Are there award seats to Thailand? We tracked 20 SAS routes for 92 days

Bangkok has no award seats even on the very first departures of the season in October. Meanwhile, the routes to North America have award seats nine months ahead. Same airline, same search, a completely different picture.

Over our 92 days, the search showed something to Thailand 21 times. At a later check, no more than eight hours afterwards, all of it was gone. These short sightings are not counted as award seats in this article, because everything was gone again at a later check. That is why the short answer says zero. The longest-lasting was a flight home from Bangkok on 5 November, in Economy and Premium Economy: it was seen on 16 July at 17:22 and was gone at the 01:22 check.

Five of the eight times, nine available seats showed in every cabin at once. Nine is the highest SAS shows. All were gone at the next check, at most eight hours later. How long they were visible in between, we don't know. We only save what changes. No real release in our data looks like that. It looks like a technical fault, and we don't count them. The other 13 Thailand sightings involved only Economy or Premium Economy, and they were gone at a check one to eight hours later.

The same thing happens on other routes. In a separate review of the first 81 days of the measurement, 25 June–14 September 2026, all three cabins suddenly showed nine seats and then vanished at the same time 18 times. 15 of the 18 happened between 23:00 and 08:00. In the night of 16 August it happened on four routes within two hours. That review is closed and is not recomputed every day like the other figures in this article.

The West Coast is an Economy coast. To Los Angeles, Economy is available out on 67 dates and Business on zero. To San Francisco it is 119 against zero.

Further east the picture is mixed. Tokyo has had Business during the period, 53 dates out and 55 home. Right now Business is available on zero dates out and three home. Seoul has had Business out on 27 dates, none of them right now. Home from Seoul there has not been a single award seat in any cabin in 92 days, although the flights operate.

And then Mumbai: 31 dates out, zero home. That row has a story.

Throughout the measurement period there has never been a single Business seat home from Mumbai. So a Business round trip on points cannot be booked today. The cabins may differ between outbound and return, though, so Business out and Premium Economy home can be booked.

Imagine you are planning a trip in May 2027. You look for Business out. On our 20 routes, 127 of 400 departure days have seats. Then you look for the flight home. There is nothing. Not in Business, not in any other cabin, not a single date.

So a Business round trip in May or June 2027 cannot be booked on points today.

The edge has also stopped moving. In July, roughly one new travel date was added per day, like a calendar turning its pages: on 7 July, 1 June 2027 appeared; on 18 July, 12 June; on 8 August, 14 June. Since then, no later date has been added and stayed. We can see that the edge is standing still. Why, we don't know.

And it varies a lot over the winter. Most dates in October: Business home on 36 departure days, counted across all routes. Fewest in March: zero.

Business also comes in small portions. When SAS releases Business, it is 2.6 seats on average, and only one in four times four or more. Economy is released with 5.4 seats at a time on average. Right now, 17 of 297 Business dates have room for four, across all 20 routes. So a family of four has 17 dates to choose from. In Premium Economy, 565 of 754 dates have room for four.

Business doesn't stay as long either. Half of the Business seats that have disappeared lasted at most 2.0 days. For Premium Economy it was 3.2 days and for Economy 4.2. And the seats arrive at any time: one in four Business seats appears less than a month before departure, one in six more than six months before.

That sounds bleak, but the numbers also say something hopeful. Business has been available on more dates than a snapshot suggests. Over 92 days, Business has been available on 2,866 route-and-date combinations. Economy on 4,942. The gap is smaller than most people think. But Business doesn't stay, and that is why a random day looks empty. Anyone who looks often, or lets someone else look, has a better chance than the numbers for a single day suggest.

We keep looking. The figures in this article are read from our database every day, and if SAS releases seats to Thailand, it will be here first. If you want to know right away, you can set an alert on a route and we will tell you when something appears.