Davinski10

Hello
I just qualified for EBG last year, so I have now one year to retain it. But with the changes I find it extremely difficult as a student and only traveling private to retain it. Last year I did a mileage run CPH-BCN-CPH that gave 8000 points. My plan was to do that again if I needed the last points by the end of the year. Since a trip to BCN now only gives 3000 points for a round trip I had to do the trip 3x and the cost would go from 2000 dkk to 3x 2000 dkk=6000dkk if I had to earn around the same number of points as before the changes. But since SAS changed their loyalty program it is no longer an affordable opportunity. Beforehand the high mileage earning outran the cost, but that’s no longer the case.

From June as my plans are currently I will have earned 13.000 points, so I have around 6 months to earn the rest, which is 37.000 points to requalify. The most affordable way I’ve spotted is to take advantage of the youth tickets since I’m 18 years old. I picked Berlin as my guideline since Europe is one Zone no need to travel to Barcelona and it is cheaper as berlin is a lot closer to Denmark than Barcelona. So I did the math

37.000/2500 points (2000 basic and the elite bonus of 25%)=14,8=15 times a have to take the trip 15*807 dkk (for the youth tickets)=12.105 dkk. That’s the cheapest way if figured out to retain the EBG.

Anyone who has a smarter and hopefully a cheaper way?

helosc

Are you sure youth tickets are booking classes E, M , H, Q, W ?
If not a return to Berlin only earns you 1000 points.

(And maybe you could tell me where to see the booking class? I can't find it anywhere in the confirmation e-mail I get from SAS.)

Davinski10

I’ve just tried again to do a dummy search and you were right. The booking classes I found were V-Z-Z-A-P available in youth fare. Last time I did the search the calculator just said 2500 points. I was oblivious and naive. Did not bother to check the booking classes. Well then my plan just went from difficult to impossible regarding my plan to retain. Maybe I’m better off with OW or status match to TK/A3 ?

But if you search for a ticket and click to the next step, then click on fare conditions and the available booking classes should show up.

helosc

Sorry about that.
But wouldn't it cost you about the same to earn Gold by flying the required amount of flights
(45 one way).
I hope that some of the other people here, who know Eurobonus better than me, can give you some good advice.
About seeing booking classes: I have just booked some flights these last few days and I forgot to look at the time of booking and now I can't see it on my reservaton - but never mind, they are probably the low earning classes..

Add : you can also very often get cheap flights to Luxembourg and Amsterdam (normal GO tickets) if you want a bit of variety. I just paid 353 dkk for a one way ticket luxembourg to copenhagen.

studentCPH

http://www.bookonline.saudiairlines....R_CANCEL=FALSE

Can look up e-tickets here, under manage my booking -> search for e-ticket (thanks to Oliver2002 for sharing the the link in the optiontown thread)



As for keeping EBG I think you really need to consider what it's worth for you, if you 'only' travel 13.000 miles per year, or at least obtain that many points.
Youth tickets always book in to V in my experience (~40 youth segments last year).
If you want to keep EBG I can think of 3 ways:
1: as Helosc mentions, segments. 45 is quite many, but you can sometimes route through OSL/ARN for a bit extra, making it easier.
2: MR with other carriers, e.g. united. You can often get cheap fares both to east and west coast, often see fares to LAX for <3500DKK. Hopefully the 100% earning rate holds, but I wouldn't be surpised if it'll be changed when they go revenuebased for Milage Plus.
3: OptionTown. For ~€34+1 per segment, you get 1500 points instead of 500 per intra EU segment (+25%gold bonus). It'll probably be the cheapest way, but it'll limit the value you get of EBG, as you'll get fast track and lounge in the ticket. OT isn't sure to through, although people(@Fassy?) have reported a 100% success rate.

As far as I know, A3s M&B won't do status matches, you can try your luck with TK. Before spending a lot of money to remain EBG or to obtain status elsewhere, I would really consider how much you value the benefits. If you travel mostly with SK, you could achieve a lot of this by using OT when you do travel. If you're just an enthusiast that must have this and want to spend they money, then I would combine a MR (or short vacation to USA if possible) with using OT on the intra EU flights, or look at switching to OZ/TK/A3's FFPs

Davinski10

First of all thanks for the great answer it really gave me something to at least consider. I totally agree with the fact that I need to value the EBG Status meticulously before throwing what at the moment seems to be around 16.000 dkk. As for my travel pattern I can see I managed to fly around 34 only with SK besides that I had 4 flights with LX and 4 with LH. Never really used OT for other than upgrades on TA flights with SK.


Just struck me if I did the requalification on points, it would also have some sort of a value I guess since I would end up with around 130k points.


