Fun with SAS Reservations and website
 

I have been looking for flights to China again. AY priced quite okay (cheapest) but they have had some trouble being on-time and I recently got EBG back so I decided to go for Star Alliance.

But not with SAS, Air China instead. Yeah, could be interesting experience but let's see, so far they have been excellent in domestic flights.

Air China cannot sell TMP-ARN-TMP because there isn't codeshare. So I decided that I could book that with SAS then.

I noticed that

• it is impossible to choose any other city than Beijing in flysas.fi web booking engine, there are codeshare flights with SK flight number to some domestic destinations but the web booking engine doesn't know about those
• SK/KF/Star Alliance reservations in Finland (the expensive one) was able to find all but domestic flights (and only after I told the exact flight numbers I wanted), the missing ones weren't available for them - they couldn't find those even with CA number
• Internet support investigated the problem related to web booking engine and then informed me that ARN-PEK on CA aren't bookable in the web because SAS flies to Beijing with their own plane, no matter that CA has completely different arrival time and much better for me, they suggested to call their reservations and when I told that they couldn't help me there, there wasn't explanation ("sometimes the flights just aren't bookable")

Of course SAS wants to direct the passengers to their own flights, but why restrict the codeshare domestic flights? And if those are showing in ExpertFlyer then why cannot even SAS themselves to book those flights without a problem? And Air China flights ARN-PEK-ARN have SK codeshare too ...

In this point I remembered why I don't deal with airlines directly ... stupid me for spending time and money to call SAS when it was totally useless. Air China was very helpful but they couldn't sell me TMP-ARN-TMP, which was understandable I guess.

So I called American Express and told them that I have very specific routing that I want. I was pretty sure that if SAS cannot find the flights and book those then Amex cannot either - I guessed wrong, after a 30 minutes in the phone I had my itinerary just like I wanted. And cheaper than what SAS was able to offer me over the phone (with missing domestic flights in China).

Oh, and according to ExpertFlyer all the flights had availability.

You should have tried a different phone agent at SAS. They should be able to pick any flight in Amadeus. Sometimes there are no fares loaded even if there is a code share agreement or the agreement has some (sometimes odd) restrictions. Did you book it as SK codeshare with Amex?
Can be worth the struggle to deal with SAS if you want a 117-ticket as EBG with tha advantage of being able to ask SAS to deal with any issues such as rebooking on to the SK flight if CA cancels.

why not just use wideroe.no?

I wonder why they are keeping the code-shares if they aren't bookable or they don't want people to book those. I remember that in history when I travelled more to USA, SAS was able to book UA flights directly even without SK flight number. Now SAS wasn't able to pick up CA flights or SK code-shared flights.

Yeah, probably should have called again to SAS but I really wasn't up to that. Speaking to one agent and paying the premium fare and then had to spell the airport codes to the agent to help him to find the correct airports, then tell him the flight numbers ("there isn't SK numbered flights in domestic China") ... got tired and gave up. If SAS doesn't want my money then I am sure there are plenty of other companies who prefer to get it.

I decided not to spend too much time with them and trust only on Amex who hasn't failed yet. And I booked CA flight numbers to thank them for the excellent phone service they provided earlier in the evening. It was actually really pleasure to use the CA global toll-free (!!) phone service earlier in the evening.

Funny, calling CA was like going back in time, suddenly you had a toll-free number, which answered very fast and everything was easy with them.

Honestly, now I trust CA more than SK ... And in case something goes wrong, I have 24/7 helpline via Amex IEC, which will be helping me anytime. And what I experienced yesterday with CA, they seem to be much more helpful than SK. Once again I noticed that for some reason I can live with Chinese service very well, not all people of course share my thoughts. Maybe I am having the problem with European service ... especially with Estonian call-centers SAS uses.

Let's see how this goes. I am interested to see the service on-board CA. :) I have only good experiences so far in domestic flights with CA.

I assure you that CA dom Y service is much better than SK intra-europe P class(or even better than SK Y!). But SK is far better on longhaul flight.

Ah. I am actually very interested to see how they perform on that one. Of course the aircraft is just 767 because they do not fly to ARN with the bigger ones but I am not so much aircraft dependent - I guess there won't be personal IFE. :)

I wonder what kind of service Star Alliance Gold will receive on-board, anything special or do they recognize only their own elites. There cannot be many EBGs on-board because I would guess most of us would choose SAS late-night flight to PEK instead.

Sometimes it's even hard to book SK-flights using SK's own website...

