What is a feeder flight? How to connect to an award trip
A feeder flight is the short hop from your local airport to the hub airport where the long-haul flight begins. See how it works, and what it can cost.
A feeder flight is a short flight that carries you from your local airport to the hub airport where the long-haul award trip begins — for example from Trondheim to Oslo, before you continue on the overnight flight to New York.
Why do you need a feeder?
The best award seats are almost always on intercontinental routes out of the major hub airports — Oslo, Copenhagen, Stockholm, Paris, Amsterdam. If you live somewhere else, you first have to get yourself to the hub.
A feeder is not a destination in its own right. It is the connecting piece that lets your award trip start where you live, rather than only where the flight with the good seats happens to depart from.
How is a feeder priced?
This is where a feeder differs from the rest of the trip: it is not a zone-priced award ticket like the long-haul flight. SAS adds it as a fixed supplement, regardless of distance.
What is the difference between a feeder and an ordinary connection?
An ordinary connection is part of the same routing — the airline routes you through a hub as a natural step on the way to the long-haul flight, at no extra charge. A feeder, by contrast, is a separate segment from a city other than the hub, which you choose to add in order to reach the point where the trip really begins.
- Connection: OSL → JFK connecting in Copenhagen — one routing, priced as a single journey.
- Feeder: TRD → OSL, then OSL → JFK — two distinct segments, where the first is the supplement that links you to the long-haul flight.
When is a feeder worth it?
- You live away from the hub airports, and the alternative is buying a separate cash ticket to get there — a feeder keeps everything on one booking.
- The award seats exist from the hub, not from your home city. Intercontinental award seats are scarce enough without also having to be available from a smaller airport.
- You want status points or through-checked baggage for the whole trip, not just the long-haul leg — a single booking gives you that.
How do you find the feeder combination?
Searching manually for a long-haul flight with award seats and then working out which feeder flights fit is laborious. The trip finder puts the long-haul flight and the feeder together for you within your points budget, and the search shows the actual total price — including the feeder fee — before you call SAS.
Frequently asked questions
Is a feeder flight a separate award ticket?
No. The feeder is not priced from the EuroBonus zone chart the way the long-haul flight is — SAS adds it as a fixed supplement per passenger, regardless of distance.
Can I use another airline as the feeder?
Usually not on the same booking as a SAS award ticket. To combine airlines you normally have to book the feeder as a separate ticket and leave yourself a generous margin between the flights.
Do I always have to call SAS to add a feeder?
In most cases, yes — feeder combinations with an intercontinental award ticket can rarely be completed entirely on sas.no. Check first whether the trip finder shows the route as bookable online before you call.