npahedman

Not really a shortcut and certainly not cost efficient, just making up the maths what I need to do in order to get LH HON. I am certainly not gonna go for it. He,he

larsll

The evil people that agreed to SK/LH revenue-sharing is gonna put some spanners in the works, as 50% of ARN-FRA flights are operated by SK. SK = no-HON miles... Depending on your favourite routing that might work very well or not at all...

npahedman

I agree with you larsll. However by using FRA as a hub when flying somewhere else than Baltic Sea region, and doing it in C,D,J classes, you can earn 10.000 points per W/R trip approx. Still flying inside Europe. If doing that consequently for 2y, the HON status is within reach. EBP seems to be a big joke unfortunately. Nice gadgets but almost nothing else worth going for. EBG gives much more the points invested.

tommy777

This thread is starting to get pretty OT and I would love for the interesting EBP vs. HON to go on in a separate thread and leave this thread for reports from our EBPs

Thank you all

SK_RSJ

So, have travelled around on SK for two months with EBP. Short summary:
-LHR is the only station that has recognized EBP in a decent way (could bring extra guests to lounge, EBP stamp on BP, gate agent upgrade)
-ARN did upgrade from M to Y once (ARN-EWR) which was stated as EBP upgrade by FM at CI.
-Checked my account and have done some 39 segments on SK as EBP so far and have only had status recognized on board once (didn´t have to pay for BOB on swedish domestic - cup of coffee - travelling on C-ticket).
-Nothing special for lounges (apart from CPH having trouble reading my card a few times)
-Havn´t seen any extra features at all (blocked seats, C-menu in M etc) and you have to pay for BOB. I asked for a glass of water on MMX-ARN the other day and was charged SEK 20:- to my EBP Diners card and it was the purser who did that. Smart guy.
-Timely attention from Eurobonus member service, Customer relations and sales agents. There EBP actually is a good thing to have. For instance they released bonus seats fro me on a flight to ATH this summer so that I could use the companion ticket-deal.

-I think I have mentioned it earlier but one time I was paying for BOB on Ryan Air with my EBG Mastercard and the FA said something like "We are very happy to have you on board today, sir".

tommy777

That's hilarious! Better recognition on a Ryanair flight .

BTW, don't buy airline tickets when you are drunk...

SK_RSJ

Well, I don´t do FR often, the biggest problem they have is the unmanned CI. If you come one minute efter deadline you will not get on the flight even if you have carry on only. Amazingly FR actually manages to do priority boarding and it works. ^ And it´s an insult suggesting i purchased the ticket in question myself.

SK_RSJ

Another note on one of the "old" Pandion benefits - the Companion Ticket.
For me, this is actually a great offering and I have already used it twice.
The deal is you buy any Business Class ticket (Z and/or discounted is OK) and you can bring your wife/man/partner/kids/etc in Business Class for X-class points (Economy Class). And they will actually free up award space for your companion! (They doesn´t free up space officially, but they have done that on my two occassions - space management in CPH typically needs some 10 minutes to do it for the agent) ^

Example: Purchasing a Z-ticket ARN-DXB-ARN via CPH. For two adults it will cost approximately SEK 17.000 + 59000 EB points in Business Class, return trip. For christmas two Economy tickets would probably be something like SEK 16.000 anyhows and there is no award space on the flights officially. And then one would upgrade with points at the gate, go figure which deal is the sweetest.

I will suggest to SK they extend this offer to Economy Extra (P-award for X-points) too. I guess it was introduced before Extra and havnt been changed.
I think they should hand out Companion Ticket-vouchers to EBG+ too.

larsll

LH has a similar thing for HON and SEN. Buy one award ticket and get the second for half points. (E.g. two to the US in C for 135000 miles + taxes.) Only downside is that any award ticket to US is 225 EUR in fees.

SK_RSJ

For Pandions it is meant to be used when the member is on paid Business Class and would like to bring wifey along. Therefore the rules states that the partner travelling on award only has to travel with the member in one direction.
On the other hand my guess is Eurobonus member service would probably not be picky if the member was on award too as they have been *very* accomodating since I got EBP. Now if they could only extend that behaviour to the flying staff.

kjsaw

Either of these things would add lots of value to being EBG.

SK_RSJ

SAS CR called me today offering me to send them any BOB receipts I have since becoming EBP and they would be happy to send me money as compensation. The lady also informed me that pursers are clearly instructed to never charge EBP for BOB. She also informed that they have recently sent out a special note to pursers regarding EBP and that they are about to change the way EBP is displayed on the pax manifests to make it more visible to crew. ^
Also she gave me back 30K points for a recent upgrade to C.

tommy777

Great news! Pretty good from SAS!!

miikka

Are they monitoring this forum or did you complain to get that service?

ranskis

Apart from domestic flight with a single P-class cabin, this is purely stupid from SAS! Pandion should just be booked into Y class whatever fare is paid and that would make the process much easier! In case the pandion is charged in P class, he needs to collect receipts, send them, SAS need to process them => a lot of wasted time/money for not that much! In case the Pandion does not pay, it feels strange for the other passengers that have to pay (without counting the inventory they certainly maintain with payment/food/drinks in order to have some controlling behind).