There has been some talk about recognition of SAS Eurobonus gold card members on various forums. In the Norwegian way of being I guess there is not a lot of room for recognition of status – maybe due to the Jantelov? When I came to Stavanger airport yesterday I noticed that there was a flight from Stavanger to Oslo at 5.15 PM and I went to the SAS counter to see if I could change to this instead of my 6.30 PM flight. But it did not take long to get the answer…as I had a cheap ticket there was no room for changing this even if I suspect there were seats in economy on the earlier flight. So I went over to check in…back in the old days it was possible to just walk to the counter to check it but now you have to check in on a machine and then go to baggage drop. I did check in on the machine and I followed the sign saying Business class as this normally indicates the priority line for SAS Eurobonus goldcard members. But I guess not…the lady behind the counter told me that the business sign was just for Lufthansa business class check in and she asked me to read the monitor better…thanks for the great guest service lady. So she asked me to get behind the one person that was in the line for baggage drop. Great service indeed.
As I was not able to change the flight I had to wait and of course due to airline controller problems (I hope that you have started the job of fixing this Avinor) my flight to Oslo was 30 minutes late. I think the captain was also a bit pissed off about this as he blamed the delay on the airline controllers several times. So I got to Oslo about 30 minutes late but I did make the connection to London and I guess that’s what matters, But back to recognition for having a SAS Eurobonus goldcard. Don’t get me wrong…I love having the goldcard as it gives me access to the StarAlliance lounges and I can bring more luggage. BUT, I don’t really feel like an appreciated customer with SAS or any of the other StarAlliance members…maybe there is just too many with a gold card these days. But then again…even the ones with a SAS Pandion card complains about recognitions so maybe we are just too focused on treating everybody equally.
The landing in London was pretty exciting as there were strong winds and lots of rain.
The EBG benefits have overtime become less attractive. I used to travel weekly between OSL and ARL and having the EBG gave me free breakfast in the lounge, and fast-track on ARL. The value was great. The lounge on ARL was pretty good – and getting on earlier planes was easy. But then they outsourced the lounge on Arlanda… and we had to go to the service counter. And the service counter didn’t have the same level of service.