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Barry’s SAS million point challenge – some reflection, some BA, then Airline 9, Saudia

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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.

Today Barry starts the Asian leg of his trip, which unknown to him would soon take a messy turn. First he had to get through the Middle East though ….

Over to Barry ….

Sitting at home, just before the Asia leg

I have now completed two of my three journeys, covering eight SkyTeam airlines. Of these, six have credited to my SAS EuroBonus account. Two stubbornly won’t appear, no matter how many times I try on the SAS website – Delta and TAROM.

I have now given up my daily routine of attempting to use the missing points page, and have resorted to emailing SAS directly. Thankfully I kept copies of all my boarding passes, just in case, so have attached these too.

I had also been getting increasingly nervous about my Asia trip. Six flights back to back, all economy, no breaks in between.

I have therefore wimped out and used some Avios to get a Club World ticket to Jeddah from Heathrow. This replaces my first three flights hopscotching across from Stansted (Stansted to Istanbul on Pegasus, Istanbul to Riyadh on Pegasus, Riyadh to Jeddah on Saudia). I have another Saudia leg onwards from Jeddah so I will tick them off at that point. Again, it’s not the cheapest option but I feel better already so it was probably the right decision.

In order to minimise the chances of lost luggage, I have decided to pack light and just take a small carry-on case for the six day Asia trip. This has proved tricky though, as it is currently 32°c in Ho Chi Minh City during the day and – 7°c in Seoul overnight! I would describe my packing as a heady mixture of ‘hopeful and creative’ ….

Finally, I have given up trying to get my cheap transit visa for Saudi Arabia and have got a full year tourist visa instead. My transit application has sat on the portal for nearly two weeks with no updates or replies to enquiries. Oh, and South Korea has just declared martial law. So that should be fun. Wish me luck!

SAS Million Point Challenge

London to Jeddah, British Airways

No, British Airways is not in SkyTeam. This is my new positioning flight to start my Asia leg.

Having started this odyssey with the very first flight of the day out of Heathrow (for my trip to Paris), I am now on one of the very last flights of the day, to Jeddah.

I’m flying British Airways in Club World, using Avios, from Heathrow Terminal 5. Once I’ve made it through security I do my standard trick when flying Business and walk to the other end of the concourse to go to the Galleries South lounge instead of Galleries North. This tends to be quieter as its further from the business fast track security.

Even so, the lounge was VERY busy despite how late in the day it was. The two main business class lounges in Terminal 5 are fairly substantial and perfectly adequate in performance. The main plus for me is that if you ask the staff nicely, they will almost always find you a paper cup to take your coffee with you to the gate.

SAS Million Point Challenge

After a game of musical chairs on the plane, I finally ended up with the middle seat in the 2-3-2 configuration – which meant I could attempt to sleep undisturbed for as much of the flight as possible. Dinner was fillet of beef with potato gratin, and bread and butter pudding for dessert. Very nice indeed.

I used my nifty headphone adapter to get around the monumentally annoying BA offset double socket it insists on for some reason. These seats must be a particularly old set up, as I remember being on one of these at least a decade ago. The USB port was ultra slow and only moved my phone from 55% to 72% in over four hours!

The boxing saying goes that everyone has a plan until they get punched in the face. My plan was to sleep, but I was not so much punched in the face as suffered an assault to my ear drums. Without doubt the loudest, most out of control, kids I have ever encountered on a plane conspired to deprive me of the precious few hours I was counting on.

Literal screaming by the older ones was immediately followed by the crying of the babies they had just woken up. One even stood on the stool adjoining my foot stool and jumped up and down. I put in my ear plugs and popped the big BA over-the-ear headphones on too, alas to no avail. No sleep was possible. 

I wish I’d not bothered trying, and just watched The Empire Strikes Back all the way through for the hundredth time instead. Not the start I was hoping for, or indeed splashed all the Avios for …. 

Jeddah to Jakarta, Saudia

One of the reasons I swapped to the BA flight to Jeddah was to allow myself plenty of time to get through the ‘ultra strict’ Saudi customs and passport control. It wasn’t necessary.

A brief stroll through the terminal took me to the Saudia transfer desk. Although I had booked two completely separate flights, they were happy to print a boarding pass for me. A quick nip through security with no line meant I was in the departure hall within a few minutes of landing.

All the signs were in both Arabic and English. Everyone, without fail, spoke perfect English. Nobody checked my visa or even asked about it. Pre-flight panic for nothing!

Barry SAS Million Point Challenge

I now had over three hours to kill, so I made my way to the lounge. And what a lounge. I could probably write a piece just on my visit there.

It was not perfect by any means – lacking the grand architecture of Paris; the quiet sophistication of Stockholm or Amsterdam; or even the baked goodies from Atlanta – but it felt special in a way that you want a visit to a lounge to be.

Robots meandered around collecting empties (see above!). A bank of iPads sat at a counter waiting to be used:

SAS Million Point Challenge

A machine stood ready to print out a short story of your life based on your inputs (AI?!). A patisserie served homemade cakes and chocolates. A barista made hot drinks, including one of the best cappuccinos I have ever had. One chef made fresh eggs and omelettes to order, while another made pizzas in a wood fired oven.

