We spent Christmas Eve with Scandinavian Airlines (SAS), enjoying an evening journey to Copenhagen to kick off a brief trip to Germany for the holidays.
I mentioned yesterday, when outlining my elite status strategy for 2026, that I continue to love EuroBonus, the loyalty program of SAS. If you are willing to fly SAS, there are great redemption opportunities and a lot of extra space for members compared to redemptions via SkyTeam partners.
We wanted to spend the holidays in Germany and SAS opened space from Chicago (nothing from Los Angeles), so we took a redeye to Chicago in economy (ouch) then flew SAS from Chicago to Copenhagen in business class on Christmas Eve.
I prefer to spend “Heiligabend” (the German word for Christmas Eve) at home with family and attending a late-night church service, but sometimes you just have to take the space that is open.
It was a very good day to travel. The airport was not crowded (though the new Air France Lounge in Terminal 5 was quite crowded, considering the Delta SkyClub closed early for Christmas Eve). Onboard, the flight was less than half full…no wonder SAS had copious amounts of award space available in all three cabins!
It was a crisp, cold evening and after a long day, I was ready to get to sleep. Thankfully, the service was efficient, with dinner served promptly after takeoff. Service began with warmed cashews, followed by an appetizer (smoked salmon or duck) and a green salad.
I’m avoiding alcohol, but I love that SAS has upscale “Apple Must.” Like fine wine and coffee, not all apple juice is made equal and the Norwegian Ringi Farms takes apple juice to a whole other level.
We had pre-ordered our main courses, which these days is necessary if you want fish (since the three onboard options tend to be beef, chicken, and pasta). The salmon with lentils hit the spot.
I rounded out the meal wth fruit and cheese, leaving about six hours until landing to sleep.
I skipped breakfast and slept until we began our descent into Copenhagen, enjoying a cappuccino before landing.
Claire Marie had some trouble waking up…
The crew was very nice on this flight, and as we were gathering our things after landing, one of the pilots invited the kids into the flight deck, an unexpected and kind Christmas treat.
CONCLUSION
I’ve delayed even my first impressions of this by a week for my own safety…there are some nasty people out there (and I’ll just leave it at that). I’ll share brief impressions about the flights over the next few days, then full flight reviews at a later point. My SAS reviews are becoming about as common as my United Polaris reviews were in years past, but I quite like flying Scandianvian Airlines!
