Yesterday something happened for the first time for me. Myself and a friend were going to board SK973 for CPH-BKK at places 1C/1D, when the SAS officer came to explain that they have some problems with the newly installed seats, and asked if we would like to get bumped for 1000 EUR vouchers each. He even promised business class food. As we will anyway get business class on the way back, and this is paid totally by points, we gladly accepted. Of course maybe we could have been pushed the compensation up a bit, but as likely someone else from C class would have taken the offer.

So right now we are sitting in first row of Economy Extra, places 14A/14B with good legroom and food from behind the curtain, 2000 EUR of free ticket vouchers in pocket! What makes this extra funny is, that the tickets were bought with half points due to some offer.

My only gripes:
- We did have only limited selection of food available
- Service is not business class, so we were missing things like extra drinks rounds, milk or sugar for coffee, the dessert completely
- Due to some electrical problems and one passanger leaving after 1 hour waiting, we took off 2 hours late (ok this had nothing to do with the bump)

All in all, pretty good deal. Anyone got even better?

"the tickets were bought with half points due to some offer."

How did you manage to get a bonustrip CPH-BKK and even pay with half the points. Normally it is very difficult, if not possible to find a bonustrip on this route, as written by many members of this board. Please tell us your secret.

Not too shabby, but I don't understand why SK was so stingy in the drinks service in Y+. Surely you could just ring the FA for these addtional libations?

I haven�t been lucky enough to get one of those vouchers yet. But just in case the offer arises, what are the rules for using it ?
Do you have to use it one go, or can you split it between multiple trips ?

I had a voucher on 200 EUR, because of being routed through FRA instead of ARN going to EWR. You have to use it within a year and only on SAS metal, they are made like checks, i think the amount of each were 50 EUR, but I don't remember clearly, so I think they can be used for different flights. I used them all in January for my flight to BKK in April. So I have only paid 400 EUR for the ticket.

plus you pay no service charge if you buy your ticket with VDB vouchers.

Vouchers are split into 4 "cheques" worth 25% of the total amount each.
If the full value of one of the cheques you use isn't used, the remainder is lost.

I haven't had vouchers for the past couple of years, but here you can find some old rules (I guess they haven't changed much anyway):
http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/showt...662#post790186

CPH-BKK was no problem, quite many dates available when booking 4 months ahead, but the problem was BKK-CPH especially during the validity time of my half points offer. So the initial solution was to put BKK-CPH in X (economy) but as I realized that would essentially miss the point, the final solution was to book one-way TG flight BKK-PVG (390 eur incl.tax in D) and I class PVG-CPH. Open jaw is no problem with award tickets, it seems.

So, we got HEL-CPH-BKK-PVG-CPH-HEL in business class with total price 420 eur and 61400 points (considering 3600 points we get for BKK-PVG) for one seat, and in addition got 1000 eur vouchers each for downgrading to Y for CPH-BKK!

nice deal, don't complain!

Good deal, but you deserve no less. You paid for it with hard earned miles!

And when it comes to drinks, you can have as many as you want in Y also. I'm on my 4th bottle of Champagne right now in row 14, just grab a nice lady when she passes me ^

Of course, but the "problem" was that the service in Y is designed for Y menu and not C food tray which is what we received. So the nice ladies were busy passing food around at Y somewhere far back in the cabin, and not walking idly around making sure we don't need anything else. This is normally compensated by including water, milk, dessert etc. all in the same tray in Y class, but that would be quite unnecessary in C.

Also many drinks are not available in Y, which is limited to mini bottles only. Even calvados was unavailable. Let's compare that to the full C service on our way back tomorrow. Unless they again offer 1000 EUR for a bump...

Of course Y is not C, and you can never compare the service. I think the Champagne back here is a lot better than the Henriot they get in C (I know we had that discussion before )

So you are a Calvados drinker also?? I got a glass from C about 4 hours ago. Purser made it happen, since I am in row 14, it was no sweat

Actually at least in Helsinki they changed rules in March and now you have to pay 35� service charge when you use VDB vouchers. Which is not nice since the vouchers cannot be used with online bookings...

Well actually you can use your VDB voucher when booking online. Just use your CC for booking and then call the internet support number and tell them you want to use your voucher instead. They'll ask you to send it via mail to address provided.

Worked fine for me (used the VDB voucher which I got from overbooked CPH-PEK flight).