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Barry’s SAS million point challenge – the final reckoning!

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

It was not a competition – everyone who hit the target would 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 was also featured in the Financial Times – click here (paywall).

SAS million point challenge

Barry shared 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. Airline 10 was Garuda Indonesia. Airline 11 was Vietnam Airlines. Airline 12 was China Airlines. Airline 13 was Xiamen Airlines. Airline 14 was Korean Air. Airline 15 was Kenya Airways. Airline 16 was China Eastern.

When we left Barry’s story three weeks ago he had finally made it home to the UK. With at least one flight stubbornly refusing to post to his SAS EuroBonus account, however, it wasn’t clear he would be getting the million points.

Let’s see what happened ….

I did it!

1 million points. These have been added to my EuroBonus account today [23rd January]. Now that I am officially a points millionaire, I can finalise the figures for my expedition. Here is everything ‘by the numbers’ ….

  • 22 – the number of flights I took in total
  • 19 – the number of different airlines I flew on
  • 16 – the number of different SkyTeam airlines I flew on (one more than necessary because I booked the wrong sort of Delta ticket ….)
  • 14 – the number of different SkyTeam airlines currently showing in my Eurobonus account
  • 2 – the number of different SkyTeam airlines I am still waiting for the points from
  • 5 – the number of long haul flights I took
  • 17 – the number of short haul flights I took
SAS million point challenge
The only plane friend I made, Amberly
  • 1 – business class flight taken (a positioning flight on BA)
  • 21 – economy class flights taken
  • 2 -upgrades to extra legroom seats free of charge
  • 1 – extra legroom seat, paid for
  • 21 – flights that landed on time or thereabouts
  • 1 – flight landed around an hour late
  • 18 – different airport lounges visited
SAS million point challenge
Seoul
  • 4 – lounges that were able to give me a takeaway coffee cup
  • 2 – lounge showers taken
  • £3,947 – total money spent on all flights, including ones I didn’t go on
  • £537 – spent on those tickets I didn’t use
  • £836 – spent on parking, hotels, visas, food, taxis etc
  • £4,784 – total financial outlay (although HfP has paid me for these articles)
SAS million point challenge
Ring pull cans still exist in Jakarta 
  • 22,968 – total SAS EuroBonus points earned from flights
  • 10,139 – total Avios earned from credit card spend and booking parking / hotels via Avios partners
  • 1,000,000 – SAS EuroBonus points earned for completing the challenge
  • 1,033,107 – total points earned 
  • £0.0046p – cost per point received (less than half a penny per point!) 

I met with the SAS team in London for a follow-up event last week – oversized cheque, confetti cannons, the works. We also did some filming for their social channels:

SAS million point challenge

According to SAS, here are some more numbers about the challenge:

  • 6-7 – their original guess of how many people would complete the challenge (!)
  • 600-700 – the actual number of people that completed the challenge (exact number TBC due to retroactive sector crediting) with the largest group coming from South Korea!
  • 30 – percentage of those that completed the challenge who were women
  • 4 – age of the youngest person to complete the challenge
  • 70’s – age of the oldest person to complete the challenge
SAS million point challenge
Vape lounge in Seoul Incheon 
  • 100 – percentage of people who completed the challenge who entered China at least once
  • 6 – the number of people that completed the challenge but DIDN’T go on SAS as one of their 15 SkyTeam airlines!

Having visited so many lounges and been on so many planes, here are my winners and losers from the trip:

Best airline – Korean Air

Best value for money airline – China Eastern

Worst airline – Kenya Airways

Worst value for money airline – Xiamen Airlines

Favourite flight – Virgin Atlantic, Heathrow to Atlanta 

Least favourite flight – British Airways, Heathrow to Jeddah (the one flight taken in business class!) 

