The SAS EuroBonus Millionaire promotion has been amazing for those who have received confirmation that they’ll get their million miles, but for other folks (like me!) it has been fraught with problems getting credit for flights flown. In a nod to those of us fretting over missing mileage credit and contemplating last-minute mileage runs to Mexico for added insurance, SAS has sent an email to members confirming that they understand it’s been a bit of a fiasco and saying that members will have until January 31st to claim missing mileage credit.

Trouble getting credit

While all 15 of Greg’s flights have credited to his EuroBonus account and he has received confirmation that his million miles are on the way, Stephen and I (and many others) have not been so lucky.

Combing through the threads at Flyertalk, numerous members have reported being unable to request credit retroactively for flights on various carriers, with many reports of system problems. A phone agent told me that the system is down with no estimate for when it will be back up and that retroactive mileage claims can’t be filed in the meantime. Nonetheless, I sent an email to request retroactive credit for the flights I was missing. All three show up in my “customer claims” in the app, but none of them have been updated since the dates I submitted them.

SAS emails members to announce extension of retroactive claim deadline

An email has come through today to SAS EuroBonus members registered for the Millionaire promotion that acknowledges the struggles here and announces an extension for claiming credit for flights:

Joining a new alliance has been fun, right? The fact that you and so many of your fellow members have registered for the EuroBonus Millionaire challenge is not only a testament to your adventurous spirit, but invaluable for us in order to see how everything works across SkyTeam from your perspective.

We’ve learned a lot from your zigzagging across the world these last few months. One unexpected technical issue we’ve come across is complications when retroactively registering SkyTeam flights to earn points. We’re working tirelessly to fix this, and to make things fair we’ve decided to extend the deadline for registering flights for the challenge to 31 January.

No need to worry though, we will contact you as soon as your flights have been registered, and we’ll start delivering your points starting in February. Thanks for your patience.

To be clear, my understanding is that you’ll still need to fly by December 31st, but you will have until January 31, 2025 to claim retroactive mileage credit. We previously noticed that the promotion landing page had updated to note that they intended to accept all flights flown through December 31st and would accept retroactive credit claims in January 2025, but we now have confirmation that they’re accepting claims through the end of January.

Perhaps more importantly, we have some public acknowledgement from SAS of the technical issues. That goes a long way in building some confidence that the issues have drawn enough attention from all levels of the company to get the necessary attention and focus they need to resolve them. I have no doubt that SAS has indeed learned a lot — not the least of which has been how instantly popular they could become. I can’t imagine that they counted on as many members flying and crediting flights and filing claims while going after the million miles. We can all be thankful for the quantity of people who did take this up — because had it been the couple dozen people they may have anticipated, I don’t know that the issues crediting flights would have gotten the necessary attention to get resolved.

I can imagine that moving into 2025, SAS may just become the most efficient SkyTeam airline in terms of crediting flights and getting elite benefits given the volume of attention this has brought to any shortcomings in the process.

SAS shares a key tip in getting flights credited

One of the many confusing things about this promotion was what to enter for your frequent flyer number. SAS numbers begin with EBX (where “x” can be a variable letter). I had initially assumed that the letters stood for EuroBonus and weren’t actually a necessary part of the frequent flyer number. For instance, Turkish Airlines Miles & Smiles numbers start with TK, but when transferring miles to Turkish or crediting Star Alliance flights to Turkish, I’ve only entered the numbers in my membership number, not the letters “TK”.

However, I relatively quickly discovered that the “EBX” prefix was necessary for SAS EuroBonus numbers. Today’s email confirms as much:

REGISTER LETTERS TO AVOID MISSING OUT ON BENEFITS & POINTS

We’ve seen some issues when trying to access SkyTeam Elite/Elite Plus benefits and earning EuroBonus points when flying on some SkyTeam airlines. We are working hard to fix them and offer you a smooth experience across the alliance. In the meantime, you can do the following to avoid some issues: Always include the three-letter prefix when providing your EuroBonus number on another airline’s website or app, even if not prompted to do so (e.g. EBB123456789, EBD123456789. Without it, your number will not be stored in your booking and your benefits will not be applied and points earned automatically. You can always ask an agent at the airport to add the number manually in your booking. We are working with our partners to make sure adding the three-letter prefix becomes a requirement.

I’m glad to see SAS address that key detail publicly. I would have liked to have seen that tip come through in October rather than 2/3 of the way through December, but better late than never?

I was sure to include the letters in all of my reservations because I had somehow figured out early on that it was necessary (I can’t recall if someone told me that or I figured it out by trial and error, but I certainly didn’t learn it from SAS). Still, it’s good to see that they have clearly recognized that this was a repeated issue causing them to have far more missing mileage claims to deal with than they may have anticipated. My missing flights all had the letters, so that wasn’t a foolproof way to get credit, but it’ll surely help.

Bottom line

I’m still waiting on 3 more airlines to post for the SAS EuroBonus millionaire challenge. After picking up Aeromexico last weekend, I’ve now flown 16 airlines, but I still haven’t received credit for any of the 3 I was missing last week nor have I received credit for the Aeromexico flights (two segments) that I flew last weekend. But today’s email gives me a boost of confidence that SAS is on it and working to make sure that members do get credit for the flights we’ve taken.

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