Sorry for my rant, but do these 15%/25% matter now SAS starts charging Fuel surcharge on award ticket?

Makes sense
 

When living in Norway, it makes sense to swap to EB. Though I still wouldn't fly SK when TG is available...

or stuck in high-price economy giving only 25% like low economy :td: only if you always fly Economy Extra or Business is EuroBonus a good choice, otherwise there are many better options right now.

That does deserve mentioning.

One last point, you don't have to fly bmi at all to get status or get miles with them. I've never set foot on a bmi plane in my entire life, but I'm *G on their program.

Anyway, I'm gonna shut up now because I'm starting to sound like a militant fanboy.

True, but to take advantage of awards and upgrades you would want to be flying BMI if your a member of their program? I mean you can always use star alliance upgrades, but I've nerver in my entire life booked anything into either Y or B as is required for *A upgrades.

I appreciate all the input guys...cheers,
AB

My advice is simple:

Go for the program of the airline you are flying with. It is as simple as that.

Why not go for both TG*G and SK*G?
 

A round-trip OSL-BKK in C with SK earns you 30000 basic points as EBG so you only need 1.5 of these trips to re-qualify as EBG. I have not investigated into the earnings on TG for the MEL-BKK part of your trips, but if you are wise when deciding which program to use you might be able to retain your TG*G status and also become SK*G. You need to be careful though if MEL-BKK is to be credited to TG and the continuation BKK-OSL to EB. It should be doable, but it might be slightly tricky.

TG*G is valid for two years while to be EBG you have to re-qualify every year. The qualifying period for SK does not follow the calendar year but rather when you become an EB member. My qualifying period for EB does for example run from June till the end of May. This year all my earnings has been to my EB account. None of the flights have been credited to my TG ROP account since there is no need to do so until 2010. Just by coincidence I will be re-qualifying as EBG tonight flying PVG-MUC-OSL making me EBG until fall 2011 (and all in Y).

If you credit all your miles to EB you will probably become Double Gold with SK (use the search function to learn more about this). There are some advantages being Double Gold (EBG+), but I have not tried to use these since this, at least officially, only applies to bonus trips in Economy and I never book bonus trips in Economy for Intercontinental trips except for nice offers like the one we had earlier this year (the NRT mini DO). However with the recent changes to EB I will most likely never book a bonus trip in Economy again :(

Since you are ROP Gold you are probably more aware of the advantages of this program then me. I especially liked the "50% birth day month award discount", but this changes from year to year. Another advantage of being ROP Gold, at least in theory, is that you might book a trip in Y and use your upgrade voucher for the whole distance OSL-BKK-MEL-BKK-OSL.

My advise would be to make an analysis of your trips. With clever planning you might both retain your ROP Gold membership and qualify as EBG.

This doesn't always make sence.
For example, I fly mainly LH economy, but if I were on M&M I would'nt be *G. EB is much better for me.

Go with TG og BD - stay far away from SK. Some of the reasons are given above. Further, SK gives very few benefits to their own Golds over other *A Golds (the 15%/25% bonus points being the most obvious). Others have notes that SK are generous with op-ups I could not disagree more. After 10 years of EBG I have goten no more that 5-10 op-ups total. I have been op-upped more with BA (where I did not have Gold) than with SK. I have now left SK and EB.

The only advantage that EB truly have IMHO is the half price for children in award trips and low redemtion rates for intra-scandinavian travel. If you plan to use either of those a lot - go with SK. Otherwise, find an alternative.

I have a few comments to the op-ups, but first I would like to stress that even though I am EBG I do not claim that EB is the optimal program for either the OP or me.

Concerning upgrades I find SK to be quite generous. During the last 10 years I have had more than 30 upgrades with SK, not counting the times I was put in the mid section of the old B767s but with Y service. Approximately 25 have been op-ups and almost 20 of these have been on long haul flights. I find this to be very generous.

I do fly with other *A carriers also, but I have only been op-uped 3 times since 1998 and only once on an intercontinental flight. Considering that I fly roughly as much long haul with SK as with other *A airlines combined, the probability for me to score a long haul op-up is almost 20 times larger with SK than with other *A carriers.

In addition to these upgrades you have the option to upgrade with points. I have not counted these upgrades, but I have probably had at least 10 of these. Currently I find these stand by upgrades to be a very good deal and a plus for EB, but as you may have observed, SK wanted to make dramatical changes to this earlier this year. There is no guarantee against SK not trying to implement this terrible degradation to EB at some later time. If you decide to enroll in EB then better use your points while they still have some value...

Another pro for EB is their willingness to assist when something extraordinary happens. I will skip the details, but I have found EB to be most helpful and they have given me assistance and service they in no way were obliged to. I also find it quite easy to communicate both with EB and SK CR and this can be done in my native language. I do for instance not expect the same responsivenes from TG in BKK. Today I received a reply from TG ROP on an email I sent on June 6th. I have no experience with other *A programs.

I think SK EB has been a good program to me, but whether it will be one for the OP too, I simply don't know. Programs are not static, they evolve with time and you never know what kind of "service enhancements" they might implement at some later time ruining your careful analysis of the pros and cons of the different programs.