EuroBonus glossary: every term explained

Loyalty programs love jargon, and EuroBonus is no exception. If you have ever nodded along to a conversation about award space and mixed cabins without quite following, this glossary is for you. Plain definitions, no fluff.

Points and status

Bonus points. The spendable currency. This is the balance you draw on to book award flights, upgrades and rewards. When people say “I have 60,000 points,” they mean Bonus points.

Level points. The status counter. These decide your membership tier and cannot be spent. They reset at the end of each qualification period, so there is no reason to hoard them.

Membership tier. Your level in the program: Member, Silver, Gold or Diamond. Higher tiers earn an earning bonus on Bonus points and come with perks like lounge access.

Qualification period. The rolling window over which your Level points are counted toward a tier. When it ends, the Level point count resets.

Earning bonus. The extra Bonus points higher tiers receive. Silver earns 25 percent more, Gold 50 percent, Diamond 75 percent.

Flights and redemptions

Award flight. A flight paid for with points instead of cash. You pay a points price plus a smaller fee for taxes and charges.

Award seat (award space, award availability). A seat the airline has made available to book with points. These are limited and separate from cash seats, which is why a flight can be full on points but open for cash.

Redemption. The act of spending points on something, usually a flight. A “good redemption” means you got strong value for the points.

Companion Ticket. A perk on some EuroBonus credit cards, SAS’s 2-for-1 voucher, letting you book an award ticket for two while paying points for only one.

Alliances and partners

SkyTeam. The airline alliance SAS joined in 2024 after leaving Star Alliance. Its members are the partner airlines you can now book with EuroBonus points.

Partner award. An award flight on a partner airline rather than SAS. Since the SkyTeam move, partners include Air France, KLM, Delta, Virgin Atlantic and Korean Air, among others.

Star Alliance. The alliance SAS used to belong to. It no longer applies to EuroBonus redemptions, so ignore older guides that mention it.

Routing tricks

Mixed cabin. An award booking where different legs are in different cabins, for example Business on the long leg and economy on a short feeder, used when one class is not available the whole way.

Open-jaw. An itinerary where you fly out to one city and return from a different one, instead of a standard round trip from and to the same place.

Feeder flight. A short connecting flight from your home city to a larger hub where the long-haul flight departs. Relevant for Nordic travelers who do not live next to a major hub.

Stopover. A deliberate longer stop in a connecting city, sometimes allowed on an award ticket, letting you visit two places on one booking.

Put the words to use

Knowing the vocabulary is the easy part. Using it means searching for real award seats. The Bonussøk search is the place to turn these terms into an actual booking, with SAS award availability across cabins, plus a SkyTeam search for partner awards when you are ready to go further afield.