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Barry’s SAS million point challenge – a worrying chat, Airlines 10 (Garuda) and 11 (Vietnam)

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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).

SAS million point challenge

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. Airline 4 was KLM. Airline 5 was SAS. Airline 6 was Virgin Atlantic. Airline 7 was Delta. Airline 8 was Aeromexico. Airline 9 was Saudia.

We rejoin Barry as he arrives in Jakarta to start the ‘proper’ Asia leg of the trip, having flown in from Jeddah on Saudia. Things were about to take a turn for the worse.

Over to Barry ….

A worrying chat with Roy in Jakarta Airport

With my longest layover at nearly 7 hours, I took my time getting off the plane in Jakarta and into the terminal. I found my way to the transfer desk but it was unmanned.

A member of airport staff said that as I had a boarding pass on my phone, I could go upstairs through transfer security. Transfer security, however, wholeheartedly disagreed with this and walked me back downstairs. They both looked for someone from Garuda as it was my next airline, but no joy.

Jakarta airport

After a bit of a disagreement with the airport staff as to whether I needed a visa to transit with a confirmed booking (according to their own website, I don’t!), I eventually gave up and bought a tourist visa, went through passport control and left the airport – passing on my way the largest biophillic wall I have ever seen. I then circled around to departures and re-entered. £26 well spent. 

With the lounge not opening for another three hours, I found a comfy spot and pitched up. The person who’d been sat next to me on the Saudia flight came over and chatted, as he’d guessed I was also doing the SAS challenge like him!

Roy lives in Sydney but had three weeks off before taking up a new job. He was off by himself travelling the world and picking up the points on his way.

Unlike me, Roy (picture below) is a bit of a travel geek and has an encyclopedic knowledge of airlines, flights and all the associated codes and jargon. He had also been studying Flyertalk and other online forums discussing the challenge – which I hadn’t – and informed me that it was apparently a well known fact that not all flights with SkyTeam partners will count for this promotion.

I had seen this mentioned in a Wall Street Journal article on the challenge, but as the only airline listed on the SAS site with the possibility of zero points was TAROM (for O, X & W codes), I didn’t worry about it. My TAROM ticket was clearly in V class.

Roy

What I hadn’t considered is that some airlines may have non-earning ticket classes which SAS hadn’t bothered to list as earning zero points. My assumption had been that if nothing was listed as non-earning then EVERYTHING would earn.

On the tickets I had bought through a travel agent, the ticket code wasn’t visible. I had just a booking reference and a ticket number.

Roy said that there were issues with Xiamen and Delta economy flights ticketing predominantly into non-qualifying ticket buckets. We tried to look at my upcoming Xiamen flights but the website would not let me in to see. 

My Delta flight, however, had already been flown and I had the boarding pass. Sure enough, the ticket class shown wasn’t listed, at all, on the SAS website, either as qualifying or non-qualifying.

The flight had been booked via Virgin Atlantic and the Virgin Atlantic ticket code (E) seemed to have carried over from the outbound journey. SAS only recognised B, H, K, L, M, Q, S, T, U, V, W, X and Y as valid Delta economy classes.

Roy thought I was stuffed. I was hopeful that SAS wouldn’t fall back on the small print (or in this case, zero print) in order to avoid paying up. As ticketing class is ‘an airline thing’ that the end user customers have no control over – and cannot even see in advance without special tools in many cases – I didn’t see how it could possibly be a condition of the promotion?!

I was worried enough though. I spent an hour working out if there was another route home that would allow me to tick off an extra airline just in case.

I came up with what I thought was a pretty solid plan. My current routing was to fly from Seoul to London Gatwick on China Eastern, with an aircraft change in Shanghai.

Instead, I could get a low cost airline from Seoul to Guangzhou, jump on the (SkyTeam) Kenya Airways ‘fifth freedom’ flight from Guangzhou to Bangkok and then get a China Eastern flight back home from there.

