Maximise your Avios, air miles and hotel points

Barry’s SAS million point challenge – Airline 6, Virgin Atlantic and Airline 7, Delta

Links on Head for Points may support the site by paying a commission.  See here for all partner links.

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.

Today Barry starts the North American leg of his trip. Over to Barry ….

Heathrow to Atlanta, Virgin Atlantic

5.40am. Early, but nothing on last weekends alarms. Once again off to Heathrow, this time to Terminal 3 and the only UK based airline in SkyTeam – Virgin Atlantic – on my way to Atlanta. This will also be my first long haul flight of the challenge.

Despite flying economy, my SkyTeam status got me up the lift into Virgin’s own ‘Upper Class Wing’ check in and security area. I was able to collect my boarding pass and get through security within 15 minutes of parking up. Pretty impressive.

SAS million point challenge

However, despite the SkyTeam website alluding to Virgin Clubhouse access for SkyTeam Elite Plus members, I was unfortunately relegated to the Aspire lounge down the hall …. [Rob’s edit: this is correct, only Delta, Air France and KLM elites in Premium Economy can use the Clubhouse]

Whilst the Aspire lounge itself was perfectly fine, I can’t pretend I wasn’t disappointed. A tiny but decent quality food section served a few hot and cold breakfast items, along with a couple of hot drinks machines.

I was given a voucher to show I was entitled to prosecco at the bar, so I assume this would be chargeable for non-Virgin customers? The lounge was packed, and the queue for those who hadn’t booked was about an hour according to the lady at the desk.

I boarded the plane with those turning left, so had the whole rear section to myself for a few minutes and chatted with the cabin crew. When I told them about challenge, they moved me to a row of my own, and kept me stocked up on drinks and snacks. They even posed for a selfie. This was a lovely touch, and very much appreciated!

Lunch was a passable sausage and mash (piping hot) with some cheese & crackers, and a little chocolate pot for dessert. The flimsy plastic cutlery did leave a lot to be desired – and no plane shaped salt and pepper either! Then I sat back, plugged in to the working USB port, and settled in to watch some films and enjoy my 9 1/2 hour flight across the Atlantic.

SAS million point challenge

Atlanta to Mexico City, Delta Air Lines

Nobody has the ability to make the word ‘sir’ sound quite so aggressive as a passport control officer in America. It doesn’t matter if you haven’t done anything wrong, the unfounded feeling of guilt is immediately there!

After navigating questions about my nationality, occupation and my parents, it was off to find the Delta lounge. With less than two hours between flights, it was always going to be a quick pit stop. Uniquely(?!), the departure board in Atlanta was listed alphabetically rather than time order. Very off putting! 

Another packed lounge, despite being mid-afternoon when I arrived. A large queue had formed by the time I left. The food options were fairly limited with a single hot option of rice, broccoli and chicken. Haute cuisine, this was not!

SAS million point challenge

However the Americans excelled where you’d expect – soft drinks machine serving literally everything; cookies and brownies that were absolutely delicious; and the first lounge on my travels to freely offer paper cups so you can take your coffee with you. In my opinion this is the metric by which all lounges should be measured!

The Delta short haul plane was very reminiscent of the TAROM configuration from last week. 2/2 decent size business class seats at the front of plane, followed by 3/3 leather seats in economy.

However, these had tiny, working (!) screens, and Delta has hidden a fancy universal plug socket and USB down low on the seats. There was even free WiFi on board, something sorely lacking from Virgin Atlantic a few hours before. Complimentary drinks and snacks were the icing on the cake. Excellent stuff.

The plane felt packed and cramped compared to having a row to myself on the much larger transatlantic plane I had just come off. Being objective though, this is clearly a pretty significant step up from European low cost airlines using similar or identical planes. Mexico, here I come. 

Click here for the next article in this series.

SAS million point challenge

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)

PS. If you are not a regular Head for Points visitor, why not sign up for our FREE weekly or daily newsletters? They are full of the latest Avios, airline, hotel and credit card points news and will help you travel better. To join our 65,000 free subscribers, click the button below or visit this page of the site to find out more. Thank you.

best credit card to use when buying flights

How to maximise your miles when paying for flights (April 2025)

Some UK credit cards offer special bonuses when used for buying flights. If you spend a lot on airline tickets, using one of these cards could sharply increase the credit card points you earn.

Booking flights on any airline?

American Express Preferred Rewards Gold earns double points (2 Membership Rewards points per £1) when used to buy flights directly from an airline website.

The card comes with a sign-up bonus of 20,000 Membership Rewards points. These would convert to 20,000 Avios or various other airline or hotel programmes. The standard earning rate is 1 point per £1.

You can apply here.

