[Anonymous]

[RoadKing]

Scandinavian Airlines frequent flyer programme has launched a shopping site (www.flysas.com/en/Eurobonus/SAS-EuroBonus-Shop/).

Incentive is for Eurobonus members to make a point bargain I suppose.

You can shop for points, money or a combination.

But what it really is, is stealing.

Consider this:
Philips Blu-Ray Player BDP7300

If you use kelkoo.com or a similar service to search the internet for a price on this item, most will be in the range of £300 – £350. SAS’ Eurobonus shop will ask £331.19 inclusive delivery on your door.

Okay, that is fair enough. But how about if I want this for points?

In that case they are asking 105,818.

Obviously, for people not familiar with the Eurobonus programme, it doesn’t say much. So I’ll explain.

If you had 80,000 points, you could get a return trip CPH – SEA (a good 9hrs flight) in business class.

If you had 120,000 points, you get a return trip CPH – NRT (approx 12 hrs flight) in business class.

The list price of these trips are in the range of £2500 – £3200.

So, essentially, SAS Eurobonus is encouraging you to spend incentives worth something around £2800 on a BluRay player???

Is the Eurobonus programme the only one with web “deals” being so disgraceful? Or does this apply to all of them?

I understand that these are different products and all, but still…

[Senator]

Hi,

I suspect SK is taking a page out of the book of their big German brother Lufthansa. Please visit http://www.worldshop.eu for more details.

In essence, the trading miles for merchants i.e. selling miles/points to non-travel partners, and redeeming miles/points for non-travel is good business when done well. Some programs make very good money doing this.

To make a direct comparison between the value of miles for airline travel on the company’s own metal, and the redemption for merchandise is not really an apples to apples comparison. The cost to the airline to leave a seat free is very different from buying electronics, stocking them, and re-selling them with a different payment mechanism. I think if you look at the redemption of hotel nights, and car hire you will see the same thing.

In suspect this offer is targetted torwards customers with excessive travel; people that want to stay home when not travelling for business.

[amacuk69]

Have you seen how much you’d have to spend with AMEX Membership Rewards.

Some of the “offers” mean you’ve paid about £50k for a £1k product!

[Author]

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