It felt more like a (small) Dubai hotel than an airport lounge. I would mark it down for the awful plastic cutlery, as well as the lack of showers and natural light (it was completely internal) but I am really picking at straws.

A quick nap in one of the slumber rooms (see below), followed by waffles for breakfast, and I was off to the gate with coffee in hand. There is a lot of building work going on, so large areas of the terminal were boarded off. However everything is clean and quiet and it all feels almost new.

SAS Million Point Challenge

A 2-2-2 seat arrangement in business class with big comfy looking chairs sent pangs of jealousy through me, as I pondered the next ten hours in economy in the middle seat of a middle row.

The plane was packed, so I had no chance of moving let alone getting a row to myself as I managed with Virgin Atlantic. I watched a film and picked at a barely edible breakfast offering, then slept as best I could for three or four hours. I then suffered through 2001: A Space Odyssey (massively overrated) and gave away the pizza slice we were given as a second meal.

I was in Jakarta, hungry and tired and a little grumpy. And it was all about to get really messy after I met Roy ….

Click here for the next article in this series.

The full itinerary

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

Category

SkyTeam alliance partners

Comments (37)

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

  • Stuart says:
    21 Dec21 December 07:59

    Being HfP then a SV write up had to cover BA!
    Having transitted through JED a few times on SV J tickets, which is always easy, my experience of the SV lounge is not as glowing as reported here. Each of my transits where 6 to 9 hours; the SV lounge was always freezing cold due to the ridiculous AC unit, there’s a non-stop cycled background music which is audio torture and there’s onky two showers (in the mens, cannot comment on the womens) and one is always out of order), as a non-coffee drinker the barista hot chocolate is watery muck, the ‘slumber rooms’ lights cannot be dimmed/switched off so no sleeping there. The warmest location is the TV room which is also the darkest and comfortable for napping, but the music cannot be escaped from there for sleeping. Food is OK and the Filipino staff (those are the ones doing the work) were friendly. The SV J onboard product is much better than the SV ground services.

    • Dubious says:
      21 Dec21 December 08:40

      I agree with this – I’ve never found a quiet place to rest in that lounge (quite rooms always occupied when I’ve been there too). Although a nice feature the pizzas bases are the pre-made variety, not that enjoyable in practice. Much better than the lounge at Riyadh though.

    • Bagoly says:
      21 Dec21 December 09:10

      For the lights issue, the Tempur sleep masks have been my saviour since I discovered them 20 years ago – I have one at home and one lives in my cabin bag. Not cheap, but they actually work.

    • Throwawayname says:
      21 Dec21 December 11:32

      Flying BA was superfluous at bestgiven that SV sell really cheap business class tickets ex-TUN. I paid £560 for TUN-JED-RUH-BKK and bagged around 10k miles for it too.

      • Nico says:
        21 Dec21 December 13:47

        How long does it take it vs a direct flight?

        • Throwawayname says:
          21 Dec21 December 14:58

          It depends on what you’re trying to do.

          The double connection was actually quicker than going TUN-JED-BKK (although the RUH lounge was rather unremarkable), and AF had really good timings to TUN, so it was perfect for the purposes of the challenge, and the connection on SV was all on a through ticket so it was easy to send luggage through to BKK and there wasn’t any risk of the immigration officers taking much interest in my travel plans. I did have to get myself an electronic visa waiver due to the domestic connection, but that was extremely easy to do and only cost something like $35 (note: Saudi EVWs are currently only available to UK passport holders).

          If I was just trying to get from the UK to BKK, there’s no direct flight from BHX which is my local airport, so it would be a case of needing an extra half day and £150 to get to TUN via CDG/FRA, and then maybe 19 hours between flights and connections to get to BKK instead of flying there in maybe 15-16 hours from BHX via CDG/FRA/IST. AF have a flight to TUN that leaves CDG late in the evening, so I wouldn’t have to lose any working hours to get there, the real cost to me would be spending €70 for a hotel and €20 on taxis from and to the airport. For me it would be well worth doing that to avoid 11+ hours in economy. Of course I appreciate that for anyone with a couple of kids in tow it would be a completely different calculation, YMMV and all that.

  • Greenpen says:
    21 Dec21 December 08:41

    How does the plate collecting robot work? Do you have to place your empties on it as it stands next to you? Or does it have arms to pick them up itself?

    • Barry says:
      21 Dec21 December 08:48

      It has tray slots for you to pop yours onto once you’re done 👍

      • Barrel for Scraping says:
        21 Dec21 December 09:39

        So more of a works canteen or Hampton breakfast arrangement just that the thing you return the tray to is moving around rather than being in a static position. How does the robot know you’re ready to return your tray? It seems a fun novelty at first but if they’re going for the self service tray system then it’s probably easier knowing where the return racks are rather than waiting for a robot to come over.

    • Red Flyer says:
      21 Dec21 December 09:44

      The lounge in MAN T1 has one of these robots too – not that you will likely see it if trying to get in with a Priority Pass!