SAS million point challenge
Sign asking not to steal toilet paper in Taipei 

Best lounge – a tie between China Eastern V01 in Shanghai SHA, Baiyunport in Guangzhou and Alfursan in Jeddah

Worst lounge – Tarom in Bucharest

Best lounge coffee – Alfursan in Jeddah

Worst lounge coffee – Plaza Premium in Taipei

Best lounge cutlery – Air France in Paris

Worst lounge cutlery – Alfursan in Jeddah

Best airport architecture – Paris CDG, it is simply beautiful

Best airport amenities – Singapore

SAS million point challenge
What’s the opposite of a 5-star hotel?

Quietest airport – Stockholm Arlanda

Noisiest airport – Bucharest 

Longest queue for immigration – Ho Chi Minh City

Shortest queue for immigration – Seoul Gimpo

Most security searches – Xiamen

Most immigration checks – Jakarta

Best transfer – Jeddah 

Worst transfer – Jakarta, closely followed by Xiamen 

Oddest sights in an airport – Seoul Incheon had a vape lounge and a roaming band wearing traditional Korean clothing including swords, while playing traditional Korean music:

SAS million point challenge

What did I learn or take away from the challenge ….?

  • Don’t be afraid of going somewhere that requires a transfer. I have avoided these like the plague since having kids, but in reality it wasn’t a drama at the airports that were properly set up for it.
  • Have a shower in the lounge on a layover if you have time. It’s a game changer!
  • Whisper it quietly, but long haul economy isn’t that bad. It’s really not. I have only travelled business / First / Upper since 2015 so I had a somewhat fuzzy view of long haul economy but it was based on slightly distorted memories. Accept it is a means to an end, and get on with it!
  • Aircraft food is better in Asia, probably because rice and noodle dishes are more suitable for reheating 
  • Food in economy is mostly pretty poor though. Eat in the airport if you can. Always take snacks
SAS million point challenge
Flame cooking in Taipei 
  • Airline status is only really important if you are flying economy. When flying business, you get all the benefits anyway, so why do people get so hung up on it? I found it incredibly valuable travelling on my £100-£200 economy tickets – not queuing, access to Sky Priority lanes and of course lounge access. On my one positioning flight with British Airways in business, where I have no status, I had all that too! 
  • Whilst every short haul plane was similar to the others, none were the same. With so few variables to distinguish between carriers, I am amazed nobody has figured out that all you need to be the best is a padded leather (or imitation leather) seat with adjustable headrest, a working fast charge USB/USB-C port, somewhere to put your phone and offer a bottle of water. For 1-3 hours, that is all you really need.
  • For long haul (economy) just add in a decent seat back entertainment system and a way to use your own headphones (cable or bluetooth), and some basic WiFi capable of email / messaging / checking football scores!
  • The best adventures are probably harder to get to, but that is what makes them so much fun – so get out there and start exploring!

Thank you for all your kind words and support throughout the challenge. Now I need to start booking some SkyTeam redemption flights for my family!

The full itinerary

As a reminder, here is Barry’s original itinerary together with the changes made along the way:

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) 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) Seoul to Guangzhou (China Southern) – Guangzhou to Bangkok (Kenya Airways) – Bangkok to Shanghai (China Eastern) – Shanghai to Gatwick (China Eastern)

Category

SkyTeam alliance partners

Comments (137)

This article is closed to new comments. Feel free to ask your question in the HfP forums.

  • May Lim says:
    26 Jan26 January 05:22

    Barry, are you able to confirm that your Delta flight didn’t count?

    • Barry says:
      26 Jan26 January 08:38

      My Delta and Tarom flights have never credited.

      Both boarding passes were emailed to SAS on more than one occasion, so they have sight on them and know I took those flights…

  • Talay says:
    26 Jan26 January 06:07

    Well done !

    Did anyone do it in business class or would that simply cost way more than the points were worth ?

    • NicktheGreek says:
      26 Jan26 January 06:58

      YouTuber Noel Philips did the challenge, and seemed to do much of it in business class but then he offsets the cost from the trip report YouTube revenue. He’s done a full video of the challenge, where he runs into others doing the challenge, and has the same fun as Barry in China. His most recent video though was from Buenos Aires to Madrid, which cost $4500 in business, so basically what Barry paid in total!