SPECIAL OFFER: Until 27th May 2025, the sign-up bonus on the ‘free for a year’ American Express Preferred Rewards Gold card is increased from 20,000 Membership Rewards points to 30,000 points. Points convert 1:1 into Avios (30,000 Avios!) and many other programmes. Some people may see even higher personalised offers. Click here to apply.

American Express Preferred Rewards Gold

Your best beginner’s card – 30,000 points, FREE for a year & four airport lounge passes Read our full review

Buying flights on British Airways?

The British Airways Premium Plus American Express card earns double Avios (3 Avios per £1) when used at ba.com.

The card comes with a sign-up bonus of 30,000 Avios. The standard earning rate is 1.5 Avios per £1.

You do not earn bonus Avios if you pay for BA flights on the free British Airways American Express card or either of the Barclaycard Avios Mastercards.

You can apply here.

British Airways American Express Premium Plus

30,000 Avios and the famous annual 2-4-1 voucher Read our full review

Buying flights on Virgin Atlantic?

Both the free Virgin Atlantic Reward Mastercard and the annual fee Virgin Atlantic Reward+ Mastercard earn double Virgin Points when used at fly.virgin.com.

This means 1.5 Virgin Points per £1 on the free card and 3 Virgin Points per £1 on the paid card.

There is a sign-up bonus of 3,000 Virgin Points on the free card and 18,000 Virgin Points on the paid card.

You can apply for either of the cards here.

Virgin Atlantic Reward Mastercard

3,000 bonus points, no fee and 1 point for every £1 you spend Read our full review

Virgin Atlantic Reward+ Mastercard

18,000 bonus points and 1.5 points for every £1 you spend Read our full review

Category

SkyTeam alliance partners, Virgin Atlantic and Flying Club

Comments (44)

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

  • Himalayan Hiker says:
    14 Dec14 December 06:16

    If I recall correctly, all American airport departure screens show flights alphabetically and grouped by destination. Presumably this is to help the volumes of passengers taking earlier / later flights than originally booked (something v common in the US for a number of reasons).

  • Ben says:
    14 Dec14 December 06:17

    An update for those who took up the challenge: I received an email from SAS on 11th of December validating my entries and the 1 million points to be credited at some point in January. Can’t wait to plan my future travels, Nuuk Greenland and the Faroe islands are high on he list now

    • Tony says:
      14 Dec14 December 07:12

      Congratulations! Kudos to those who’ve done this challenge, enjoy your miles.

    • Sharon says:
      14 Dec14 December 07:19

      How much did this cost you? Sorry rude question, just curious.

    • Barry says:
      14 Dec14 December 07:32

      Hi Ben, did this happen automatically, or in response to an email from you, please?

      • Ben says:
        14 Dec14 December 07:36

        They contacted my partner and I directly. Marcus Holm, Social Media Specialist at SAS emailed to congratulate us and asking for stories to be shared on their social platforms

    • Nico says:
      14 Dec14 December 08:02

      Well done! Lots of discussions about that on FT. never received the confirmation, and waiting for last 3 flights to credit/retro claim, which is taking a while/not working so far.

    • BlairWaldorfSalad says:
      14 Dec14 December 10:41

      @Ben if your partner was willing to do that run with you, time to make them your spouse. You’ve lucked out there!

      • Nico says:
        14 Dec14 December 12:49

        Interesting – I can’t get VN to credit, will give them a call next week, maybe being gold helped you

        • Phillip says:
          14 Dec14 December 12:56

          Oh no, they haven’t credited yet. They’re in process. It’s been just over a week since I submitted the retro claim.

          Interestingly, I’ve never had problems with VN in the past – crediting to AF was never an issue and even in the early days when VS first joined Skyteam they credited automatically without needing to chase. Win some lose some I guess!

          • Nico says:
            14 Dec14 December 13:43

            Oh, I see, thanks for the clarification.
            Guess depend on IT integration, what I find very weird is that it credits automatically to some and not others for the same airline.

    • Panda Mick says:
      14 Dec14 December 23:02

      You’ll love Nuuk. The walk along the boardwalk starting at the old town is lovely. Get Gaiagps downloaded as google and apple aren’t as good for navigation. Also, if you walk south of the town, it’s incredibly quiet and a good place to see the aurora. Whilst I was there, the aurora was south of me rather than north.

  • Jingle says:
    14 Dec14 December 06:47

    Quite straightforward legs for our hero so far. The behemoth that is the Asia trip has more potential caltrops than an episode of Black Doves. I do worry.
    Pre Covid my experience of getting into Jeddah involved a lengthy wait for passport scrutiny in a foreigners zone. That’s before the delights of Chinese internal flights😬. All we can do is trust in our man”s resilience. Go Barry

    • Nico says:
      14 Dec14 December 08:13

      Transiting in JED was a breeze.

