Australian frequent flyers love a good airline promotion, especially when there are more points, more status credits or better value redemptions on offer. But a lot of airline loyalty program promotions these days have become repetitive and lack imagination.

There’s nothing wrong with offering 50% bonus points if you fly with a certain partner airline. 30% off Economy reward seats is better than nothing. And double status credit offers are hugely popular. But these kinds of offers have become so predictable that some frequent flyers even now hold off booking flights until there is an offer – which often comes around like clockwork.

So, I was intrigued to discover a new promotion that SAS EuroBonus has just launched. It’s creative, unique and could have a hugely positive impact on the airline’s bottom line over many years. It’s not often you can say that about a single airline promo!

SAS has just joined SkyTeam

For context, Scandinavian airline SAS left Star Alliance last month. On the same day, it became the newest member of the SkyTeam alliance.

This is a seismic change for SAS frequent flyers. SAS’ network of partner airlines has completely changed. Many SAS frequent flyers are probably unfamiliar with many of their airline’s new SkyTeam partners. And for those with elite status, their Star Alliance Silver or Gold status suddenly became SkyTeam Elite or Elite Plus – with a new set of benefits to boot.

At the same time, Star Alliance has launched an aggressive status match campaign targeted at SAS EuroBonus members.

The risk here, for SAS, is that their frequent flyers will abandon the program and switch to a Star Alliance program that lets them continue to enjoy their benefits on a network of partner airlines that’s more familiar to them. After all, many frequent flyers don’t like change.

About the EuroBonus Millionaire offer

To encourage its frequent flyers to try out SAS’ new SkyTeam partner airlines, it’s just launched the EuroBonus Millionaire promotion.

Normally, when a loyalty program offers a million points through a promotion, it’s the prize in a competition. That’s nice for the winner, but a small chance of winning a prize isn’t enough to motivate a lot of people to change their behaviour.

With this promotion, though, EuroBonus members can earn a guaranteed one million bonus points if they complete a fun challenge. It’s not for everyone, but there are also some smaller bonuses which could also be attractive.

Between 8 October and 31 December 2024, SAS EuroBonus members can earn the following amounts of bonus points for flying with different SkyTeam airlines:

• Fly with 5 unique SkyTeam airlines to earn 10,000 bonus points
• Fly with 10 unique SkyTeam airlines to earn 100,000 bonus points
• Fly with 15 unique SkyTeam airlines to earn one million bonus points

This promotion isn’t about the number of total flights taken, but the number of different SkyTeam airlines that members fly by the end of 2024.

Existing bookings count, and to be eligible, SAS EuroBonus members would need to earn or redeem EuroBonus points on each flight. On codeshare flights, the operating carrier is what counts.

Which SkyTeam partner airlines count towards EuroBonus Millionaire?

For the purposes of this promotion, all SkyTeam member airlines except ITA Airways and Middle East Airlines (MEA – based in Lebanon) count. Czech Airlines is also about to leave the alliance, so that isn’t really an option.

This leaves 17 SkyTeam member airlines that EuroBonus members can choose from (excluding ITA and MEA):

This is genius

In my view, this SkyTeam promotion is seriously clever in several ways.

Firstly, it’s a great way to get EuroBonus members thinking about the program’s new SkyTeam alliance partners at a time of big change for the program.

Most people won’t attempt to fly with 15 SkyTeam airlines by the end of this year, but some will. A million bonus points is a seriously attractive incentive.

By definition, those who participate in this promo will end up sampling the service on a lot of different SkyTeam airlines. Some may have never flown with SkyTeam, and may not have previously considered the alliance. Of course, SAS and SkyTeam are hoping that EuroBonus members enjoy the experience flying with SkyTeam’s member airlines.

Those who do complete the EuroBonus Millionaire challenge will then have well over a million EuroBonus points in their account, considering they’ll also earn regular points for these flights. With such a huge points balance, significant experience flying with SkyTeam airlines, and likely a high status tier as well by the end of the year, these frequent flyers will likely remain rusted-on EuroBonus members for many years to come.

I can definitely see a few people going for the top bonus level. Heck, it even made me think about what kind of crazy round-the-world itinerary I might be able to put together, even though I previously had no interest in EuroBonus as a program and don’t usually preference the SkyTeam alliance. It sounds like a great opportunity to try new airlines and visit new places, and the million miles is a pretty neat incentive.

It would be great to see more airlines think outside the box

Just imagine if Qantas offered a promo where you could earn a million Qantas points by flying with every Oneworld member airline over the next three months.

I’m sure more than a few AFF members would jump on that, shelling out thousands of dollars in the process on Oneworld airfares that they wouldn’t have otherwise bought! There are already a lot of things you can do with 100,000 Qantas points, let alone a million.

This is exactly how an airline loyalty promotion should be. It’s a creative, unique offer that could act as a powerful incentive for people to take actions that they would never otherwise have considered, and that will have a long-term benefit to both the airline and the alliance.

I think EuroBonus Millionaire is a very cool offer. It would be great to see more like this.

Matt Graham

The editor of Australian Frequent Flyer, Matt's passion for travel has taken him to over 90 countries… with the help of frequent flyer points, of course!
Matt's favourite destinations (so far) are Germany, Brazil & Kazakhstan. His interests include economics, aviation & foreign languages, and he has a soft spot for good food and red wine.

You can connect with Matt by posting on the Australian Frequent Flyer community forum and tagging @AFF Editor.