GUWonder

It was a reference to SkyTeam, not a reference to merger activity. Well, that talk has been out there too.

miikka

I hope they will fix other little service things as well. I don't know if it costs them any money actually to fix the little things but for example it was extremely nice to see how LH handles priority luggage.

I have given up on telling at the checkin to put the priority tag to the luggage as it doesn't work with SAS and they often forget to put it. I recently flew from TXL to MUC and didn't tell anything in the checkin and I didn't expect anything special in MUC. I was sitting on the bench when the belt started and I decided that most likely my luggage will come the last as usual (my luck) - I was extremely surprised to see my luggage the second on the belt (my girlfriend's luggage was the first) - Priority tagged! LH really knows how to do the airline business

I hope fellow people in SAS will try to get back to the business and actually try to look something else than LCC from now on.

ramo

They also seem to know how to properly treat the ladies there... ^

miikka

Hehe.

Actually, flying with LH reminded me why I liked EBG. Too bad that I had to take another airline to actually realise the value of *G. In Senator's lounge when I started to think of it, I started to wonder if I should just switch to M&M. Too bad that I am still flying quite much on leisure and therefore limited to certain fares and it would be very expensive and difficult me to get the status on LH either.

But I liked Senator's lounge in MUC - I preferred that one over the CPH SAS Lounge.

THD

I don't see this as too bad a move either. The drastic changes were forced on by the bad situation SK found themselves. They rationalised and broguht back many leisure travellers and for the most part, the changes which brought them back, simple one-Way TFIX tickets, are staying. But as we have discussed ad naseum, the FFs feel they are getting ripped off when they are flying Y, so SK are going to improve that product and try to push more of the borderline M into Y, thereby imrpoving yields without sacrificing too much in M.

Will be interesting to see how Y grows in response to these changes.

At the moment I am forced to fly M when going business since no-showing on M or TFIX fares is still cheaper than buying Y fares. We'll see how much the price drop will be on Y fares.

oliver2002

You have not been in the MUC SEN lounge at peak times my friend... that place is packed all the time! Never mind the nice food in all SEN lounges, but the CPH and ARN EBG lounges are far more spacious.

miikka

And then we arrived to CPH SK lounge ... it was backed to the full, almost every possible seat was taken. We went out right away to look for some restaurant to enjoy a meal and wait until the lounge would be emptier. She took some shopping while I enjoyed the peace in the Novia lounge. Couple of hours later SAS lounge was looking a little bit better but it was surprisingly full still.

I guess every lounge is full sometimes. Recently I have just had bad luck to be in SAS lounges when they are packed.

Point_Chaser

Regarding the changes, please also note that from 25MAR it will also be possible to print your own boarding card online with a barcode that will work in security and gate.
Personally I really prefer not having any such things but just my EB-card... Works great right now...

Please also note that SAS in their internal message regarding the changes state that there will be more seats available to EBP's and EBG's than EBB's for instance... That's great!
Regarding the 3 month guarantee, I really doubt it will apply to any other airlines. SAS is not in control of other airlines award inventory, and I doubt they have been successful in negotiating more availability for EBG's...

It is still quite limited I must say, but definitely an improvement... But don't expect more than around 5 mealvouchers... Or am I overly pessimistic?

morradi

According to the BUSK web page Economy tickets will also be changeable for a fee of NOK 500,- starting March 25th!

miikka

Hmmm ... that will mean that more and more business travellers will be travelling in Economy instead of Economy Extra or Business class.

Point_Chaser

This has been the case already in Sweden for about 2 years... And in January it became possible to also upgrade FIX tickets to higher booking classes and make unlimited changes, so I guess they have good experiences from that!

But I agree, if a company thinks a bit about their travel bookings, they would change it to FIX tickets as it in reality most likely would end up cheaper as all fares are upgradeable (albeit for a 500 charge which is quickly saved by the lower fares).

GetAA81Back2ARN

That is why SK Yield Managment clears all lower booking classes week(s) ahead of departure from Sweden on some routes (LHR, FRA, HAM etc.) even though there are a lot of seats available. SK is fully aware that business bookings are made late in the process. For some reasons it seems that CDG is not handled this way.

Also note that a buy-up of SEK500+difference of fare (say SEK1000)=SEK1500 actually may cost a lot more for a big sized company to handle due to internal bookkeeping costs, money reimbursements etc. So if you are not booking very early and quite often change the tickets this may be much more expensive than adding the money up front in one transaction.

GetAA81Back2ARN

I also noted that they mentioned hotels on their page: "Hotell og leiebil for bonuspoeng skal kunne bestilles på nettet".

Wonder if this is to be interpreted as we can check availabilty/book hotels for points on the web or only place an order through a webpage? If booking will be possible ^ ^ ^ .

GetAA81Back2ARN

My feeling is that lately all *A lounges has been more packed. The *Gold lounge at Arlanda is usually so packed in the mornings that is better to sit by one of the empty gates to have some quite time.

Two months ago I was denied entrance together with a guest in the SEN lounge in MUC due to too much people. The lady at the entrance were very sorry and asked me to send a complaint to LH about this (which I haven't done). She claimed this happens more or less every day even when there are no disruptions to traffic.

I personally think this is partly due to *A growing very fast and thus more members become qualified to use lounges.

gnaget

Yes, but the non-Schengen lounge at MUC is never crowded. I have been through twice in January and the trick is not to go downstairs until the last minute.

p.s. The FRA B non-Schegnen lounge had a yummy chocolate mousse last week. Never seen anything like that at EBG lounge. Well, sometimes they have Swedish vetebrod (I detest wienerbrod) but it's some crappy variety with blueberry jam in it -- yuck! They should go classic -- kardemumma and mandelmassa. In MUC they have weissbier on tap and nice soft pretzels. Can't beat that! And the breakfast is so much better than SK lounges.... but let's not start talking about the RCC