Fly for free with sata between the 9 islands of the Azorean archipelago

In a pre­vi­ous blog post about the dif­fer­ent flight options between Hun­gary and the Azores I have men­tioned, that there is a pos­sib­il­ity to request free tick­ets from SATA Azores Air­lines for inter-island travel. After care­fully study­ing the web­site of the air­line and answer­ing count­less ques­tions from you, dear Eden Azores read­ers, I have decided to dig even deep­er in order to bring you more detailed information.

A few import­ant remarks and inform­a­tion about SATA Azores Airlines

Every time I was fly­ing with SATA Azores Air­lines it has been a great exper­i­ence. Like I wrote in my pre­vi­ous blog post: I really felt the urge to per­son­ally thank the cab­in crew at the end of the jour­ney, because their kind­ness and care made all the difference.

SATA Azores Air­lines has a great bimonthly in-flight magazine called „Azorean Spir­it” con­tain­ing lots of qual­ity inform­a­tion, there­fore I highly recom­mend you browse it through when you are trav­el­ing with SATA. Per­son­ally, I try to get the new issue every 2 months. All pre­vi­ous issues of „Azorean Spir­it” are avail­able for down­load in PDF format (in Eng­lish & Por­tuguese) here.

SATA Azores Air­lines has 2 offices on Sao Miguel island, both of which are loc­ated in Pon­ta Del­gada. One of them you find at the João Paulo II (John Paul the 2^nd) air­port, the oth­er one on Aven­ida Infante Dom Hen­rique down­town. These offices provide all trav­el­ers with prompt and qual­ity inform­a­tion. Every time I went to these offices, my ques­tions have been answered in no time.

But let’s focus on those free inter-island flights, and the con­di­tions which need to be filled in order to request one

What does free flight mean? Which inter-island routes are eli­gible for free travel, under which conditions?

Thanks to the SATA Azores Air­lines pro­mo­tion there are two pos­sib­il­it­ies: vis­it 2 islands for the price of 1 tick­et, or book­ing an Azores inter-island round trip

Pro­mo­tion Option 1 – vis­it 2 islands for the price of 1 tick­et – can be booked if the fol­low­ing con­di­tions are met: 

1. The most import­ant con­di­tion is as fol­lows: in order to be eli­gible to book a free inter-island tick­et you need to have a sep­ar­ate tick­et (book­ing) from main­land Por­tugal (e.g. Lis­bon, Porto) to the Azores (Sao Miguel or Ter­ceira), or from the Azores (Sao Miguel or Ter­ceira) to main­land Por­tugal. If your book­ing already con­tains the inter-island flight (e.g. Bud­apest – Lis­bon – Ter­ceira – Sao Miguel), or when the depar­ture air­port in the book­ing is not main­land Por­tugal (in this case it is Bud­apest) the pro­mo­tion can­not be redeemed any­more. In this example, you need to have a Bud­apest – Lis­bon, and a sep­ar­ate Lis­bon – Ter­ceira book­ing in order to be able to book a free Ter­ceira – Sao Miguel flight, or you need to have a Bud­apest – Lis­bon, and a sep­ar­ate Lis­bon – Sao Miguel book­ing in order to be able to book a free Sao Miguel – Ter­ceira flight.
2. Also you need to arrive to or depart from Sao Miguel (Pon­ta Del­gada) or Ter­ceira and your des­tin­a­tion should be main­land Por­tugal (Lis­bon, Porto, etc.).
3. Once you get to one of these islands (e.g. Ter­ceira), it is import­ant that you need to fly to the oth­er island (Sao Miguel) with­in 24 hours. There is of course no time lim­it on your stay at the second island.
4. If it import­ant to book the free flight tick­et well before the trip from main­land Por­tugal to the Azores, but the latest before the depar­ture from main­land Por­tugal. The free flight tick­et can­not be reques­ted after­wards, neither can the price of the last leg of your book­ing (e.g. Ter­ceira to Sao Miguel) be reim­bursed. It is recom­men­ded to check the num­ber of seats still avail­able on the inter-island flight, and book your ori­gin­al trip based on this information.
5. Anoth­er import­ant info: the flight from main­land Por­tugal to the Azores (or from the Azores to con­tin­ent­al Por­tugal) can be oper­ated by any air­line (TAP, RyanAir, SATA), it does not have to be SATA Azores Air­lines (but it is only SATA Azores Air­lines who is oper­at­ing inter-island flights).

Where and how can you book these free flight tickets?

The most simple way is to book online in Eng­lish, by click­ing on the link below.

This link leads to the book­ing page: https://​encamin​hamen​tos​.sata​.pt/​e​n​/​H​ome

Anoth­er way for the pas­sen­ger is to book the free flight in per­son in one of the SATA Azores Air­lines offices men­tioned above. In this case obvi­ously the free flight (Sao Miguel to Ter­ceira) can only be booked to the return trip (Ter­ceira to Lis­bon to Bud­apest, for example), which is in my opin­ion very high risk, since free seats are sub­ject to availability.

What inform­a­tion do you need to provide to book a free inter-island flight?

• Full name of the passenger(s)
• Pass­port number(s)
• The tick­et number(s) from your booking(s) from con­tin­ent­al Por­tugal to the Azores

It is import­ant that you receive the con­firm­a­tion from SATA Azores Air­line about your inter-island flight.

Pro­mo­tion option 2 – Azores inter-island round trip

The second option after you arrived to the Azores – or at home, still plan­ning your trip – is to book an Azores inter-island round trip. In this case SATA Azores Air­lines offers the pos­sib­il­ity to book a round trip vis­it­ing up to 4 dif­fer­ent islands for the price of an inter-island return trip. The easi­est way to book an inter-island round trip is to go to one of the SATA offices. Online book­ings can of course also be made on the SATA Azores Air­lines web­site.

I hope that by shar­ing this inform­a­tion I could help you vis­it even more beau­ti­ful Azores islands.