SAS to leave Star Alliance on 31st August
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SAS has confirmed that it will leave Star Alliance on 31st August. This follows the sale of the airline to a consortium which includes SkyTeam stalwarts Air France KLM, who have a pre-agreed deal to take full control of the carrier over a number of years.
The airline will join SkyTeam the next day, 1st September.
Or will it? The wording on the SAS website is woolly – see here. It says “EuroBonus members can enjoy similar loyalty benefits when travelling on most SkyTeam airlines beginning 1 September 2024.”
The fact that this is caveated implies that it won’t immediately have full SkyTeam membership. I imagine it will rely on bilateral deals with key SkyTeam members (almost certainly including Air France, KLM, Virgin Atlantic and Delta Air Lines) until all of the paperwork is done.
The SAS EuroBonus loyalty programme will continue. There are no plans to merge it with Flying Blue, the Air France / KLM programme, at least in the short term.
As you can imagine there are complex arrangements in place for anyone booking or changing Star Alliance redemptions made with EuroBonus miles, or trying to claim miles for Star Alliance flights made up to the transition date. You can find out more on the SAS website.
If you have SAS elite status, I suspect a Star Alliance status match of some sort will be launched before 31st August. SAS won’t tell you about this when it happens but we will cover it here.
