Booking award flights on SAS website
Oct 3, 2022, 6:03 am
#1
Original Poster
Join Date: Nov 2014
Location: Probably not too far away from wherever you are
Programs: SAS EBD, Marriott Lifetime Titanium, Hilton Diamond, United MileagePlus Silver
Posts: 162
Booking award flights on SAS website
Hey friends 👋
Was just curious as to whether anyone else is experiencing trouble trying to book award flights directly using points on the SAS website?
Every time I try it gives an error saying that "something has gone wrong...please contact us and we will try and help you."
To be fair, whenever you end up calling, they are helpful and book the flights you want. But I have had to do this for the past 10 weeks now. The last time I called to make an award booking and asked the agent about the website issue, they just responded that "SAS IT is aware of the issue" and apologised for the inconvenience. It's just really surprising the award booking feature on the website would be down for this long.
During the pandemic, they just removed the Star Alliance booking option (that doesn't work for me either) it and at least provided a reason. Whether one liked the reason was a different matter, but they were upfront about it. I want to assume the best of everyone, but this starts to feel like SAS has disabled the feature in order to try and slow down the award bookings by hoping that people won't want to call. I imagine that if this were the revenue booking engine, they would have chained IT to their desks until it was resolved. Maybe I am being unfair?
Anyway, are others experiencing this? Or is it just me? 🙂
Was just curious as to whether anyone else is experiencing trouble trying to book award flights directly using points on the SAS website?
Every time I try it gives an error saying that "something has gone wrong...please contact us and we will try and help you."
To be fair, whenever you end up calling, they are helpful and book the flights you want. But I have had to do this for the past 10 weeks now. The last time I called to make an award booking and asked the agent about the website issue, they just responded that "SAS IT is aware of the issue" and apologised for the inconvenience. It's just really surprising the award booking feature on the website would be down for this long.
During the pandemic, they just removed the Star Alliance booking option (that doesn't work for me either) it and at least provided a reason. Whether one liked the reason was a different matter, but they were upfront about it. I want to assume the best of everyone, but this starts to feel like SAS has disabled the feature in order to try and slow down the award bookings by hoping that people won't want to call. I imagine that if this were the revenue booking engine, they would have chained IT to their desks until it was resolved. Maybe I am being unfair?
Anyway, are others experiencing this? Or is it just me? 🙂
Oct 3, 2022, 6:08 pm
#2
FlyerTalk Evangelist
Join Date: Jul 2011
Location: Tokyo
Programs: JAL Metal Card (OWE), SAS Eurobonus Gold (*G), Marriott Titanium (LTP), Tokyu Hotels Platinum
Posts: 21,112
It is probably about 10 weeks ago I booked a SIN-BKK-HND award on TG J online from SK. Worked like a charm.
Oct 3, 2022, 8:49 pm
#3
Original Poster
Join Date: Nov 2014
Location: Probably not too far away from wherever you are
Programs: SAS EBD, Marriott Lifetime Titanium, Hilton Diamond, United MileagePlus Silver
Posts: 162
I have tried to book something as simple as ARN to BOS and ARN to LHR awards online several times over the past two weeks and get the error. It doesn't matter what device or browser I use (I have tried on two mobile dievices on four different browsers).
But if it is working for you, then I will continue to investigate with SAS why I experience problems. 🙂
Oct 4, 2022, 1:32 am
#4
Join Date: Nov 2002
Location: CPH, MMX Sweden
Programs: SAS EBG, Flying Blu Gold, Etihad Gold
Posts: 380
If you are looking for pure SAS flights, click here or if it's a mix of Star airlines, click here. The reply you seem to get is mostly popping up when looking for Star awards.
Oct 4, 2022, 7:00 am
#5
Original Poster
Join Date: Nov 2014
Location: Probably not too far away from wherever you are
Programs: SAS EBD, Marriott Lifetime Titanium, Hilton Diamond, United MileagePlus Silver
Posts: 162
If you are looking for pure SAS flights, click here or if it's a mix of Star airlines, click here. The reply you seem to get is mostly popping up when looking for Star awards.
Thanks for the direct links.
I already use those links, but I will try them again from a private browser.