    • Gary says:
      26 Jan26 January 09:00

      Yes – if you search for Noel Phillips on YouTube you can watch his SkyTeam biz class bonanza

    • Phillip says:
      26 Jan26 January 09:11

      I mixed the two as there were some good Eurobonus redemptions in business particularly to the Americas with Virgin and Delta when I booked.

    • Throwawayname says:
      26 Jan26 January 10:34

      I did the Europe (well, TUN) – Asia bit in paid Saudia business and the Asia-America bit on VS using my credit card vouchers to upgrade to premium economy.

      Everything else was Y and under 4.5 hours, apart from one afternoon flight on MU from PVG to Bali that took 6 hours but was really good- could upgrade onboard for £300ish but I decided to keep my aisle seat in the 2-4-2 config.

      The only flight that felt a bit uncomfortable was the 4 hours to MAD on TAROM- full cabin, window seat, no complimentary food/drink. Everything else was absolutely fine.

    • Stuart says:
      26 Jan26 January 11:33

      Noel Philips also titled that video “I Flew EVERY SkyTeam Airline to win 1 MILLION Air Miles”, with the emthasis on “every”. Although, he did not not fly every SkyTeam airline but flew on 17 of 19 of them and he explains why he omits ITA Airways and MEA, yet he keeps saying he’s flying all 17 SkyTeam airlines.
      AM CUN-MEX & MEX-SCL.
      KL SCL-EZE.
      AR EZE-MAD.
      UX MAD-FCO.
      AF FCO-CDG.
      RO CDG-OTP.
      Low cost carrier OTP-PRG.
      SK PRG-CPH & CPH-LHR.
      VS LHR-DXB.
      SV DXB-JED & JED-CGK.
      GA CGK-CAN
      KQ CAN-BKK
      MF BKK-XMN & XMN-TPE.
      CI TPE-SGN.
      VN SGN-BKK.
      MU BKK-PKX & PKX-ICN.
      KE ICN-LAX.
      DL LAX-IAH.
      So the usual exaggerated YouTube title and for someone who flies for a living so much he makes a lot of related errors and cannot pronounce “Xiamen”.

      • Throwawayname says:
        26 Jan26 January 11:46

        Come to think of it, I did fly another two sectors in premium classes, AM CUN-NLU in business and AR COR-AEP in premium economy. Not a lot of money over the cheapest Y fares.

      • Stuart says:
        26 Jan26 January 11:55

        Sorry: emthasis = emphasis. Why can’t we edit to correct typos?

  • david says:
    26 Jan26 January 06:14

    6-7 – their original guess of how many people would complete the challenge. Wholly underestimated. Hope the numbers really work out for them what with social media exposure to allow others carriers to attempt it.

    • Nico says:
      26 Jan26 January 07:01

      Definitely, seems a little weird, given how easy it is to travel now.
      Probably also explain why they still can’t retro credit some flights and I am still waiting for the points! Patience is key…
      Some very interesting numbers in the article!

    • Kaye says:
      26 Jan26 January 07:15

      Really reveals that airlines seem to habitually underestimate exactly how many people have the money to travel frequently, and from different parts of the world.

      It makes a lot of the modelling of likely consumer behaviour very difficult if not impossible. The customer personas of the old frequent flyer/plane geek/wealthy premium traveller have been upended and just don’t exist in the same format as they did 20 years ago.

      Interesting to watch all the loyalty programmes adapt to this.

      • John says:
        26 Jan26 January 07:36

        BA appears to be overestimating – but if the intention is to cull status holders it is probably better to overestimate

        • Kaye says:
          26 Jan26 January 07:50

          I think they’re overestimating how much premium traveller is fueled by wealthy West Londoners and corporate high fliers, and underestimating how much disposable income there is outside London and that they’ve been benefiting from discretionary spend from those sources.

