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I have an SAS award booking for next year with two people flying Business Bonus to YYZ. I have paid 200,000 points for these tickets. I have just reached Premium Business (or whatever it is called) in my Fly Premium account and can therefore book long haul Business tickets for 30,000 points, which obviously means that I have "overpaid" 80,000 points for this trip. Of course the tickets are no longer available to purchase.

I am right in assuming that I will not be able to rebook my trip to the same trip that I already have, pay the rebooking fee of DKK 550 per ticket, and get a refund of those points? I'm assuming that this will quite obviously not be possible but I thought it was worth the ask. I don't have a lot of experience with phone rebookings so wanted to check what is possible (as its a lot of points).

Would have to refund and hope that they get back into inventory. But you could try call in and see if they can apply the FlyPremium "Voucher" and get the refunded points (Which according to rules isn't ok, but maybe you get an agent that dont know)

Thanks for this. Hoping that they get back into inventory is too risky so I won't risk the trip trying that. I might try to give them a call in any event, would just be helpful if others have experience. Trying to get them to simply apply the voucher, rather than rebook, sounds like a good idea to try.

Not a chance without proper rebooking which would mean "cancel" and "book again". Which won't work as the business tickets won't go back to the inventory any time soon.

Best you can hope is to write Gold/Diamond Desk and ask for a manual intervention by just crediting you the difference in points. Don't ask them to modify the reseveration... chances are pretty high it gets messed up.

Thanks. I sent an e-mail to them just before you posted this actually so hope that they are in a good mood. I didn't ask them explicitly not to rebook it but as that comes with a fee I don't suppose there is any chance that they start doing that? Don't know if I should write them again to ask them not to modify anything - just to be sure.

No, they will not rebook based on a mail. As they know they would need to collect the FOP to issue the ticket. They will write back either "ok, let's do it - call in" or "No, can do!"... or might just send the points your way.

But I have seen it now MAAAAAANY times that even though the agent promised the seats will go back into the inventory, they don't! Even worse, they are taken out as soon as you do a reservation... no matter if that gets ticketed or not. Got burned by that a few times. I asked ok, can we do the folloing itineary and if I then decide for a different connection, will the inventory be available again.... and always heard "yes, will be released back to the pool, once the reservation hold is released". But NEVER happened. The seats were always gone for good. So NEVER do a dummy booking over the phone to see if a routing will work out if you are not prepared to then issue tickets. Even over the web, sometimes when the reservation system grabs the seats and you change your mind during check-out... the seats will not go back to the award inventory.

I think what they learn is: Inventory which gets released from a reservation go back to the pool. But not if they will go back to the same booking class and therefore e.g. the award pool.

Very helpful. In my experience it is hit and miss even whether intra-Europe Economy tickets go back in the award pool. If cancelled far out I think they mostly do but closer to travel date they don't - in my experience. I'm sure long-haul Business is much more likely not to go back automatically.

Even in intra-Europe I had that issue... tried to book HAJ-CPH (pretty pricy connection) and started with 4 available seats. The website always died on me during check-out. And with each new iteration availability dropped by 1. Eventually I called in, the agent saw 4 reservations stuck and ticketed the last one, cancelled the other 3 and released the inventory block. I then checked: For that flight... no more award seats. Was like 6 weeks out.

Another related question.

On one of the trips I have booked I have Business outbound and Economy inbound. Should more award inventory become available for the inbound, I would be able to call and rebook (has happened before and did so on a HND flight last year - but maybe based on the above it was a risky move?).

Also, calling in often takes a very long time (long wait, slow agents). Would I in stead be able to simply book a one-way Business ticket for the inbound trip, and then call in and cancel the inbound leg of the original booking but keep the outbound business flight? I would of course have to pay the cancellation fee but I am not sure whether it is possible to cancel an award ticket partly?

Would I even be able to also add a domestic flight (ie. add a CPH-AAL leg to a YYZ-CPH trip) to the new inbound Business ticket, in the event that there is no inventory for the inbound domestic flight?

My experience has been that the SAS Bonus tickets aren't changeable omce you havs begun the journey unless there is an operational issue or you're using the same day change benefit (and I seem to remember that they are also nonrefundable 24 hours before departure). So if I am correct, you can cancel the return whilst you're travelling, but you won't get the points back - just the taxes. However, I haven't tried to do that in over a year, so someone with a more recent experience may have more current info on the rules.

Regarding the 24 hours before departure - that is not the case in my experience. I recently cancelled a SAS award ticket about an hour before departure.

You mention that chances are that things gets messed up. I currently have a Bonus booking outbound in C and inbound in Y. Now Premium tickets have become available for the return and I am considering rebooking by calling in and having them change the inbound from Y to PE. However, I am quite concerned that it gets messed up as you mention and that I somehow lose the outbound C trip or the entire itinerary for that matter. I have done it previously where it worked fine but I guess that is no guarantee that it will work again. Is there a real risk that they could mess it up?

I will of course have to pay the change fee for each ticket.

The biggest issue with SK (and actually a lot of airlines) is that the agents do not reissue the ticket but send it to the ticketing queue. And often enough, I have seen the backend mess it up and not issue the ticket in time before the ticketing deadline or missing some information like the updated FOP - but instead of reaching out, they just drop the ball and let the ticketing deadline expire. What so far worked for me: Call in the morning, and make sure to push the agent who does the rebooking to put the ticketing on the priority queue. Yes, it does exist. Always ask for the ticketing deadline, and if you have not received the new ticket by 4pm same day or at least 3 hours before the ticketing deadline, call in and insist they fix it - like NOW.

Pretty crazy that I will be flying Y rather than PE with the entire family because I'm afraid that they are useless...

I guess if were to be messed up, and I somehow lose the itinerary (which includes 5 bonus tickets in C to Asia, so pretty impossible to get again) then it's just tough luck...

I wouldn’t be afraid to be honest. I’ve changed tickets several times without issues. They may make mistakes but most often do not.

I’d definitely give them a call. I suspect you may get a refund if you have obtained fly premium status too.