I wanted to book a oneway ARN-CPH-OTP (Bucharest) on May 1st but "Romania" isn't an option using sas.se - even though SAS has its own flights CPH-OTP! I then checked sas.dk and "Romania" is avialable. I was able to get the following pricing:

Scandinavian Airlines
SK 1417 ARN 07:10 - CPH 08:25 Non-stop / 738
Scandinavian Airlines
SK 1781 CPH 09:20 - OTP 12:50 Non-stop / 319

Prissætning af rejsen

Billetpris Skatter Salgstillæg DKK
1100.00 + 205.00 + 75.00 x 1 Voksen = 1380.00

SK 1417 KSEOWM
SK 1781 KSEOWM

I talked to SAS Internet support because I wanted a price in SEK, not DKK, and because the fee at sas.se is 50 SEK instead of the 75 DKK at sas.dk, but I got the answer "SAS does not fly to Bucharest". After replying that "Well according to sas.dk SAS do fly, flight no. is SK 1781 CPH-OTP" SAS Internet support just answered "Well book it on sas.dk then..." :rolleyes:

One thing SAS has consistent service is SAS IT, you cannot expect anything improvement from them.:td:

Hmm... they have ancient 762ERs and new 763ERs. I remember looking up the 767 parked in ARN a few months ago (bored in the lounge) and its the older 762. Not that the bird will not fly, but older aircraft tend to be more crummy inside inspite of facelifts (see the ex-NG OS 763). The 767-3Q8ER is used by the chinese premier on his overseas trips, so it can't be that bad ;)

The 767 fleet: http://airfleets.net/flottecie/Air%2...ctive-b767.htm

The food is nothing different:
http://airlinemeals.net/meals/AirChina.html

recognition of *G is non existent as per reports in the *A forum. Its either VIP or normal pax.

Yeah, well, have to concentrate on other aspects then. I actually was aware it will be 767 and my hopes are not set too high. According to ExpertFlyer the CA912 will operate with 767-200 and CA911 is just listed as 767 (most likely -200 again). According to quick search in airliners.net photo database, ARN has seen 767-300 sometimes. :)

True but I like it. Even the packed snack vegetable/meat thing you get sometimes.

So, business as usual. Pretty much nobody recognizes *G - that is how I have observed it in my travel.

Too bad the business class fare was running high just like with any other airline, it could have been fun to try it. And AY would have been cheaper and quicker but then again, I am back in Star Alliance again.

I don't know if this fare is acceptable for you, but there is quite good fare ex-ARN.
ex-ARN-PEK/PVG CA D class 14210 SEK r/t (ex-CPH is 25885 DKK r/t by the way)
Fare basis: DLRTEU

FLIGHT APPLICATION:
UNLESS OTHERWISE SPECIFIED THE FARE COMPONENT MUST NOT BE ON ONE OR MORE OF THE FOLLOWING ... CA FLIGHTS 7001 THROUGH 7030.

CA7012 CPH-PEK(SK995) / CA7011 PEK-CPH(SK996)
CA7014 ARN-PEK(SK993) / CA7013 PEK-ARN(SK994)

Which means you cannot fly SK metal on Scandinavia-PEK.:td:

Btw, miikka, you can also collect CX Asia Miles on Air China and China Eastern. And of course use those CX miles on domestic flights within China.

I'm pretty sure Cathay status gets more recognition (it's a Chinese airline after all) on Air China than some suspicious laowai entity called Star Alliance. ;)

Haha. This was absolutely the best today. I actually forgot how AsiaMiles goes beyond the alliances. Funny, laowai traveling on Chinese airline using laowai status (*G) and collecting to Chinese miles program. Hmmm, I am pretty sure they will get mixed up completely. I am actually tempted to call Air China and trying. Where I put my CX luggage tag ...

Sometime ago I actually tried to register to Air China FF program but me and the registration form didn't get common understanding about my birthdate, the form insisted that I am under age while I inputted the year correctly.

My FF status is a complete mess and I do not have a good strategy where to deposit the miles and what status to keep and collect. Nowadays I am just flying whatever comes to my path, now it will be Air China, last December it was Cathay and then Finnair here and there. Finnish people would call me tuuliviiri (turncoat in this context) for changing my mind all the time.

Now this story got another twist, the flights were ticketed yesterday and guess what - 117 ticket number and charge from SAS. So American Express was able to do something in the end what SAS themselves couldn't do!

I was in the impression that if I book flights with CA flight number, I will actually get the tickets from their stock but now I have SAS tickets with CA flight numbers (except TMP-ARN-TMP). Amazing how SAS failed completely but travel agency was able to sell it anyway.

A little bit puzzled how this industry works, I still have CA reservation number and SK reservation numbers in addition to Sabre reservation number. I have 117 ticket number and then two SK flight numbers + 4 CA flight numbers. I guess Amex uses SAS as a ticketing channel to CA and ticketed the whole trip through SAS while booking directly with CA most of the flights.

With 117 ticket numbers, SAS is now more responsible if something goes wrong?

Still amazed that SAS couldn't do the same that was just a standard request for travel agency.

Your contract is with your TA, so he is your go to if the trip doesn't proceed as he booked it.

As long as CA/SK have (etix) interlining, your TA can issue the complete ticket on SK 117 stock. Just like WF issues all their wideroe.no tix on WF stock.

Getting multiple airlines booking codes on one PNR is normal when you have multiple airlines...