TIV

Dear All: May I draw on your collective wisdom? I will shortly be relocating from the Southern Hemisphere to the warm and sunny Scandinavia (ya right!). I am currently *A gold by virtue of NZ Airpoints. I will be traveling down South a couple of times/year in C. My intra Europe / Scandinavia travel will likely be limited. With that amount of travel though, I can easily maintain *A gold via NZ.

My questions are: Is there any value in changing my FF program to Eurobonus or should I stick with Airpoints? Will Eurobonus do a status match? On a broader scale: does it really matter which *A program one belongs to as long as one has G status?

Many thanks in advance - and sorry if similar topics have been raised in the past - I did not see any such when looking through.

Thanks again.http://images.ibsrv.net/ibsrv/res/sr...lies/smile.gif

HenrikP

I am not an expert and not very familiar with Airpoints. But here are some thoughts:

- If you fly SAS in the following booking classes: W, U, K, L, T, G, O (low economy) you will not get any miles with Airpoints. If you credit the trips to Eurobonus you will get a 100 % earning (after May 4th).

- Two roundtrips in C to NZ will probably give you gold with EB to

- If you fly with some EB partners like Widerøe, Estonian Air, Air Baltic, City Airline and Cimber Sterling, you will get miles with EB but not with Airpoints. No *G benefits on these airlines.

- Eurobonus gives you 25 % extra basic miles when you are flying with SAS-group as a EBG perk. (I am guessing Airpoints has a similar thing on Air New Zealand flights)

- No fuel charge on award tickets on SAS-flights. Do not know about Airpionts policy.

You might try to get a Status match by sending EB an e-mail explaining your situation. But right now they just have an official Status-Match promo for people living in China.

TIV

Many thanks for the reply. I have just noticed the upcoming change to EB and with that it probably does make sense for me to change. I will attempt to get status match and will report back in case others may want similar.

shivNZ

Hey TIV. Did you ever go through this change and if so has it helped? I am spending quite a bit of time in Scandinavia and am thinking of creating an SAS account and crediting points to it as once you get to Gold Elite with Air NZ there are essentially no more rewards. Any advice?

CPH-Flyer

The low earning SK booking classes still have the challenge that they earn zero with Air NZ. If you are flying a fair bit in Go with SK it would make sense to have a Eurobonus account as well to optimise earning. All SK revenue booking classes earn something with Eurobonus, and it is fairly easy to reach *G.

The no YQ on SK metal award bookings still apply.

FlyingMoose

I'd skip EB and get status with another alliance. OW lets you use access to AY, FI, CX, QF and QR for most of your travel which will give you a much better experience than SK.

ksu

I note the omission of BA, where you hold status yourself!

As you correctly note, AY (Finnair) would be a useful non-*A airline in Scandinavia, at least for travelling to/through Asia if based in one of the capitals. I was not aware that FI (Icelandair) has any affiliation with OW, however.

As SK is the only airline, except non-alliance DY, that has any comprehensive domestic/intra-Scandinavian network, *A status, preferably with SK (due to WF earning and earning in all booking classes) is difficult to avoid, if not capital-based only travelling long distance. And for Norway, outside of Oslo, ST is a better choice due to KLM's many destinations in provincial Southern Norway.