Barry’s SAS million point challenge – Airline 4, KLM and Airline 5, SAS

Rob writes: In October, SAS announced the million points challenge – here’s our article. If you can fly 15 of the SkyTeam alliance carriers by the end of 2024, you will receive 1 million bonus SAS EuroBonus points.

It’s not a competition – everyone who hits the target will get the points.

A number of HfP readers took up the challenge. One of them was Barry Collins, who you may have seen discussing the challenge in The Times – click here (paywall, or click here for a non-paywall version).

Barry is sharing his trip with HfP readers. Part 1 and Part 2 looked at ‘why’ and ‘how’ (click to read). Airline 1 was Air Europa. Airline 2 was Air France. Airline 3 was TAROM. Today Barry knocks off the 4th and 5th airlines of the 15 needed and completes the (supposedly easy) European leg. Over to Barry ….

Bucharest to Amsterdam, KLM

3.15am seemed positively civilised when I set my alarm last night. It did not feel that way when it went off. I had vastly underestimated the effect of seven hours sleep across two nights, and felt utterly horrendous waking up.

My thoughts turned to the Asia leg, which is far worse in terms of number of flights and availability of sleep, and a tiny bit of panic set in ….

An anti-travel sickness tablet, along with a dissolvable ‘fizz’ (thank you BA for introducing me!) meant I didn’t throw up in the Uber to the airport. However it was spending a few moments in the bitter air outside the airport along with a few sips of water that truly sorted me out. 

In stark contrast to the previous day, Bucharest Airport was absolutely heaving at 4am. Bodies scattered everywhere and just a cochophony of noise. Despite this, there was no queue at the Sky Priority line and check-in took a matter of seconds.

There was no discernable option for fast track security so I joined the largest line I have ever been in at an airport! Bigger than the queue at Paris the day before that I chuckled at as I walked past. God bless karma. I once again chose the wrong line (obviously) and in the end took around 45 minutes to clear security. 

This meant that I only had a few minutes in the lounge. Which in a way was handy, as it was tiny and had no seats free, so that was all I would have spent in there had I arrived earlier as planned. I grabbed a water and a yogurt and headed to the gate. 

If you usually buy lounge access, even with DragonPass or Priority Pass, please do not waste your money getting into this one. Totally not worth it. 

When people talk about finding air travel stressful, this is what they are talking about. Loud, overcrowded, nowhere to sit, long queues – you name it, Bucharest Airport had it. Part of me loves it though. Seeing how different, things that are ostensibly the same, are from one country to the next is a big reason to travel and broaden your horizons.

Following on the theme of ‘actually every short haul plane is slightly different’, I now have a new favourite with KLM. Extra legroom seats near the front were just £14 extra to book. Best of all they have an actual working USB port along with a very clever little drop down phone holder above the tray table. So simple, yet so effective. Perfect! 

I got out my eye mask & trtl (if you know, you know) and slept the whole flight as well I could, and landed on time, without issue, in Amsterdam.

Amsterdam to Stockholm, SAS

When travelling between airports in short shrift, the differences between them become jarring. Whereas it is usually weeks or months between departure lounges, I had a reference point based on hours.

Amsterdam Schiphol really couldn’t have been any more different to Bucharest if you tried. The only similarity was that both have a single terminal building, although Schipol must be four or five times the size.

Gone was the chaos and hemmed in hustle, replaced by calmess and expansive spaces. With no announcements, the airport could be described as eerily quiet.

The KLM 25 lounge, one of two here, was similarly spacious to the Air France lounge yesterday, but without the double height ceiling and glass. Vast seating areas, showers and multiple food stations replaced the cramped lounge in Bucharest. I will mark them down for having a Christmas tree up already. Too soon, Netherlands!

The plane was a standard A320, with no separate section at the front for business class. Gone were the leather seats with adjustable head rests, in came fabric seats. We were also back to non-working USB ports, and with no sign of the handy phone holder that KLM had I used my own accessory to watch some downloaded TV.

This flight was also, unsurprisingly, the first to appear on my all important SAS app. It was there by the time we arrived in Stockholm, along with 150 EuroBonus points to boot. Let’s hope the others start to filter through soon …. 

Stockholm to London, SAS

Although I had now ticked off all of the European carriers Skyteam had to offer, I was in Stockholm so I needed one more flight just to get home – perhaps not the greatest bit of planning.

It is things like this where I have made mistakes and therefore taken extra time and/or spent extra money to complete the challenge. I’m not a travel expert, travel journalist or influencer and am very much learning as I go. 

The SAS lounge in Stockholm sits firmly between the two I had already visited that day. A little bigger than Bucharest, and also an internal aspect looking out over the concourse below. From one entrance you can visit either of the two SAS lounges.

As I was all lounged out for this weekend, I opted for the smaller and (from the looks of it) quieter of the two. The food options are limited but high quality, and while it lacks some of the nicer amenities of KLM and Air France lounges, it is a perfectly pleasant place to spend an hour or so. They even have Twinnings tea bags rather than the dire Lipton ones in Amsterdam. 

My one gripe is that the lounge is located on the wrong side of passport control so I had no idea how long I needed to get to the gate. The nice lady on the SAS desk refused to be drawn on what the queues were like down there, so in the absence of a Disneyworld-style queue time screen, I guess it all depends on your appetite for risk ….

In the end I decided I was probably pushing my wife’s patience enough already to risk missing a flight for the sake of a few extra minutes in the lounge. The queue wasn’t huge, but I definitely felt calmer knowing that if I win my game of ‘pick the slow line’ as is now customary, then I would still make my flight. Passengers heading to Tirana on an earlier flight were pulled ahead of everyone else whilst queuing, as they had clearly enjoyed those extra few minutes I hadn’t!

The look on the passport officers face when she asked me where I had been was a picture. To her credit though she didn’t question it – there was more than a hint of an eye roll though. As I’d been in the Schengen zone since arriving in Paris, that was only my second passport stamp along with France yesterday. 

An identical plane (not the same one, I checked) – right down to non-working USB port – took me back to Heathrow. I won’t mention the fight that was taking place right by my car in the car park!

5 flights, 4 countries, 3 time zones, 3 currencies, 2 ridiculous wake up calls, 1 delay (which didn’t matter). And that was the easy European leg! 

America, here I come ….

Click here for the next article in this series.

The full itinerary

As a reminder, here is Barry’s full itinerary.

Trip 1 – Gatwick to Barcelona (easyjet), Madrid to Gatwick (Air Europa) booked as part of a family holiday

Trip 2 – Heathrow to Paris (Air France) – Paris to Bucharest (TAROM) – Bucharest to Amsterdam (KLM) – Amsterdam to Stockholm (SAS) – Stockholm to Heathrow (SAS) 

Trip 3 – Heathrow to Atlanta (Virgin Atlantic) – Atlanta to Mexico City (Delta) – Mexico City to Paris (Aeromexico) – Paris to Heathrow (Air France) 

Trip 4 – Stansted to Istanbul (Pegasus) – Istanbul to Riyadh (Pegasus) – Riyadh to Jeddah (Saudia) – Jeddah to Jakarta (Saudia) – Jakarta to Singapore (Garuda) – Singapore to Ho Chi Minh (Vietnam) – Ho Chi Minh to Taipei (China Airlines) – Taipei to Xiamen (Xiamen Airlines) – Xiamen to Shanghai (Xiamen Airlines) – Shanghai to Seoul (Korean) – Seoul to Shanghai (China Eastern) – Shanghai to Gatwick (China Eastern)

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