the only program to do this, and I am not sure that this is much to "beware" of. It is all in writing once you sign up...so it should not be a surprise.

I think SAS has changed from the twelve months period to following the calendar year. Must have happened recently. Earlier I was qualifying from february to february, but when I log on now I can see that they count trips and points in 2011.

I don't think so:
"Points required to Silver and Gold - or how to keep my status
You are automatically upgraded to Silver or Gold membership when the required number of Basic points is registered on your account. Your personal 12-month qualification period starts with the month you enrolled in EuroBonus. For example, if you enrolled in February, the qualification period starts on February 1st and ends on January 31 of the following year."

http://www.flysas.com/en/EuroBonus/m...efits/Qualify/

The statement shows both how many miles/segments I've flown during my qualification period (under Level status in the EN version) and how many points I've earned under each calendar year (under Expiry of points).

Originally it was the calendar year, but SAS changed it many years ago. I think the reason was bureaucratically. In the new way, SAS could spread the shipment of new cards, account statement etc out over the year.

And yes. It dosn’t matter. The advantages and disadvantages are random.

This is only temporarily while you have your Pandion status. Once you are downgraded you will go back to your previous qualifying period. Downgrading however comes with a two year soft landing to Gold.

this is due to SAS being based in Scandinavia and therefore subject to the rather perticular laws... the points needed to obtain gold in Norway is lower because by Norwegian law, SAS is not allowed to award points on domestic flights... it's like we say; there's the right way and theres Norway...

and if i'm not mistaken, some routes in Sweden, they're not allowed to award you points either...

In Sweden there exist no restriction on earning Eurobonus or other *A miles.

If you ask me, the fair way is to give people a year from joining to earn the necessary miles/points.

The very commonplace way of basing the accrual period on the calender year is very unfair the first year to everyone but those that happen to join in January. Imagine doing a CPH-EWR-CPH trip in C in November thinking your on your way to gold status quickly - just to discover that on January 1st the clock resets !

Svantevit

...anymore, since February 1, 2009.