SAS has revealed many incredible statistics about their millionaire promotion. It’s the phenomenal promo that gave travelers 1 million points that I participated in this fall. The most surprising fact that was initially shared, that there were more North Koreans who completed the promotion than Canadians, was false after all (it didn’t make sense at all…)! But there are plenty of other fascinating ones.
Here are statistics about the SAS millionaire promotion.
Basics of the SAS millionnaire promotion
In October, to highlight their change of airline alliance, SAS (Scandinavian Airlines) launched the best promotion seen in the travel rewards world in at least a decade, if not more.
They gave out 1 million SAS points (value of ≈ $10,000 to UNLIMITED) to those who took flights on 15 of their 17 partner airlines in their new SkyTeam alliance before the end of 2024. Such a cool promotion! One of the best ever seen; nothing less.
That meant doing an epic round-the-world trip, experiencing a unique adventure that we may never see again, solving a complex logistical challenge, trying lots of airlines, and taking lots of flights for nothing… so it was obvious that I would do it.
You can read our detailed guide about the SAS millionaire promotion and especially my 7 overall impressions of my experience with the SAS millionaire promotion.
SAS shared a lot of statistics about the new millionaires with a website called Loyalty Lobby, and I wanted to share them with you in case you’re as interested as I am.
Number of SAS millionaires
A whopping 940 travelers successfully completed the promotion (that includes those who are still waiting for their points, like me).
In a recent interview, SAS executives had said that when designing the promo, they had estimated that 6 or 7 people would take advantage of it. Wow, what a gap. They drastically underestimated the passion of travel rewards enthusiasts.
There were 30+ of us just on my Kenya Airways flight between Guangzhou and Bangkok, so more than 3% of all travelers who did it. It was a 5th freedom flight that was a bottleneck where almost everyone had to pass through to avoid a detour to Africa, but that’s still a lot!
The most conservative possible value of SAS points is 1¢/pt, but their cost to the airline is qa bit less than that. So the promotion cost them less than 9 million dollars. It seems like a lot of money, but it’s not thaaaat bad for a big company. And it generated a lot of awareness!
Origin of SAS millionaires
The country of origin of travelers initially shared by SAS was very surprising in many ways. South Koreans were in 1st place and there were even 54 North Koreans, which just didn’t make sense. They corrected their stats later in the day; it turns out that was completely wrong.
This is still my favorite of all the stats here.
Here’s the breakdown, with 32 different countries represented among the SAS millionaires.
| Country | SAS millionaires | % |
|---|---|---|
| United States | 173 | 18% |
| Japan | 149 | 16% |
| South Korea | 130 | 14% |
| China | 112 | 12% |
| Sweden | 67 | 7% |
| Taiwan | 50 | 5% |
| Norway | 49 | 5% |
| United Kingdom | 37 | 4% |
| Denmark | 22 | 2% |
| Germany | 22 | 2% |
| Canada | 18 | 2% |
| France | 15 | 2% |
| Hong Kong | 15 | 2% |
| Australia | 11 | 1% |
| Netherlands | 9 | 1% |
| Italy | 6 | 1% |
| India | 6 | 1% |
| Brazil | 5 | 1% |
| Singapore | 5 | 1% |
| Thailand | 5 | 1% |
| Poland | 5 | 1% |
| Switzerland | 5 | 1% |
| Spain | 3 | 0% |
| Portugal | 3 | 0% |
| Estonia | 3 | 0% |
| Kazakhstan | 3 | 0% |
| Luxembourg | 2 | 0% |
| Indonesia | 2 | 0% |
| Ireland | 2 | 0% |
| Israel | 2 | 0% |
| Bulgaria | 2 | 0% |
| Belgium | 2 | 0% |
I’ll start with us Canadians. Only 17 others did the promotion besides me. A Flytrippers fan was sitting in the seat directly next to me on the famous Kenya Airways flight; that I still can’t get over.
There are at least 3-4 other Flytrippers readers who wrote to us to say they were doing it, and I have 2 friends from the travel rewards community who did it, too. So I’m missing only a few Canadian SAS millionaires to meet, haha! Please write us if you’re one of them!!!
While 18 Canadians doesn’t seem like a lot, there are 173 Americans who did it, and our population is about 10 times smaller. So it’s pretty much in the right ballpark.
The United States is unsurprisingly in 1st place; it’s the biggest travel and aviation market in the world. Japan is in 2nd place; the challenge was much easier for East Asians, as I’ll explain in a second.
South Korea is in 3rd place is a bit more surprising; I guess I’m not the only one who can’t wait to use 160,000 SAS points on Korean Air for a roundtrip in business class between Asia and America! China is in 4th place; it has such a huge population. Sweden rounds out the top 5.
But if the 3 Scandinavian countries were combined (Sweden, Norway, Denmark), they’d actually be ahead of South Korea in 3rd place. The SAS EuroBonus program is their home program, so that makes a lot of sense.
That said, I’m not surprised that Asian countries dominate, because that’s what I had noticed in the sample from my Kenya Airways flight mentioned earlier.