      • Ben says:
        14 Dec14 December 08:28

        Super easy for us too. So was China

        • Phillip says:
          14 Dec14 December 08:31

          Again, same here for China. Xiamen to Xiamen and China Eastern to China Eastern albeit two very different experiences. Xiamen involved slower and more manual processing vs a speedier more digital experience in Shanghai!

      • Phillip says:
        14 Dec14 December 08:28

        Same experience here – Saudia to Saudia, same terminal. Not sure what transfers between terminals and different airlines are like.

        • Nico says:
          14 Dec14 December 09:11

          Only missed connection was in JFK, they really need to change their rules and modernize!

          • Phillip says:
            14 Dec14 December 10:19

            I have to say, I had multiple contingencies in place for missed connections and was very pleasantly surprised that everything worked to plan A.

            My only edit which I did in advance was getting Delta to put me on an earlier flight from Mexico City to Atlanta on the day of departure, to extend my connection time. It took me an hour and 15 minutes to clear immigration and TSA security in Atlanta on the way in, so I thought I’d not risk the 1.5 hour connection I had on the way back.

          • Nico says:
            14 Dec14 December 12:51

            It was my only connection with less than 3-4h and I managed to miss it! same PNR so no drama, was on the next (Virgin) flight, pretty full on a Wednesday night early December.

          • Phillip says:
            14 Dec14 December 12:57

            I was already on the last ATL-LHR flight so all the more reason I didn’t want to risk it. Same PNR etc, but needed to get back on schedule, rather than next day.

          • Nico says:
            14 Dec14 December 13:46

            Ah yes, don’t want to miss the last flight of the day.
            For me was only a couple of hours in jFK wasted between getting a new ticket and super slow security!

  • Bagoly says:
    14 Dec14 December 07:11

    That picture of the the Coke machine reminds me that a few weeks ago I was sat next to the champagne bottles in the American Flagship lounge at DFW Terminal D.
    Looking at the second glass in front of me, an American asked me “Is that iced water?”
    “Ah, I had that problem too”, I replied – “no bottles anywhere, it comes out of the Coke machine”.

  • Phillip says:
    14 Dec14 December 08:13

    Barry, what about the RISHI tea in the Delta lounge in Atlanta? A highlight no doubt! 😉

    • Barry says:
      14 Dec14 December 09:04

      I dont even bother with tea in America. Zero point! They often use water from coffee machines too, so it comes out at 80°c which is basically pointless!!

  • Erico1875 says:
    14 Dec14 December 09:06

    It would be interesting if a list of HFP readers who are doing or have completed the challenge was compiled as going by this article, there’s a few, and all the interesting variants of their journeys to completion.
    Well done guys n gals, very inspiring

  • Philip says:
    14 Dec14 December 09:31

    Youtuber Noel Philips has achieved this, and documented it here – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nl4vYeW9hJo

    • Lumma says:
      14 Dec14 December 20:43

      You can tell he’s making money now, always in premium cabins

      • Simon says:
        15 Dec15 December 09:31

        He said he booked them all in economy but upgraded some of them, which turned out to be every single flight.

  • Perkypat says:
    14 Dec14 December 10:54

    Would be really good to do a follow up in, say, a year’s time to see how people are spending their miles.

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

New to Head for Points?

Welcome!  We’re the UK’s most-read source of business travel, Avios, frequent flyer and hotel loyalty news. Let us improve how you travel. Got any questions? Ask them in our forums.

Get 25,000 Avios with the Barclaycard Avios Plus Mastercard

GET A SIGN-UP BONUS OF 18,000 VIRGIN POINTS!

Latest Forum Posts

Get 80,000 bonus points (worth 80,000 Avios) and £400 of dining credit with The Platinum Card (Offer ends 27th May)

Check reward flight availability instantly for free!

See a whole year of reward seat availability on one page at SeatSpy.com

Get up to 10,000 bonus Hilton Honors points

Booking a luxury hotel?

Our luxury hotel booking service offers you GUARANTEED extra benefits over booking direct. Works with Four Seasons, Mandarin Oriental, The Ritz Carlton, St Regis and more. We've booked £1.7 million of rooms to date. Click for details.

SME? GET THE ONLY FREE SMALL BUSINESS CREDIT CARD WHICH CAN EARN AVIOS

Get points worth 30,000 Avios with 'first year free' American Express Gold (ends 27th May)

The UK's biggest frequent flyer website uses cookies, which you can block via your browser settings. Continuing implies your consent to this policy. Our privacy policy is here.

Got it!