          I think the doubling down and focusing on what would have been the traditional premium traveller 20-30 years ago might surprise them.

      • Throwawayname says:
        26 Jan26 January 11:41

        @Kaye I don’t think it’s a tendency to ‘underestimate’ as much as a lack of understanding of foreign markets. In the olden days, airlines would have sales and admin offices in virtually all destination countries, and, barring any communications issues among managers, would be able to gather information about local tastes, socioeconomic developments and so on.

        When sales are left to the internet and airport operations get contracted to Swissport etc, that market intelligence is gone. You could replicate it through focus groups and the like, but it’s not going to be a strong business case if you are talking a smallish market and/or a faraway country.

        As a result, there’s going to be a bigger availability bias towards the domestic market and that of any specific countries that are familiar/big/easy to research. In this case, SAS probably thought like ‘Scandinavia only has a small population, people in the USA are heavily into miles but won’t be able to take time off work, we’ll get a few people doing it from elsewhere in Europe but we don’t have many Eurobonus members in Asia so can’t see them being up for it’.

        By the same token, I’m getting the impression that planning for the BAEC changes included little/no real attempts at modelling the behaviour of their EU members – outside of deciding they don’t really want short haul customers, they don’t seem to have taken into account the fact that long haul flyers from the continent pay less for their premium class tickets and would therefore need a ridiculous amount of trips to reach status. Instead their thinking seems to partly have been influenced by a desire to punish their UK customers for flying on cheaper fares (as if it wasn’t easier to fly BHX/NWI/SOU/LBA-AMS than take multiple trains and tubes to get to LHR).

        • Kaye says:
          26 Jan26 January 12:20

          Completely agree. By underestimate I mean underestimate the numbers due to lack of understanding analysis of the market and its drivers. Agree with everything you’ve put

    • Can2 says:
      26 Jan26 January 08:25

      Shows how bad SAS loyalty people are in their jobs. And those people manage a loyalty programme!!!

      • aseftel says:
        26 Jan26 January 08:45

        Consider the politics though. Perhaps the promotion would not have been greenlit with a more realistic estimate of the costs.

        • Rob says:
          26 Jan26 January 09:42

          SAS appears happy. More good PR than they’ve had in the last decade probably …..

          • Anouj says:
            26 Jan26 January 09:57

            The amount of publicity this has given them would have cost them an absolute fortune using traditional advertising and I doubt would have been as effective.

      • Ken says:
        26 Jan26 January 11:27

        The points cost will be less than £5m net of revenue. Seems fair price for the publicity.
        I’ve no idea how easy they are to use.
        Although we tend to value most air miles at roughly 1p , I’d take 1 million in Avios over Virgin all day long.

        • Throwawayname says:
          26 Jan26 January 14:06

          Not sure I agree on the Avios/VS thing, but these should be worth a bit more because there’s only a service fee and no abusive fuel surcharges.

  • RobH says:
    26 Jan26 January 06:25

    Interesting experience! 2 more stats that would be interesting
    – How many days from departure to return home
    – How many days spent planning before the trip

    I’m sure a great experience that you can share with people for years! – and a real achievement!

    However I feel that all that for a £5,000 (ish) saving (assume approx 1p per point value) the time and hassle spent travelling may not be everyone’s cup of tea! (although I appreciate you did not foot the bill for all costs)

    • John says:
      26 Jan26 January 07:35

      Yeah from a purely financial perspective it didn’t really make sense.

      Seems like he could have got the cost down to £3500 if planning was more optimal – then he would have just about tripled his money but only if actually willing to pay the asking price for the flights that will be redeemed

      I think I would only have attempted it if I could have done all the flights for under £2000 and £500 for other expenses

    • Barry says:
      26 Jan26 January 08:31

      I was away from home for 8 nights total.

      I probably spent best part of a day planning and booking, all told

      My main motivation wasn’t to get the points as cheaply as possible!

