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DALLAS — A founding member of the Star Alliance, the airline announced its entry into SkyTeam in April 2024. On September 1, SAS Scandinavian Airlines (SK)formalized its entrance into the SkyTeam alliance.
To celebrate the new possibilities unlocked by SkyTeam, SK challenged its frequent fliers to use their SAS EuroBonus across up to 15 airlines in the SkyTeam group. The reward? Nothing less than one million miles.
The EuroBonus challenge allowed passengers flying with five different SkyTeam airlines to earn 10,000 points, ten airlines to earn 100,000 points, and the famous fifteen airlines to earn a whopping million points.
As of February 2025, SkyTeam has 17 active members due to Russian Aeroflot's (SU) suspension from the alliance. With members spanning from Argentina to China and Indonesia to Romania, Skyteam recently bid farewell to a key player in Europe, ITA Airways (AZ), effectively “trading off” SAS for the Italian carrier.
Around 900 people completed the challenge, and outside Scandinavia, the United States boasts the highest number of winners. We sat down with Ken Vargha, one of the winners of SK's most ambitious prize, the million EuroBonus points, to learn more about his adventure all around the world.
Ken has enjoyed traveling for most of his life for business and leisure. He has been in executive roles for the past 15+ years in small—to mid-sized privately held companies, covering high management roles.
SC: When did you first hear of the initiative, and what motivated you to embark on this journey?
KV: I heard about the challenge in late October when one of my adult daughters, who follows a travel blogger, mentioned it. We talked about the challenge and how it would be fun to try it.
I got more excited as I looked at all the airlines and where we would need to go. I had never been to many of these places and would not have gone to some without pursuing this challenge. I mentioned it to a friend at church, and he decided to do it, too, although we couldn’t go together because he had date restrictions. My sister-in-law loves to travel and has spent much time in China; when she heard about it, she practically begged me to take her along.
My wife and I discussed what we could do with a million miles and how much time and money it would take to do the challenge, and we decided to see if I could make it work. I had the time as I wasn’t currently involved in any business projects, but undertaking it immediately after returning from a Japan trip made for an extra twist.
What was your most memorable experience on board an aircraft?
Exploring the many airlines I had never flown was fun in and of itself. And I got caught up on many movies I hadn’t seen (I think I saw about 12). Flying from Paris to Madrid, my sister-in-law spoke with the gentlemen in the middle seat and told him I spoke French before she closed her eyes and went to sleep. I then spent almost the entirety of the flight dusting off my rusty French and conversing with him. We had a great time speaking about many things. The people we met made this more fun!
I was surprised by some of the airports we flew through. I was unaware of how extensive and busy many of these were. We flew through 6 of the world’s busiest international airports! Of course, my membership with a credit card lounge program made this pretty enjoyable, too.
Eggs benedict in the Virgin lounge and a fantastic curry (I went back for seconds and thirds) in a partner lounge in Kuala Lumpur were just some of the highlights of airport food. Speaking of which, the gelato at the Rome airport was to die for.
What was your itinerary, and how long did planning take?
Planning is an interesting question. My wife joked that if she knew how much time I would put into the planning, she might reconsider. The challenge was trying to string together all of the flights, make them connect with minimal non-Sky Team airlines, not spend too much time away (as I have some volunteer responsibilities here in California that I would be missing), and not spend too much money. I easily spent 3 days going back and forth over itineraries. Luckily, I have two large screen monitors in my office, so that I could look for alternatives.
Many of the airlines fly out of specific locations only (e.g., AirEuropa must go through Madrid) so these need to be considered. So, I would have complete route maps open on my computer for the different airlines exploring their routes. Living in California, I explored options for flying East through Europe and West through Asia. In the end, it worked out better for me to fly East through Europe.
One of the requirements was to fly on the partner airlines themselves and not on code-shares. Thus, I would often look at each airline to ensure it was their flight and not a code-share to avoid unintended duplications. I had to look at multiple airlines' websites to confirm this. Finally, it also required me to look at the fare codes to ensure they were qualifying.
Ultimately, only one didn’t work out correctly as I couldn’t determine its fare code during booking. I had a backup planned, though, which was taking a flight on Aeroméxico as it is easily accessible from where I live.
I flew Delta from Los Angeles to Las Vegas, Jet Blue to NYC, Virgin Atlantic to London, British Airways to Oslo, SAS to Paris, Air France to Madrid, Air Europa to Rome, Tarom to Bucharest, and then on to Istanbul, Saudia to Jeddah and then on to Singapore, Garuda to Jakarta, KLM to Kuala Lumpur, Vietnam to Ho Chi Minh and then on to Bangkok, Kenya Air to Guangzhou, China Eastern to Shanghai, Xiamen Air to Xiamen and then on to Taipei, China Airlines to Seoul and then Korean Air to Los Angeles.
I needed to make up the Xiamen flight (as it was the incorrect fare class), so I flew Aero Mexico from Tijuana to Mexico City and back. Excluding the Aero Mexico segment, I flew around the world in 11 days.
How many new airlines did you try?
I had never flown on 12 of the airlines: Virgin Atlantic, Air Europa, Tarom, Saudia, Garuda Indonesia, Vietnam Airlines, Kenya Airways, China Eastern, Xiamen Air, China Airlines, Korean Air, and Aeroméxico.
How are you planning to use the huge miles bonus?
One of the intriguing aspects of the challenge was that we would have almost 5 years to use the miles. We have a large family reunion/vacation planned to Mexico in 2026 and plan on using about a third of the miles on that trip. There were places that I would like to go back to explore and spend more time there with my wife. Bali definitely falls into that camp. Turkey is another.
We have also talked about going to Ireland, where some of my wife’s family is from. We haven’t planned out all the locations, but there are some intriguing places to explore for the first time or anew. And, with these many miles, we look forward to flying business class on many of these long international flights.
How did you feel after completing the last flight?
I felt relieved and tired when I thought I was done after the round-the-world segments. It was hard to get much sleep with time zone changes and up to 3 flights in a day. I also felt a sense of accomplishment as it was a kind of crazy undertaking. In fact, I told people it was the craziest thing I had ever done.
I also thought about a bunch of the great memories I had with my sister-in-law, Shannon. Our day in Istanbul was fantastic and made me want to go back to Turkey. When I figured out that my Xiamen flights wouldn’t count toward the challenge, I was a little bummed.
However, I had always planned on Aeroméxico as a backup airline and was able to use them for my 15th! When I landed in Mexico City at Christmas, I felt relief that the last one was in the bank. I really enjoyed the time I spent in the historic downtown area that day before flying back.
The whole experience has made for great stories to everyone I have told (and the friends who followed me as I texted my exploits from country to country and airline to airline).
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Featured image: Mateo Skinner/Airways
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