Number of EBG's increasing
 

The number of EBG's has increased by 4.7% to...

Drumroll...

Approx. 71 300 EBG's.

There are approx. 158 500 EBS's.

Not as exclusive as I thought actually! No wonder the lounges are extremely full sometimes! :rolleyes:

And, excluding SK EBGs, the number of Scandinavian-based *Golds has increased by _____?

That's a question I'd like to know the answer to. :o

Where did you get these numbers?

Found them myself in the 2006 Annual SAS Report

Completely correct! Sorry, didn't include that in original post.

As mentioned in the annual report post there's quite a lot of interesting information there...
You can also see there that the total number of members actually has decreased between 2005 and 2006. Wonder why... :rolleyes:

If the number is decreasing an EBG's are increasing maybe they will turn up the points needed to become a EBG?! :rolleyes:

I believe what we see is the effect of the lower threshold levels, but I believe they won't increase those just yet.
If we look historically, they have lost 20 000 EBGs since 2002! That's quite a large and alarming number! They have also lost almost 45 000 EBSs.
So I would say the situation is actually improving right now, but they have a very long way to go to reach the same percentage as previously. In 2002 they had 8% EBS and 3.6% EBG - today they have 6% EBS and 2.7% EBG!
Just goes to show that the Eurobonus programme has really deteriorated and they need to act quickly! Just look at this board...

Anyway, here are the approximate numbers:
2002: 91434 EBG, 203186 EBS
2003: 73430 EBG, 225940 EBS
2004: 60520 EBG, 163404 EBS
2005: 68124 EBG, 158956 EBS
2006: 71334 EBG, 158520 EBS

One can really see that the reduction to 25% point earnings seriously affected status members in 2004!
Let's just hope that SAS will increase earnings on W, U and K and get some more loyal customers! T and L could probably stay at 25%...
I truly believe that status members are much more loyal...

And don't forget the 'free' renewals for 2003. Our membership year runs Oct-Sep so our cards are valid until the end of December and we get the new ones early in that month. In 2002 we had not actually requalified as EBG and when the new cards came I expected that they would be S. Surprise, surprise. Included was a letter saying something like 'this has been a bad year for everyone involved in air travel, blah blah blah, so we are extending your G status for another year'. Surely we couldn't have been the only ones to get that letter, but looking at the decrease from 2002 to 2003 they obviously didn't send it to everyone! I wonder what the criteria were?

cheers,

Henry

Nope, the 2004 reduction is due to the ban of points earning on Norwegian Domestic

As that occurred in 2002 that explains the reduction in 2003, not 2004!
And I am pretty sure that the 25% rule caused a large reduction!

I guess the various changes impact the actual EBG numbers with a delay of 1-2 years.

Now I now why I got my EBG gifted to me in 2005 in germany (with the fly intercont C once promo). Have requalified twice since, but the promo was sweet.

It's all about Norway, right? :D

I might be mistaken on this, but the changes in the Norwegian Domestic points earning had their greatest hit in 2003 IIRC, but they probably also had some impact in 2004 as well as purchase patterns changed.

In any event, SAS/EuroBonus can't blame all or even most of its problems on the government's competition-kick. That is, SAS EuroBonus seems to me to be more of a losing proposition in recent times than it had been before ... vis-a-vis the competition.

Also, what SAS/Star Alliance mega-flyer who also heavily uses LH and other Star Alliance carriers into/out of Europe (including SK) would stick with EuroBonus when you have LH's program HON status benefits (i.e., the lounges/terminals) or BD's great earning/redemption charts as an alternative? One who doesn't know better? :eek:

EB is a nice quick *G if you travel in C and live outside the dreaded 70k limit.

EBG can be earned with two return interconts via ARN in C.

After you get EBG, there is nothing much you can do or gain. So your best bet is to put your *A points into BD or UA (depends where you live and what you fly most). I choose to requalify for EBG each year and put the rest of my flights into LH M&M because its suits my flying pattern. The EB points are extremely valuable for domestic/scandic flights (ARN-LLA for my wife) and for those gate upgrades. Out side of SK operated flights earning and spending EB points is a bad deal.

How can it?? The 25% rule was implemented from November 1st 2004... The point ban in Norway came in late 2002 and many BU Wings Gold members came in to the program when the programs were merged in 2003, they would loose their status in 2004 (Braathens was mostly Norway domestic).

Of course the 25% rule has had a large impact on the number of elites, but the point ban in Norway has also been a major factor

So very true.

[BD's program is quite easy for retaining * Gold -- one roundtrip in biz between India and South America or one roundtrip in first between the US and India does it for me.]