Why I turned down a million points
In 2024 I took my first accidental world tour. I almost took my second.
After 38 flights that year, a total of 2.5x around the world, I had settled into a temporary but delightful life as a digital nomad in Kuala Lumpur. Then I saw that SAS, an airline I’ve never flown and never had any strong interest in, were offering one million points (worth potentially £10,000 if redeemed on long-haul Business class flights with *most of* their partners – we’ll get to this later) to anyone who would complete their EuroBonus Millionaire challenge. This required flying at least 15 SkyTeam airlines on a valid, points-earning fare, with a roughly 2-month window in which to do so. There was a list of rules, but that was the basic premise. This window included Christmas (and Thanksgiving in the US), and therefore winter weather in most of the world and one of the more expensive flying times. You might already think it sounds horrific; despite having a nice time in the warmth of Malaysia, I’m at this point planning on spending £3,000 on Economy flights to take me to places I don’t particularly want to go to, in the bitter cold, after I’ve already been around the world a few weeks earlier. Well, I spent an entire weekend planning an itinerary, and almost booked it.
Of course I enjoyed the challenge of finding the most endurable itinerary, in the least-awful Economy seats, for the cheapest price with minimal hotel nights to add to the cost. After coming up with one watertight itinerary, I decided £3,600 was too much. I’d just been around the world in Business class for less. So I ripped it up and started again. Version two came in at £3,100 and I was satisfied that I wouldn’t find much better on a different combination of routes and days, especially since these were last-minute cash fares around holidays. I also enjoyed the prospect of racing around the world in a couple of weeks as if I’d just escaped prison. I’d see things, meet people; it would be fun. It might also kill me, with the lack of sleep and constant change of climate, and possibility of falling out of the sky etc.
Sadly, I’m not sharing my experience here, because I didn’t go. Although I do of course have a Round-the-World report anyway, so not to worry about a life lived timidly! However, the numbers just didn’t add up. Now, I’m all about doing absurd things for the joy of them, even if your accountant will never get it. I also don’t have an accountant. And I’ve enjoyed following the antics of other people who have completed the challenge and enjoyed it, so what was stopping me?
It’s something I’d only have done if I wasn’t required to pay upwards of £3,000 (plus accommodation in-between flights) out of pocket, for an airline known for lacking Reward availability, who is about to unleash potentially TWO BILLION points to its members as a result of all this. As I write this, the actual number of successful challengers is unknown, but is estimated at around 2,000. Before we skip onwards, let’s imagine two thousand people, all racing around the circumference of the planet, just for a big number to appear in their frequent flyer app! Yes, my friends, it is one of the many absurdities I enjoy thinking about. I’m no Economics genius, and I don’t know if things work drastically differently in Scandinavia, but this kind of increase in demand, with no promise of any increase in already-minimal supply, seems like a recipe for a very sad-looking cinnamon bun. Even if most people had fun baking it.
The appeal is also limited by the fact that SAS charges DOUBLE points for redemptions on Vietnam Airlines and China Airlines (Taiwan), which I would consider for my purposes to be two of the most useful SkyTeam airlines besides Air France and Virgin Atlantic, with the nicest planes and service. I often fly to Asia and would definitely use the prize points in doing so. This doubling, however, mostly rules out any value in booking these airlines with SAS points. For example; 225,000 points, plus taxes, to take Vietnam Airlines from Europe to Asia, let’s say Paris—Ho Chi Minh City—Kuala Lumpur. Typically, British Airways would charge around 110,000 Avios for this kind of distance, less than HALF that of SAS. And with a voucher earned from one of a couple of credit card deals, this can be halved again to 55,000. BA would also offer a Reward seat guarantee on every plane, meaning a higher chance of finding a seat. This means that with Vietnam Airlines, around 25% of the millionaire reward is wiped out in one flight for one person, and the value of the redemption may well be more than the cost of a Business class ticket bought with cash in a sale (of which there is more availability).
But they’re free points, you say! Take them and stop being boring!
Let’s say the value of the prize is roughly £10,000, minus the £4,000 required for flights and hotels to win the challenge = £6,000-worth of free points. But that becomes £3,000 if used on two of the best airlines. In which case, deduct taxes added on to the Reward redemptions and you’re down to maybe £2,000-£2,500 of actually free travel, that you might not be able to use anyway when there’s little availability and a couple of thousand other hungry millionaires trying to rip the prime cuts from your teeth. I also don’t have any reason to go to the USA any time soon, so the possibilities for me shrink even further. I can get £2,000 of “free travel” by other ludicrous hoop-jumping, which crucially doesn’t require me to hang around in Bucharest in December.
So there you have it. I spend so much of my time looking for ways to accumulate points for Business class flight redemptions, and when the opportunity comes to get a million of them, I turn it down. I told you this project is absurd. It might seem like I’m all about reckless fun and financial abandon, but here I am already being a sensible spoil-sport! At least the others who got the million points won’t have to compete with me, refreshing the browser every morning to pounce on the scraps of potentially-devalued availability on limited partner airlines. I also feel for the pre-existing SAS loyalty members, who already had a sub-ideal programme that’s maybe about to get worse without their doing anything. For their sakes, I hope SAS makes EuroBonus extinct and merges into the much better Flying Blue loyalty programme from Air France KLM, who now own a 20% stake in SAS.
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