Oct 4, 2022, 8:41 am
#6
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Oct 4, 2022, 9:00 am
#7
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Oct 4, 2022, 9:36 am
#8
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Oct 4, 2022, 7:25 pm
#9
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Oct 5, 2022, 2:03 am
#10
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Oct 5, 2022, 7:34 am
#11
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I do kind of have a soft spot for TG. But I have not flown them since their bankruptcy and restructuring, so I don't know what they are like now. And I am somewhat negatively minded about SQ. Going to Singapore from Japan, I would normally fly JAL. And do have a JAL award for HND SIN on this trip.
Would i have preferred a direct flight rather than the connection? For sure, on (almost) any carrier. Just zero availability for anything else, not just on the SK website, United and Air Canada for *A, JAL and AA for OW, did not have anything else.
I do kind of have a soft spot for TG. But I have not flown them since their bankruptcy and restructuring, so I don't know what they are like now. And I am somewhat negatively minded about SQ. Going to Singapore from Japan, I would normally fly JAL. And do have a JAL award for HND SIN on this trip.
Would i have preferred a direct flight rather than the connection? For sure, on (almost) any carrier. Just zero availability for anything else, not just on the SK website, United and Air Canada for *A, JAL and AA for OW, did not have anything else.
Oct 6, 2022, 4:53 am
#12
Join Date: Apr 2017
Posts: 107
I was also having trouble booking Star Alliance awards the last few weeks. I found that booking using the Euro site worked perfectly. The NOK and USD site resulted in the same error message you mentioned, and also in some cases some strange half-booked reservations (reservation shows up with PNR, but points were not deducted).
Same experience and feedback by phone (willing/eager to help with booking and general apology about IT working on the issue(s)).
Same experience and feedback by phone (willing/eager to help with booking and general apology about IT working on the issue(s)).
Oct 10, 2022, 11:16 pm
#13
Original Poster
Join Date: Nov 2014
Location: Probably not too far away from wherever you are
Programs: SAS EBD, Marriott Lifetime Titanium, Hilton Diamond, United MileagePlus Silver
Posts: 162
Found my issue
So one of two things happened:
1) SAS IT fixed the issue I was having; or
2) I fixed it myself
But it's likely the latter option.
I use web browsers or privacy-enabled features that prevent most cookies and tracking by companies. What I suspect is there must have been some change in SAS' website code a few months ago that caused the award booking part of their website to break when I don't allow them to track me with cooking or fingerprinting technology.
I am going to look into this some more later. But if other people use things like Brave Browser or Ghostery to protect their browser/browsing and have been experiencing problems with award bookings on SAS, this might be a reason why.
1) SAS IT fixed the issue I was having; or
2) I fixed it myself
But it's likely the latter option.
I use web browsers or privacy-enabled features that prevent most cookies and tracking by companies. What I suspect is there must have been some change in SAS' website code a few months ago that caused the award booking part of their website to break when I don't allow them to track me with cooking or fingerprinting technology.
I am going to look into this some more later. But if other people use things like Brave Browser or Ghostery to protect their browser/browsing and have been experiencing problems with award bookings on SAS, this might be a reason why.
Oct 14, 2022, 10:36 am
#14
Moderator: SAS
Join Date: Feb 2018
Location: BLL & CPH & ZRH
Programs: LX, SK EBD (*G)
Posts: 3,146
So one of two things happened:
1) SAS IT fixed the issue I was having; or
2) I fixed it myself
But it's likely the latter option.
I use web browsers or privacy-enabled features that prevent most cookies and tracking by companies. What I suspect is there must have been some change in SAS' website code a few months ago that caused the award booking part of their website to break when I don't allow them to track me with cooking or fingerprinting technology.
I am going to look into this some more later. But if other people use things like Brave Browser or Ghostery to protect their browser/browsing and have been experiencing problems with award bookings on SAS, this might be a reason why.
1) SAS IT fixed the issue I was having; or
2) I fixed it myself
But it's likely the latter option.
I use web browsers or privacy-enabled features that prevent most cookies and tracking by companies. What I suspect is there must have been some change in SAS' website code a few months ago that caused the award booking part of their website to break when I don't allow them to track me with cooking or fingerprinting technology.
I am going to look into this some more later. But if other people use things like Brave Browser or Ghostery to protect their browser/browsing and have been experiencing problems with award bookings on SAS, this might be a reason why.