chokeman

Hi guys.

I'm planning an award trip to the Caribbean.

The *A award chart from SAS says 90.000 EB points in Economy from Europe.

There will be three segments per leg:
- Intra-European to a *A hub, let's say Frankfurt with SK or LH
- Transatlantic to MIA with LH
- FLL to Caribbean with UA

The second flight arrives in MIA and the last flight departs from FLL.

My question is: does the airport change and the different airlines involved trigger a higher EB price? Or does the 90.000 pts apply?

Any tips on booking such a ticket? I have to call customer service, right?

Thanks in advance!

THD

Do you actually want to stay in Miami and that's the reason you are forcing the surface sector MIA-FLL?

You could just as easily do a CPH-EWR-FLL-XXX routing or similar via ORD if you want to avoid the surface sector. This would be no more complex than flying CPH-FRA-MIA/FLL-XXX

Another alternative to avoiding the surface sector is available to the larger destinations in the Carribean such as NAS, you will find direct connections from MCO, CLT even IAH and EWR on certain days, although backtracking might be an issue here, not sure. One could even do CPH-EWR-NAS and be done with 2 sectors.

chokeman

Thanks for the insight!

I used MIA in the example because that's what I've done in the past. My final destination is either GHB or ELH, and the *A connections depart from FLL.

CPH-EWR-FLL-XXX sounds like a good option too.

Hadn't considered backtracking, but now that you mentioned it I wonder if the last flight FLL-GHB or ELH is considered backtracking. This would ruin my plans.

Anyone?

THD

No. This will not be considered backtracking.

SK_RSJ

But going to the caribbean zone is two transfers in the. North america zone legal points wize?

chokeman

Actually this is an issue that's just come up with my booking. My tickets were issued and then had to be cancelled due to some conflicting rules. A very helpful EB customer service is trying to sort it out for me.

So although the SAS *A chart says it costs 90.000pts to go from CPH to the Caribbean, it is simply impossible to do so with only one transfer. It's a very curious case, even customer service told me they had never noticed it until now. Basically the award chart advertises something that conflicts with the transfer rule.

Anyway, I wasn't aware of this transfer rule and doing some research in the SAS website I still cannot find clear wording about it. Here's what I've found:

- In some cases, there are no direct Star Alliance flights within a zone or between two zones, so you must transit in another zone, which could make the award trip more expensive. Transfer may never be made in a zone more expensive than the destination zone.
My destination zone (Caribbean 90.000pts) is more expensive than the transit zone (N.America 70.000pts).

- One award is permitted between maximum two zones, with transfer (of less than 24 hours) in a third zone that must be equally or less expensive than the destination zone.
My booking has transfers in ORD and FLL, in less than 24h, and both are located in a less expensive zone than my destination zone (see above).

- A maximum of 8 flight coupons (segments) are permitted per award.
I have only 6 segments.

Do you know where it says only one transfer in another zone is allowed? I could not find it anywhere.

If anyone has any other input to give, I'm all ears

Let's just say that this was supposed to be a great Christmas with my 2013 Bahamas trip booked and confirmed, and now I'm left wondering whether or not it will happen (and if it does, how much more it will cost me).

Merry Christmas everyone!