As my tour of Scandinavia continued to the Arctic North, I decided to leave my car at Oslo Airport and fly to Tromsø, rather than take a three day drive each way.
There were several options for this route, including Norwegian and Widerøe. However it turned out that the best deal was on the direct afternoon flight with SAS.
The flight was quite expensive for a domestic one-way at €226 for the most basic hand luggage only ticket.
I, however, chose to upgrade to the SAS Plus fare at €270, including checked luggage and access to the SAS Domestic Lounge at Oslo Airport.
This proved to be a good choice, as the American Express lounge to which I would normally have access was located after customs controls and therefore not accessible to domestic passengers. It also allowed me to check in my small rollaboard rather than fighting for overhead bin space.
The lounge was pretty basic in terms of its food offerings, but offered wine and both draught and canned beer and provided a comfortable place to sit while waiting for boarding, so it suited me fine.
The on board experience was not up to the standards of even intra-European Business Class, in that middle seats were not kept free and refreshments were limited to a snack and drink. However, given the short length of this flight and the small premium that I paid, I was perfectly happy with it.
Overall, this was a nice, easy little flight and “upgrading” was worth it in my very specific case.