Confusion over SAS’s crazy ‘one million bonus miles’ promotion as criteria tweaked
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If you flew 15 different SkyTeam airlines by the end of the year, you would receive 1 million SAS EuroBonus points. These would be worth £10,000 if you value the points at 1p each when used for premium cabin flight redemptions.
I have seen itineries where the whole thing can be done for under £2,500 of flights. Look at the comments to our Thursday article for an example. Don’t forget that you’d also earn standard points for your flights too – the bonus is an extra on top.
However, a snag has appeared.
EDIT, 5pm: SAS has now updated its website again, so I have rewritten this article to reflect the current position
As we said on Thursday, SAS only recognises 17 SkyTeam carriers. For some reason, it excludes ITA Airways (annoying as a short haul carrier) and Middle East Airlines (based in Beirut, so not really an option). Czech Airlines, which is about to shut down, is also not featured.
To earn the 1 million bonus points it said that you needed to fly on 15 of the following 17 airlines:
- Aerolíneas Argentinas
- AeroMexico
- Air Europa
- Air France
- China Airlines
- China Eastern
- Delta Air Lines
- Garuda Indonesia
- Kenya Airways
- KLM
- Korean Air
- SAS
- SAUDIA
- TAROM
- Vietnam Airlines
- Virgin Atlantic
- Xiamen Air
SAS has now updated its website to reflect two things were already known but not properly reflected. Take a look here.
- You cannot currently have points credit from Air Europa and Aerolineas Argentinas – retroclaiming will be available later, but not until 2025 in the case of Aerolineas – which would be too late for it to count
- You cannot currently redeem EuroBonus points for Air Europa or Aerolineas Argentinas flights, so the only way of taking a qualifying flight with those carriers is for cash
I spoke with SAS to get some clarification.
This is what they said:
Earn on the two mentioned partners is not fully technically implemented. On Air Europa, earn/burn will be technically implemented later this month [October]. Flights flown before the technical implementation date will give EuroBonus-points and count for the challenge if retro credited through SAS website. Earn on Aerolineas Argentinas is planned to be technically implemented in December, so might not be implemented in time to count towards the millionaire campaign. We will look into how to clarify this info on the partner pages.
So ….
It looks like Air Europa will count if you fly on a cash ticket. However, if you fly during October, you will need to keep your boarding pass and ticket number so you can retroclaim the flight later.
Aerolineas Argentinas is, it appears, not valid for the promotion. Whilst you will be able to retroclaim cash flights taken from 1st September, this won’t be possible until after the deadline for the millionaire promotion.
This isn’t a total disaster since Aerolineas is the one carrier that most UK-based readers would skip because it isn’t well connected to the rest of the SkyTeam network.
You can learn more about the 1 million points promotion on the SAS website here.
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How to maximise your miles when paying for flights (April 2025)
Some UK credit cards offer special bonuses when used for buying flights. If you spend a lot on airline tickets, using one of these cards could sharply increase the credit card points you earn.
Booking flights on any airline?
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The card comes with a sign-up bonus of 20,000 Membership Rewards points. These would convert to 20,000 Avios or various other airline or hotel programmes. The standard earning rate is 1 point per £1.
You can apply here.
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Buying flights on British Airways?
The British Airways Premium Plus American Express card earns double Avios (3 Avios per £1) when used at ba.com.
The card comes with a sign-up bonus of 30,000 Avios. The standard earning rate is 1.5 Avios per £1.
You do not earn bonus Avios if you pay for BA flights on the free British Airways American Express card or either of the Barclaycard Avios Mastercards.
You can apply here.
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Buying flights on Virgin Atlantic?
Both the free Virgin Atlantic Reward Mastercard and the annual fee Virgin Atlantic Reward+ Mastercard earn double Virgin Points when used at fly.virgin.com.
This means 1.5 Virgin Points per £1 on the free card and 3 Virgin Points per £1 on the paid card.
There is a sign-up bonus of 3,000 Virgin Points on the free card and 18,000 Virgin Points on the paid card.
You can apply for either of the cards here.
Virgin Atlantic Reward Mastercard
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Virgin Atlantic Reward+ Mastercard
18,000 bonus points and 1.5 points for every £1 you spend Read our full review
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