jobi

True Point. Maybe SK should consider to introduce the possibility to pay for your taxes & YQ in miles, just like LH does it for intraeuropean flights (12k miles extra vs. 150-200€ surchages).

caravaca

Yep, that would be a good idea. After all, you are part of the bonus program to get something extra...

I wonder if this replaces the previously announced higher costs for stand-by upgrades, which SAS decided to withdraw after massive protests here at FT?

naitkris

Why do I never get these emails from SAS?

These high costs for a "free" ticket are simply a joke!!

With this change SAS have to reduce the insane point purchase cost of 55 Euro for 1000 points at https://buyeurobonuspoints.com/buy/init.do - it is too expensive even before this change.

EuroBonus points will be worth half of what they used to be starting 15/Jul/2009 so they must make the cost of buying 1000 points no more than 27.50 Euro. In fact even 27.50 Euro per 1000 points is way too much. *A partner BMI charges only 12 GBP (~14 Euro) per 1000 points at https://buy.points.com/diamondclub/initbuy.do (need to login) - that is 4x less than SAS and the miles needed to book a trip are usually less with BMI!! BMI Diamond Club miles are also *A miles/points worth exactly the same as SAS EuroBonus points when spent on other *A partners.

They should also make it possible to book a one-way reward ticket now at 50% of the point cost for a return (BMI, Lufthansa, and many others allow this), a lot of the time I only need a one-way ticket but have to book a return and in doing so have to pay the extra points and taxes associated with the return flight which I never use - but with this change I will now also have to pay fuel surcharge on a flight I never use!!!

jacob_m

Well the whole point of award trips is that they should be free.
You pay a lot of money for your regular tickets and earn points on the flights you take, then when it's holiday time you have points in your account to go somewhere warm/exotic or take a more comfortable flight in business class.

If a trip to a destination around the Mediterranean costs 40,000 points for flights in cattle class with not even a glass of water for free and then SEK 1500 in taxes and charges I don't see much point to bother about award trips with Eurobonus.
If you then take into consideration the bad earnings for cheaper tickets (that are not cheap!) and the difficulties to actually earn those points for some travellers, then all of this becomes just ridiculous.

If you book some time in advance you can get a regular ticket to southern Europe with a competitor with free inflight service onboard for not a lot more money than the award ticket taxes and surcharges, and you don't have to bother about point earnings at all.
Sounds much easier, doesn't it?

sebinoslo

This is why I have about 40,000 pts on BA and never used it - because the airport+fuel charges are even more expensive than a low-fare ticket...

Maybe SAS aims at preventing people from using their points intra-europe (their new Core SAS) and forces us to use those on long-hauls where planes are not full and where we use 60-80,000 points at a time.

Echo J

Well, as SAS say, they've now brought themselves in line with other FFPs. Only problem is SK and EB weren't that great to start with. As with other carriers now, using points on Economy tickets will be a complete waste.
If SAS is trying dig themselves into a deep hole quickly, they sure are on the right path.
I guess I never will get rid of my last ~6000 points, but - and it saddens me a bit to say it - not setting foot on a SAS plane (shorthaul at least) in the future will be a reward in itself.

Using points on longhaul business tickets, or even eco extra, is still an ok option, though obviously not as good as before.

sebinoslo, by yourself a premium economy ticket on BA and upgrade it to business (25 000 miles total to upgrade a return to North America), best use of BA miles IMHO.

sebinoslo

Sweet ;-)
I flew BA C twice on long IC routes 2 years ago when I started working - when I didn't know there were such things as *A, OneWorld etc ;-)

Echo J

I remember those days, oh how things were so much simpler back then! Like you, I've got stranded miles from then as well. Unfortunately, mine are Delta to the tune of ~50k...

GetAA81Back2ARN

Currently that trip would end up with SEK479 in taxes and SEK656 in fuel surcharges which would increase with SEK175 (approx) after July 15. In total about SEK1300. Really bad!

Consider a faimly of four travelling on award tickets to Spain: SEK5200!

It promotes non stop travel for sure. But that would also mean that airlines offering connections (such as SAS in this case) will lower the base fare to remain competive. So far this haven't been an issue but now with the ******* surcharges added to award tickets it really does make a difference.

GetAA81Back2ARN

That was not nice. Did feel a bit poor when visiting Norway last week. The Swedish currency didn't really match the price level of Norway.

GetAA81Back2ARN

Did some simple checks on award availability ARN-EWR (in economy class) for the fall and compared them with the published fare found on ExpertFlyer (as this is in effect what we get for our points starting next week).

Almost all flights are wide open and many of the flight have award availability as well. When no 25% classes are available for sale it is very hard to find award seats so I guess there is a correlation.

The fare for ARN-(CPH)-EWR is betwen SEK1400 (T) and SEK3300 (W) and the surcharge is SEK2600!!! And this for the fascinating price of 60000 points which equals more than 300 intrascandinavian flights in the lower booking classes for at least SEK500 per ticket! SEK150000 = SEK1400 (<1%)

Talk about devaluation of the Eurobonus currency. Even though it was bad before as well and this example is somewhat extreme.

Slightly better when booking into Y+ or C.

WilcoRoger

The sentiments aired here explain well the reason why EB is just a tertiary FFP for me - to pick up the odd points on Baltic or Estonian, in Scandics and to make use of the free CCs +17k points SEB was kind to offer Usage - strictly Radisson weekend nights at 10k a pop. No surcharges there.

SK_RSJ

Got this e-mail from Eurobonus yesterday:

EuroBonus // Pandion
Bästa EuroBonus-medlem,
SAS tar i likhet med andra flygbolag ut bränsletillägg på flygresor. Från och med den 15 juli kommer denna avgift även omfatta bonusresor som bokas med SAS, Blue1 och Wideroe, vilket redan idag görs hos de flesta andra flygbolag.
Eftersom du är Pandionmedlem vill vi ge dig denna förhandsinformation för att du skall ges möjlighet att boka bonusresa innan bränsletillägget införs.

view

As it turns out, all silvers and golds got it as well. So much for making us feel special.

jfidler

(from the Eurobonus email)
<i>As a Gold member, we would like to give you prior knowledge to allow you
time to book your reward trips before the fuel surcharge is introduced next
week. </i>

So they give less than a week's notice? That's not much notice, especially during the summer when many people are on holiday. It seems like a desperate last-minute revenue-raising move, just like a few weeks ago when the Estonian government raised the VAT with only 6 business days' notice (imagine being a retailer that has to change the price tags on thousands of items).

I never quite understood the fuel surcharge thing. Yes, fuel is expensive, but so are the other costs to running a flight. Why is this listed as a separate line-item? Why not have additional charges for airplane operating costs, pilots' salaries, check-in staff, etc. in that case? It seems to me the main part of the price should include all operating fees, including fuel.

Do I remember correctly that fuel surcharges are not allowed in the US? If so, would a way around this new rule be to book a r/t award ticket originating from the US? Or does it depend on where the EB member is registered? Or each leg of the flight?