This Kenya Airways flight has been very popular with those taking the challenge. It allows you to tick off the only African SkyTeam member without actually going there. Roy, however, thinks that all of the currently bookable seats on the Kenya Airways flight are non-qualifying ticket codes. I am thinking about packing up and going home.

Singapore Harbour

Jakarta to Singapore, Garuda Indonesia

On the upside, the food in the Jakarta lounge is a delicious Indonesian fried rice, with snapper and potatoes. The shower wasn’t as good as Air France, but certainly appreciated.

I am back to the narrow body planes now, and this one from Garuda had the big 2-2 seats in business and actual working seat back entertainment systems! But no USB power ports. Boo.

Despite the short flight time of less than 90 minutes, Garuda was able to serve a quick breakfast of omelette and chicken sausage. 

Living just outside of Eastbourne, we can see the English Channel from our house. Ostensibly the busiest shipping lane in the world, the vessels go across the horizon like ducks at a carnival shooting gallery. Well today I have located the world’s supply of missing container ships – they are all in Singapore’s harbour.

Changi Airport

Singapore to Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam Airlines

As I had heard numerous times how great Changi Airport in Singapore was, I had high expectations. It is absolutely huge, no doubt. I counted at least six lounges just in the B section of Terminal 3 – so God only knows how many there are in total!

There are numerous unique features like the slide, a constantly running free cinema, a butterfly garden and of course the massive indoor waterfall. The main concourse, though, felt to me very American in style. Given the time of year I half expected the McCallisters to run past me trying to get their plane before it went without them! 

As I was unable to check in online through the Vietnam Airlines website, I had to wait until the transfer desk would consider printing one for me, a maximum of three hours before departure.

I was feeling a bit Tom Hanks – unable to get into the lounge without my boarding pass, and stuck in limbo in the terminal. I caught the second half of a film at the cinema, and went on the train a couple of times to see the waterfall.  I would have had to clear customs both ways to see it in person so didn’t bother.

When I did finally get into the SATS lounge that serves Vietnam Airlines and some of the other SkyTeam airlines, I ate some noodles for lunch, charged my batteries, and tried my best not to fall asleep for fear of missing my flight!

It is now about 4am UK time on Saturday, and I had got on my first flight at 8pm on Thursday. With the bad news from Roy, and about four hours sleep in total, I was really beginning to feel it.

Singapore Airlines economy

This flight marked my first ‘upgrade’ of sorts as I had landed an extra legroom emergency row seat for no additional cost. I was hoping to stretch out and sleep for as much of the flight as possible.

Only the separate business class section at the front of the plane differentiates it from an easyJet one. Fabric seats with no adjustable headrest, no in-flight entertainment, and no charging facilities of any kind do feel at the basic end of what it is possible to offer on these type of planes.

I dozed the whole flight and declined the food offering, so unfortunately can’t comment on its quality. But still, it was good to be offered something on such a short flight.

Ho Chi Minh City

Move over Bucharest, we have a new champion. The longest queue at an airport now goes to Ho Chi Minh City, with this outstanding queue to get through passport control, which took around an hour to navigate:

Ho Chi Minh City immigration

Once outside, you are bombarded with offers of sim cards and taxis. I’m sure it probably would be cheaper to grab one of them, or even a bus, but I was knackered and played it safe with a metered cab from the taxi rank.

When everyone is a crazy driver, no one is a crazy driver. That’s the only way I could explain the traffic in Ho Chi Minh. It is absolutely bonkers but they are all being bonkers together so, somehow, it just works. It looks like pure chaos from the passenger seat though:

Ho Chi Minh City traffic

I had opted for authentic over luxury, so my hotel was at the end of an alley that was down another alley (my wife would have taken one look, and just turned around at the main road!).

I had a quick nap then grabbed some pho from a local restaurant and soaked in the hustle and bustle of it all for a couple of hours. Hectic doesn’t even start to cover it. There is an incredible energy about this place – it felt like a mix of Hong Kong and a Thai resort – and definitely somewhere to come back to and explore properly with the family. 