It was so much easier for them, at least for those who were short on time. There were 8 airlines you could do in Asia, so those could all be split into several short weekend trips without needing to take any time off at all. Their big trip left to do to Europe and North America could be done a lot quicker since there were fewer airlines left.
Gender of SAS millionaires
Not surprisingly, men make up the majority, but only 70%.
Yes, 30% of SAS millionaires are women, which is frankly very cool to see in this travel rewards field that is really more popular with men, unfortunately.
Age of SAS millionaires
The average age is 40 years old, which I find pretty high. The age group with the most SAS millionaires is 30 to 39 years old.
The oldest person to complete the challenge is 73 years old (from the United States) and the youngest is 4 years old (from Japan). Maybe people will stop with the absurd idea that children can’t do flights with layovers, knowing that a 4-year-old did at least 15 flights haha!
That said, in total there are only 12 people under 18 who completed the challenge. I would have been interested to know if a minor did the challenge alone (without an adult), but I guess if they didn’t mention it, there weren’t any.
Itinerary of SAS millionaires
The average SAS millionaire visited 4 continents, 17 countries, and 23 airports.
To compare it to my itinerary, I visited 18 countries and 25 airports, so I’m very close to the average (I excluded my unplanned stop when my flight diverted to Cambodia; I was at the airport and in the country, but I didn’t leave the plane).
I only visited 3 continents, though; I did it pretty optimally and efficiently!
There are 9 SAS millionaires out of the 900+ who clearly weren’t trying to make it optimal and efficient and took advantage of this to visit 6 continents (North America, South America, Europe, Africa, Asia, Oceania).
There are even 22% of SAS millionaires who did at least 5 continents!
All SAS millionaires visited China at least once. I went 3 times to be able to take advantage of visa-free travel to China. With 2 Chinese airlines among the 17 eligible airlines and just 15 required, it would have been possible to avoid the country completely, but it would have been so much more expensive and complicated for nothing, and not a single person did it.
Flights of SAS millionaires
The most used airline was SAS. That’s a bit surprising because it wasn’t necessary to do SAS at all, even if it was their promo. Maybe some thought you had to.
Also, 92% of flights as part of the promotion were in economy class.
One of the most wonderful things about the world of travel rewards, for those who want to travel in luxury for less, is that airline points can give you flights in business class and first class at a fraction of the price!
You should never pay for that in cash; it just makes no sense. So it’s normal that people paid for economy class for the promo. A lot of people will then use the million points for flights in premium cabins, though!
You can read my testimonial of a 13-hour flight in the world’s best business class: instead of $4,000 (!!!), I just needed the points from the increased welcome bonus on the RBC Avion Visa Infinite Card (which is back since last week).
Membership of SAS millionaires
Okay, this might be less interesting, but I want to mention it in case airline employees are reading, so they can see the positive effect of such a promotion and do a similar one!!!
Among the 900+ SAS millionaires, 78% (722) were not members of the SAS EuroBonus rewards program before the promotion!
In total, 6886 new members joined the program to register for the promotion. Even if the vast majority didn’t do the challenge, that’s a lot of new members for this program that was not very popular before.
Of those who became SAS millionaires, 77% had no SAS elite status, 8% were Silver, 12% were Gold, and 2% were Diamond.
Finally, the SAS millionaire who joined the latest was December 16, so that person did the 15 airlines in 15 days (the deadline was December 31). I would have really liked to know the speed record. One of my co-speakers at the Chicago Seminars travel rewards event this fall did it in 9 days (which is pretty insane already); I am curious to know if others did better (or worse, depending on your definition).
The longest-standing SAS member who did the promotion had been a member since May 1992. That sounds impressive, but I’ve been an Air Canada Aeroplan member for longer.
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Summary
The SAS millionaire promotion was great and it’s not surprising that over 900 travelers decided to take advantage of it. It’s a bit more surprising that so many Koreans (North and South) did it and that the average age is a bit higher than I would have thought.
What would you like to know about the SAS millionaire promotion statistics?? Tell us in the comments below.
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Featured image: Taipei City, Taiwan (photo credit: Thomas Tucker)
Hey andrew,so a couple of friends & i completed this challenge on December 14th, it’s now close to 2 months later we still haven’t received the million miles,looking online, I’m seeing numerous people are having similar issues especially regarding retroclaiming Vietnam airlines, we’ve reached out to sas many times via email,chat,phone & social media ,response has overwhelmingly been terrible with generally no one responding or a seemingly automated response…Too add insult to the injury sas has credited 900 people with the miles( seemingly every blogger/influencer has received there’s) and put a “celebrity video” announcing the winners…is there any recourse or action you can recommend for us to do? We have fulfilled our side of the bargain & flown the 15 airlines in the correct fare classes..now it’s sas turn to fulfill there end.
Hey, congrats!
Well, their email did say that they are taking the month of February to finish processing the many claims. You should be fine as long as you see your claim in the app (click on “Me” at the bottom, then the hamburger menu at the top right, then scroll down to “Customer claims”).
I 100% agree with you that it’s frustrating to see them do their little promotional events while we’re still waiting. Hate it.
As much as their promo was amazing (and it sure was), their handling of it since is the complete opposite for sure.