4. Opportunity could be the “Norge rundt” (All around Norway) ticket. The problem however is that I have to pay for the trip back and forth from Norway since I wouldn’t be able to fly all segments in one day. But as far as I remember selected route would credit both points and count segment towards requalification. Lets just assume that’s the case it would cost me around 2790 dkk and around 6 round trips with Widoer so I could split the mileage run up to a couple of days.

Think it would actually be the cheapest way at the moment.

studentCPH

Very true that the points has value! And welcome to Flyertalk!

The Explore Norway ticket is a great idea! It actually let's the first segment be international, from Copenhagen you can start and end in Haugesund/Kristiansand/Sandefjord, but you'll need accommodation!

gakke

The most fun and cheap flight would be a UA flight to ogg in P. At the moment it earns 200%, and by playing around you should easily get 36000 to 37000 miles for about 11000 dkk. [Business class] Copenhagen-New York R/T, Star Alliance JV, 900 EUR / 1.110 USD

I have 2 trips coming up:

CPH-SK-BRU-UA-ORD-UA-SFO-UA-IAH-UA-LHR-SK-CPH - 3400 dkk and 13950 eb points
Booking class K

CPH-SK-LHR-UA-IAH-UA-ORD-UA-IAH-UA-LHR-SK-CPH - 8000 dkk and 25550 eb points
SK is in Y UA in P

Davinski10

My only question is just were do you book a multi segment journey? Really sounds like a good option. And you get a very adventures trip out of it as well

gakke

There are different sites, but here is one just using UA's website - cph to oog - flexible - July- 6 days - business:



Booking class P. The CPH-BRU is with SN and MUC-CPH LH. I'd make the reservation and then call United to change the CPH-BRU and MUC-CPH to SAS in Y if possible. It would then earn about 38000 eb points.

helosc

About Wideroe Explore Norway ticket, see this thread :

http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/sas-e...ay-ticket.html

Not all flights earn points or count as a qualifying flight.
In post #39 there is a map of which flights are qualifying and which are not.

UltraRant

I wouldn't rely blindly on the Widerøe ticket. You shouldn't get too happy by booking to OSL, as none of the routes with WF from OSL get you points or legs. I'd try to start in CPH and fly to TRF/KRS instead and fly from there to BGO, as there are a lot of routes from BGO qualifying for segments and points. The good thing is that you save yourself from buying an extra zone (you just need one zone) and with CPH-TRF/KRS-BGO-etc-BGO-TRF/KRS-CPH you can earn 18 legs (or 34 if you fly each one way leg twice, as is allowed). With the 34 you already have into your account you should end up being well over halfway Diamond.

Much more fun (but also a bit more expensive) could be a mileage run on UA. How about Los Angeles for 4000DKK and 14000 points? How about GIG or GRU? I've seen it for just over 6000 DKK and it should get you 20000 points, especially when the first and last leg are operated by SK and fly somewhere into Europe.

I checked the mileage run Gakke offered (I like one, too, despite being almost certainly qualified for Diamond again this year). It seems that UA already updated it's prices...

ps. I just did some math and saw that, as you just need 56 legs to get Diamond, you may want to check out the double one way routes within southern Norway that give points (from KSU, KRS, MOL and TRD). As you are a student, I assume you have enough time ( ) to fly a bit. You can actually reach diamond with the Discover Norway ticket, all commercial routes in southern Norway twice and the feeder flights to and from CPH should get you over 56 legs. I'm just not sure if there is actually a schedule that fits 56 flights in 2 weeks, but you can always check. It's just about 4 legs a day...

pps. If you want to do the above, then better start saving for hotels. The flight bus and from to Bergen is not cheap (even though Bergen has some hostels), and right next to the airport there are some hotels, but they are not cheap. Your biggest luck now is that the NOK is incredibly cheap.

fassy

I wonder... Is it actually worth all the effort for a shiny card?

I mean if you get close to Gold level with the regular travel (either leisure or business) it makes sense to do a quick MR to reach the level - but MR 2/3 of the required mileage to have some neglectable benefit on 1/3 of the flights do not make much sense for me - especially if you add in the costs for flights, travel meals, if required accommodation and of course the time spent... Is it worth it?

Davinski10

You definitely got a point. Well last year were a good traveling year as I ended up with around 34 SK flights and 8 LH/LX. Especially because I pay for it my self. Anyway I don’t know were I will go this year so I have no idea whether I’m getting close to requalification or not. But as my plans are currently I will max earn 20.000 points and that until June. I decided to wait and see how it looks for the last half year and see if it is worth figuring out a mileage run.

Plan b was to match to TK and then have to years of *G

fassy

Anyway, instead of lots of MR trips which just burn cash on a lot cheap tickets to places where there is no special reward in being there I would rather buy one expensive itinerary in C to a place I want to see and combine it with vacation