Ho Chi Minh City alley

The stand next to where I sat was serving fresh snail hot pot, and I can’t help but wonder how my kids would deal with even the idea! I then found probably the most expensive ice cream in the city, which clocked in at £1.91 including the shaved coconut and macaron. £1.43 would be a direct comparison to Madrid and Bucharest. 

My hotel down the alley was clean and quiet, and after not even registering a sleep score on my fitbit the last two nights, I was very much ready for bed. 

Eleven airlines down, four (or now possibly five) to go.

Click here for the next article in this series.

Ho Chi Minh City ice cream

The full itinerary

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

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

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

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

Trip 4Stansted to Istanbul (Pegasus) – Istanbul to Riyadh (Pegasus) – Riyadh to Jeddah (Saudia) Heathrow to Jeddah (British Airways) – 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)

Comments (75)

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  • Novice says:

    Great travelogue. Great writing as usual. I missed a few but just caught up reading.

    Roy may have knowledge and may be right but Barry I think you don’t need to stress too much. After reading your travels, if SAS doesn’t give you the points, I am sure all of us will be up in arms about the injustice. We all are vicariously doing this challenge with you.

    • ChrisD says:

      Agree! It’s starting to sound a bit like “Pepsi, where’s my jet” ! (Google it 🙂 )

      • Novice says:

        I have seen it. And I was definitely on the guy’s side; he was a genius. Never liked Pepsi 😂

  • Nick says:

    To be fair, ticket class is shown on nearly every airline’s website before you buy, you don’t usually need specialist tools.

    Xiamen Air not only shows you the class, but lets you select which one you want to buy – qualifying classes only cost $20-30 more. If you’d read about it in WSJ, why didn’t you check *before* starting the trip?!

    Delta E class is the lowest of the low, they use it for Basic Economy, but again they do make this clear on their website.

    • Barry says:

      Most airlines do not let you have sight on fare class codes before booking. Ones that do are the exception, not the norm. Xiamen Airlines definitely do NOT give sight of this on their website before purchase.

      And I did check after reading the WSJ article – it talks about it above – the only zero point earning codes that are listed on the SAS website are for Tarom.

      • MKB says:

        Ignore the criticism Barry; your planning and thinking were entirely rational and reasonable. As anyone who has travelled extensively knows, there are many pitfalls to air travel that you only learn from experience.

        Really enjoying the adventure. Hope it works out in the end.

      • Nick says:

        Xiamen Air definitely DO allow you to check the fare class and there’s an option to select which one you want from a full list, I’ve just checked it now before posting this! Maybe look again a bit closer…

    • Throwawayname says:

      This is true for MF, but a lot of airlines really don’t make it very clear. For my challenge, I also stayed away from codeshares as they can sometimes map into the wrong class and mess up the earnings (this is a huge problem with *A albeit SkyTeam credits on the basis of marketing carrier so it shouldn’t be so bad, but you can never be totally certain). Yet, despite my efforts and the fact that I flew all seventeen airlines, I’m still waiting for three of them to credit and unable to automatically claim the miles for at least two of them. I’m sure that I will eventually get my million points but really don’t look forward to having to argue with SAS about it. Hopefully it’ll all get sorted for Barry too.

      • Novice says:

        Hope it works out for everyone who took the flights. I think it would be unfair if SAS started to penalise people when it is simply out the control of you guys.

        • JDB says:

          I have every sympathy, but it isn’t out of the passenger’s control to ascertain the fare booking class although sometimes it does require a bit of checking.

          • Throwawayname says:

            The worst thing is when you know which class you need to earn miles, the system is displaying the class it wants to sell you and it’s £10-20 cheaper than the one you need and it’s impossible to buy up online, so you call them and then they want to charge you a €50 or whatever booking fee on top and you have to argue with them to get it removed.