      • RobH says:
        26 Jan26 January 14:10

        Thanks Barry, reading the articles it did feel like longer, so nice to know it was only 8 nights. Certainly an adventure!

    • Throwawayname says:
      26 Jan26 January 10:38

      I viewed it as 2 weeks’ hard work for €7k net, tax free, benefit.

  • PeterK says:
    26 Jan26 January 07:02

    Well done Barry and thanks for sharing your challenge & achievements.

  • Ironside says:
    26 Jan26 January 07:04

    Barry, your commitment is admirable! Much respect.

  • Nico says:
    26 Jan26 January 07:05

    Hmmm – How can you be a millionaire if only 14 airlines credited? I have the same issue and no point! 2 flights still waiting to credit 🙁

    • No longer Entitled says:
      26 Jan26 January 08:23

      I suspect points were given due to Barry’s profile and media output. There will be no confetti awaiting you. Best of luck with the remaining flights.

    • Barry says:
      26 Jan26 January 08:40

      From the conversations I had with them last week, there are a lot of people and issues to get through.

      They only overcame an IT problem with missing points on the day I met them, for example.

      I would also say that the impression I got was that they might not be quite so strict as I was first led to believe…

      • jjoohhnn says:
        26 Jan26 January 14:35

        Maybe they see the challenge as a way to help them improve their IT systems so it removes a lot of staff hours for claims of not awarding miles in the future!

    • Phillip says:
      26 Jan26 January 09:17

      Following the e-mail communication they sent out that they were extending the deadline until the end of February, I contacted the Eurobonus Gold desk to ask if there was any further action to take. They asked me to keep trying the online missing points tool which has progressively been working for more and more airlines. I was able to get one airline to credit leaving me with just one pending (VN). They told me to keep trying every couple of days.

      I had previously sent all my boarding passes and those were acknowledged but clearly they’re not processing everyone manually.

      • Nico says:
        26 Jan26 January 09:36

        I tried VN again this week and no luck still, though they did a manual submission for KQ for me, still waiting on KQ to reply, and I only need 1 of the 2. It is a little weird as right fare class and they see it is flown so could have validated, happy to let go of miles from those 2 with the bonus.
        Well done again Barry, I was just surprised you got the bonus without seeing all 15, I guess it is in their back end system.
        I guess expecting 6 people and ending up with 600, they would not have the right number of people to timely deal with it.

        • maz says:
          26 Jan26 January 10:00

          I’m in a similar position, 14 airlines credited, still waiting on 2 and have been doing for over 2 months. I don’t seem to be able to get in contact with anyone, or get a non-standard email response. Can anyone share an email / phone number which leads to a meaningful response?

    • Throwawayname says:
      26 Jan26 January 10:41

      I have done all 17 airlines and gotten 15 credited. My 1m points already are in the account but I am still waiting for them to process my VN and AR claims and the 500 points I will get from them!

      • Nico says:
        26 Jan26 January 10:45

        Well done for doing all 17!

        • Throwawayname says:
          26 Jan26 January 11:09

          Thanks, I do enjoy spending time in the Southern Cone during the miserable UK winters so I finished the trip off with a 2-week holiday in Brazil and Argentina and only had to fly to COR instead of EZE and then take a short connecting flight to bag AR, with the added bonus of arriving at Aeroparque. Fortunately I had a lot of annual leave to burn through!

      • Phillip says:
        26 Jan26 January 11:10

        My most exciting credit is without a doubt AirEuropa – a wholesome 48 points for MAD-LIS! It’s the small things in life!… 😉

  • BJ says:
    26 Jan26 January 07:26

    Congratulations! A good travel adventure and a great yarn that conveyed so much of the feelings involved that I am sure many readers would have felt they were along for the ride with you. It could have been that little bit easier had you boooked the flights by phone to nail down the uncertain booking classes but had you done so then there would not have been so much ‘excitement’ nor would the memories you now have be so good – all’s well that ends well. Don’ t forget … ‘earn and burn’!

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