Buenos días everyone, reporting in from Day Two of my quest to become a SAS EuroBonus Millionaire! Today is the most intense travel day of the entire journey, with four flights on three different airlines (and three separate tickets). Fortunately, everything has gone off pretty much without a hitch.

Although I’d set my alarm for 5am, I woke up at 4:20am and didn’t feel like sleeping any more, so I took another shower and ate the rest of my snacks from Marks and Spencer before rolling out of the hotel around 5:10am. I quickly swung by the ticket counter to pick up a paper boarding pass and confirmed that my SAS number was on the reservation, then headed to security.  Security was quick, and I was at a newer machine where I only had to take out my bag of 100ml liquids (my electronics stayed in the bag). I picked up a bottle of water at WH Smith and then headed to my gate to board.

Flight Three: KLM 1000 LHR–AMS (Boeing 737-800)

I didn’t pay for seat selection on this flight, but I was able to grab a window seat at checkin and ended up with an empty middle. This 24-year-old plane definitely shows its age, with small old-school overhead bins, and no wifi or onboard entertainment. Shortly after I sat down, the person getting into the seat behind me pulled on my seat so hard that it felt like I couldn’t stop the seat from reclining afterward. As I messed with the armrest button to see if I could get it to latch back into place, I moved the armrest up and the cover fell off completely! Thankfully, I was able to get the seat to work normally again.

We pushed back ten minutes early, and despite a 55 minute flight time, the crew was able to offer a limited beverage service (coffee, tea, and water) and handed out oatmeal chocolate chip cookies to everyone.

We landed in Amsterdam 25 minutes early, which was a relief since the originally scheduled layover of 55 minutes was the tightest connection of my entire trip. This gave me plenty of time to deplane, zip through immigration (it was very fast going from international to Schengen, but looked much slower for folks going the opposite direction), and then waste a bunch of time walking back and forth between the C and D gates because my gate changed. I tried to use my Priority Pass to visit the Aspire Lounge, but after seeing a 15-person line that wasn’t moving at all, I decided to skip it.

Flight Four: KLM 1503 AMS–MAD (Boeing 737-800)

As with the previous flight, I was able to choose a window seat at checkin, though I wasn’t lucky enough to get an empty middle this time as the flight was almost completely full. Fortunately, this plane was newer and had high-capacity overhead bins (though almost nobody seemed to understand that they were supposed to turn their bags sideways, despite a flight attendant announcing it repeatedly).  We took off about twelve minutes late. This flight had two full beverage services, and they also served complimentary egg salad sandwiches and a small brownie for dessert. While this aircraft had wifi, I spent most of the flight playing the new Mario & Luigi: Brothership. We landed in Madrid twelve minutes late.

Madrid Layover

After getting a bit lost due to bad signage, I made my way to the Puerta de Alcala Lounge, an airport-run lounge that accepts Priority Pass. The space is large, bright, airy, and had plenty of seating (including couches, tables, and a dark quiet room with lounge chairs for resting). The food options were surprisingly extensive, with half a dozen each of hot and cold small dishes, a case of 8-10 different types of small plastic-wrapped sandwiches, and a wide selection of self-service drinks. The lounge also has two showers, though I didn’t use them.

After eating lunch, I spent some time working on my Day One blog post, then headed to the gate. I left a bit later than I should have because both TripIt and Flighty told me the flight was leaving about 20 minutes late, but when I got to the gate, the flight was completely boarded and they said it was set for an on time departure! Thankfully I still made the flight and we did end up leaving ten minutes late.

Flight Five: Air Europa 7703 MAD–BCN (Boeing 787-9)

This was my first experience on Air Europa, and I wasn’t quite sure what to expect. At checkin, I was automatically assigned a middle seat.  It seems that their engine assigns middle seats first, because there were a lot of full middles with empty seats next to them and they wanted me to pay €10 – €13 to change seats. Since the seat map looked pretty empty, I decided to roll the dice, which worked out fine since the flight was less than half full and most people had a row to themselves. I was surprised at how dirty the plane was.  There were scuff marks on the seat in front of me, one of the overhead bins was absolutely filthy, and there was used chewing gum stuck inside my mangled safety card.

There was also no toilet paper in the mid-cabin lavatory shortly after take off, though I found one roll behind the mirror.  Although this was the only flight of the day with seatback entertainment, it just cycled through info screens and advertisements for the entire flight – we couldn’t actually use it. The plane also advertised gate-to-gate wifi, but I didn’t try it. 

There was no service to speak of.  Nothing’s included, so the flight attendants just did a quick pass to ask if anyone wanted to buy anything. I dozed off a bit and before I knew it, we were getting ready to land in Barcelona. Overall, it was not a great onboard experience, but for $45, I wasn’t expecting much.

Barcelona Layover

Barcelona was my home airport for a bit over a year, so I’m quite familiar with it. After a lengthy walk through the terminal (as a domestic widebody we were stuck way at the end of one of the Schengen piers), I made my way to the Pau Casals lounge.  Barcelona has exclusively airport-operated lounges (one each in the domestic, Schengen, and international sections) and although they are run by the same company as the lounge I went to in Madrid, it wasn’t as good of an experience. While the drink selection was similarly extensive, the food options were much more limited and more like I’d expect in a Priority Pass lounge in the US (hot dogs, finger sandwiches, a few odd salad bar options, sliced cheeses and meats, and dry snack mixes). A couple of the items I picked were inedibly bad, and there was nothing I’d call good or interesting. I was also pretty shocked at how many dirty dishes were piled up around the lounge.  I was there for a couple hours and didn’t see anyone picking up dishes until shortly before I left.  There was a desk near me completely covered in dirty dishes and empty bottles, and various seats that had been empty the entire time with dishes and bottles stacked up on the table next to them.

Flight Six: SAS 1586 BCN–CPH (Airbus A320)

My first-ever flight on our benefactor, SAS! When I got to the gate, they hadn’t started boarding yet, but it seemed like the entire plane was in line (this is fairly typical in Barcelona). It didn’t seem like boarding zones were being used at all, so I just joined the end of the line.

I paid €56.84 for a Go Light fare, plus an extra €14 to be able to bring a carry on bag. This fare doesn’t include advance seat selection, but to my surprise, I was able to pick an exit row seat at checkin for no charge.  This was another unremarkable flight, though I was caught off guard by SAS’ approach to inflight service.  While they offer complimentary tea and coffee, you have to pay for all other beverages including water. I’m not really a caffeine-at-8pm kind of person, so I just toughed it out.

The plane was equipped with inflight wifi from Viasat.  On the side of the plane it said something like ‘stream like you’re at home’ and the service was advertised as available from gate to gate. Wifi is free for EuroBonus gold and platinum members, and has variable pricing for everyone else.  For the three hour flight, SAS wanted $5.90, which isn’t a bad deal but I didn’t really need it.  We landed on time and after a bit of a long walk, I made it to the Clarion Hotel.  I’ll do a separate post reviewing my all-too-brief time there. Along the way, I noticed some very large Star Alliance advertisements – which seemed rather pointed in a terminal with exclusively SAS flights. I also stopped at a kiosk to print out my boarding pass for Wednesday morning’s flights.

Bottom Line

Not gonna lie, I’m pretty exhausted, and I’m kind of regretting not scheduling at least a little time to explore Copenhagen. But this was the most complicated/risky day of my itinerary and everything went exactly according to plan, so I’m pretty darn pleased. While Day 3 is another early morning, I get to look forward to only two flights instead of four, followed by several days to put the ‘rest’ in Bucharest.