          • Barry says:

            Only four of the seventeen skyteam airlines in this challenge – and just one major online travel agent – give out fare class code information prior to booking 👎

          • Novice says:

            @JDB, but then in that case it implies SAS just wanted/expected travel geeks/experts/influencers to take up the challenge and didn’t want any people who would probably not know what/how/where to look for all the classes etc.

            I have travelled a lot leisurely and I know nothing about the classes except J.

          • JDB says:

            @Novice – what’s funny is that J is a relatively new invention. There used to be a real differentiation between J and C but they have somehow morphed save as booking classes. I really can’t believe anyone would embark on this 1m point odyssey without some good understanding of which buckets qualify and which don’t. That would seem like ground zero.

    • Nico says:

      All a matter of how much research, how long you want spend researching on the challenge, before pulling the trigger or being more spontaneous and sorting issues later.
      There were definitely a few pitfalls to avoid.
      Hope all good in the end Barry, even SAS now saying they have issues they did not expect!

      • Nico says:

        Pretty much all give fare code before booking, you need to look at all the fare details to find the code, clearly not very user friendly, feels like airlines are trying to hide them

        • JDB says:

          I don’t think it’s a question of hiding the fare booking class (and there’s no benefit to the airline in doing that), just that it’s not relevant for most people.

    • can2 says:

      So not true. Most say things along the line basic economics, comfort economy etc. but. not the letter classification.

      Most pax won’t even know about this at all

      • Barry says:

        Exactly this 👆

        • Nico says:

          I beg to differ, I spent a lot of time on it, if you check fare conditions in details you usually find them

      • JDB says:

        @can2 – as a casual traveller, you don’t need to know these things which is why they aren’t displayed prominently, but they are there and as a ‘professional’ traveller trying to accumulate tier points and/or Avios or doing some challenge that requires one to meet precise terms, fare buckets are a basic requirement.

        • Throwawayname says:

          Unless you literally fly every week and/or only ever travel with the airline whose miles you collect (and never with their partners), it can be really hard to reach any level of status without familiarising yourself with booking classes. There’s a huge amount of them that earn ZERO miles, and even flying business class won’t exempt you from them- you can easily spend £3k on a long haul LH or ET business ticket and earn no miles whatsoever in your Aegean/TK/whatever account just because it’s ticketed in P-class.

      • JDB says:

        @can2 – those marketing terms for different types of tickets each have a booking class letter as well and knowing these is pretty important save for the infrequent traveller or anyone not interested in accruing Avios/tier points.

  • Daveydent says:

    As a veteran of the Abu Dhabi – Jakarta run I can say a b2b at Jakarta is more or less impossible – even with a tourist visa they sometimes try to make you pay twice – Bali with e-gates is much more civilised.

    • Phillip says:

      I second that. I flew into Jakarta on Saudia late in the evening, having pre-arranged for a VoA so was able to use the e-gates to enter and it was a breeze. The following morning I flew to KL and back connecting onwards from Jakarta to Xiamen in the evening and I ended up having to pay for a second visa. I was told I could sit and wait until a member of airline staff was available to come and deal with the formalities but there was no timescale on it and very much reliant on their good will more than service provision. As I had a lengthy connection I chose to just pay for another visa and go to departures. There is a major disconnect between airlines and immigration. The two don’t really talk when it comes to the flight connections. There is even a counter for VoA for people on connecting flights but you wouldn’t see it until you got all the way up to the counter having waited for a while in line.

      • Nico says:

        Clearly trying to charge visa fee to everyone, not even talking about having to queue for visa and then again for the border!

  • Frankie says:

    Really inspiring stuff … reminding me that air travel is often full of ups and downs and stress but nearly always worth it. I couldn’t handle the stress of the SAS challenge but good luck Barry with the rest of the trip hope you succeed.

  • Phillip says:

    Barry, it sounds that you had some leeway to rearrange your plans and tackle KQ? I know the sequels are coming and look forward to reading about your adventures, but hopefully you managed to get it all sorted out.