  • Sandgrounder says:
    21 Dec21 December 09:59

    They have the robot tray shelves in the lounge at LPL as well. Flying from JED in a couple of weeks, the lounge looks fine for an 8am departure, 100% won’t be there 6 hours before!

  • BlairWaldorfSalad says:
    21 Dec21 December 10:17

    Outrageous behaviour by the parents of those unruly kids to not intervene. I presume the crew may take a light touch to intervention due to the route involved. My worst ever child in business experience was a professional woman flying JFK-DUB-LHR. She had much work to do and a babe in arms. However both were dropped in favour of the PDB. Many times throughout the flight the crew were left passing the child amongst themselves in the galley. And I awoke at one point to find mother watching the IFE whilst baby had crawled into my footwell to play.

  • AmandaB says:
    21 Dec21 December 10:18

    I’m enjoying your reports and a little jealous that I didn’t join the challenge. I would give it serious consideration if it was offered again.

    • Barry says:
      21 Dec21 December 11:21

      If you leave tonight, there is probably still time to just about get it done!!!

      • Throwawayname says:
        21 Dec21 December 13:03

        Doesn’t seem realistic. It took me two full weeks (Thursday night to Thursday night) to complete the challenge. I was flying every single day, usually two flights per day, though I did allow myself the luxury of sleeping (or at least attempting to sleep) in a hotel bed for all but two nights.

        • Phillip says:
          21 Dec21 December 17:18

          If I add all of mine together, I had 9 full days of flying. I did Asia in less than 5, including KLM.

          • Throwawayname says:
            21 Dec21 December 23:13

            That’s pretty amazing, did you come close to any connections going horribly wrong? I did have 5 same day connections on separate tickets and didn’t even stress at any point, but they all were very tame (OTP-MAD-MXP with the next flight from MXP only leaving the following afternoon, RUH-BKK-HAN and, the following day, HAN-CAN-BKK with 6 hours apiece, XMN-ICN/GMP-PUS with more cheap flights available that evening, and SIN-BOM-LHR where my bag failed to load and is still away from me 2.5 weeks later due to VS being a joke of an airline 😭 )

          • Phillip says:
            22 Dec22 December 02:10

            I did have plan B and C for most of my connections and I have to say, I am still surprised at how smoothly everything went. As I mentioned in one of the previous articles, I did end up changing my MEX-ATL flight to an earlier one to increase my connection from the original 1.5 hours I had (Delta was more than happy to do this for free). As it turned out the ATL-LHR flight was delayed so I would have made it anyway but at least I didn’t have to worry about it.
            In Asia everything went to plan – my only minor obstacle was connecting through Jakarta the second time without an onward boarding pass on Xiamen. I flew CGK-KUL (GA) – CGK (KL) – XMN (MF). I did have a 5 hour connection on the latter. Online check in was not possible. I tried to get my boarding pass for CGK-XMN on my way out of CGK to KUL in the morning but MF had cancelled their morning flight so there was no one at check in, and MF at KUL wouldn’t provide me with a boarding pass either. Ultimately it meant I had to purchase another VoA for Indonesia and go back out to check in to get my boarding pass. Small price to pay but an example of a country that makes connections ridiculously difficult. A major contrast to KUL where you simply arrive into the main concourse and can get on with any connections, as security is at the gate, or ICN where you can easily move through the airport and between terminals by using your passport. Cleared security at ICN who were happy just to see my itinerary until I picked up my boarding pass at the departing terminal.

          • Throwawayname says:
            22 Dec22 December 12:05

            Good stuff, I had also been amazed about the smoothness of it all, the only snags I hit was at CAN and BOM where connecting pax are only able to receive boarding passes from the respective ‘home’ airlines (CZ and AI respectively). I overcame the former by getting them to print the BP from OLCI, but I couldn’t do OLCI from BOM and they made me go out of passport control and check in as a departing passenger (then the bright sparks at VS didn’t allow me to get into the lounge because I had the temerity to want to use my AZ status benefits whilst crediting miles to SK).

          • Phillip says:
            22 Dec22 December 17:47

            I have to say that is one of the reasons that put me off going for the KQ fifth freedom flight; for my Chinese connections I stuck with MF to MF transfers in Xiamen and MU to MU transfers in Shanghai.

  • FFoxSake says:
    21 Dec21 December 11:23

    “One chef made fresh eggs”
    Must have been fun and shocking in equal measures!

  • Mike Hunt says:
    21 Dec21 December 12:31

    Barry great article (series of articles) I am on the edge my seat as to what happens next

    • Rob says:
      21 Dec21 December 14:10

      I don’t even know the full details of what happens next because – whilst I do have the full set of flight articles in my inbox now – I’m only opening them one article’s worth at a time!

    • sayling says:
      21 Dec21 December 15:21

      Indeed!

      Who is this Roy, surreptitiously introduced at the end of this episode? Are they instrumental to the upcoming carnage? Or the saviour?

      I’m on tenterhooks here!

  • Joel M says:
    21 Dec21 December 15:35

    Loving this series of articles aside from the blasphemy on 2001 – it’s an iconic film (the books are great too), HAL is legendary

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