  • Michael says:

    This is why I don’t partake in these sorts of challenges.

    A) you are completely beholden to rusty airline technology that oftentimes doesn’t work. What if a certain flight doesn’t credit by 31 Dec?

    B) you are beholden to these sorts of fine print issues mentioned by Barry above

    C) if you encounter issues A/B you need to spend hours on the phone with SAS arguing/negotiating. Time is money. If SAS doesn’t budge you have ZERO recourse.

    C) it must cost at least 4K to fly all 15 of these airlines. Add to that cost of hotels/ubers etc. because there are so many airlines you won’t really have time to visit any of the destinations more than just in a cursory way.

    D) if in fact you do get the 1M miles, SAS can devalue them at literally any time. It can restrict partner award availability or limit premium cabin redemptions. You are “investing” in a currency unilaterally controlled by a party with a vested interest in making that currency less valuable.

    I’m sorry but it’s just madness to turn your life upside down to do all of this.

    • Rob says:

      Sometimes you need a bit of madness in your life.

      Barry survives (sorry to spoil the ending!), his net cost after what we’ve paid him is pretty low, he’s been in The Times, he’s going to be in the Financial Times (with me) on 4th January, he’s had some unique experiences …. why not?

      And, of course, you could have done what Steve Belkin did in the US – advertise for people who want a free ’round the world’ holiday, buy their tickets for them and keep control of their SAS accounts.

      • Occasional Ranter says:

        It’s mad, but in a good way 🙂

        • Nick says:

          It’s mad, and in a way I wholly approve of! Just the kind of thing I like to think I’d do one day, and I still love that SAS tried something innovative.

          I did find a viable RTW itinerary for £2200 plus whatever hotels ended up being necessary. That included a bit of upsell for valid fare classes, but contrary to what Barry says this was actually very easy to determine – the SAS earning chart is very clear and the airline websites do show it before booking if you know what to look for.

          A large part of me wishes I’d done it, for the experience if nothing else, but in the end I couldn’t make the timing work.

      • Nico says:

        Exactly, a change from daily routine and some madness is good!
        Can’t see an other of those challenge starting anytime soon.

      • Michael Jennings says:

        I miss IHG Accelerate – partly because of the easy points and partly because it encouraged me to do slightly strange weekend trips which were fun

    • Throwawayname says:

      2 weeks’ work for €7k tax-free (€12k value of points – €4k cost for the trip and an extra grand’s worth of provision for the additional miles spent to cover a gap in the itinerary and for ending up in Mexico instead of South America where I wanted to go) is worth it for me. Someone on a £250k salary might place more value on their time. Someone with three kids under 7 might have too much going on in their life to even countenance such a jaunt.

    • Phillip says:

      I did it for the love of flying and would do it again in a heartbeat! I used a mixture of cash and award flights and flew in a mixture of cabins. I flew airlines I would not normally travel with and in many cases was very pleasantly surprised by their offerings. I believe that SAS has done a good job not overcomplicating things, including the Ts&Cs and I don’t believe they will try to trick me out of the 1M. It is absolutely a currency investment and again, that’s a risk I was willing to take. In the process I also got to know Eurobonus as a programme very well (key in understanding my investment)!

      • Throwawayname says:

        Absolutely that was a factor, too. It was a great little trip, and I got to experience some really decent airlines which I had never flown before- it’s amazing that short haul Y on the likes of VN, MU, CI and GA is better than European business class on basically everyone other than Aegean and TK.

  • Duncan says:

    Good on you, Barry.
    Rooting for you, and ignore the hindsight engineers who are sitting at home on the couch.

  • Occasional Ranter says:

    Ho chi minh has a bit of a reputation for slow passport control. Queued for nearly an hour LEAVING the country last month. The hopelessly inefficient communist state apparatus isn’t visible very often in Vietnam these days, but when it is…

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