Booking Star Alliance rewards with SQ KF miles

[Ken1]

Hurrah! Now to cross your fingers that you will get an opportunity to use that status.

We will be booking Saver J awards to fly SYD-LHR in a few weeks when flights are released for February next year and by the time we return home the extra 20kg baggage allowance may come in handy. At the moment SQ don't seem to be releasing Saver fares for return flights from Europe to SYD as discussed in another AFF thread recently but hopefully they will show up again in the next few months. (I'm mainly searching for ZRH-SYD, FRA-SYD and LHR-SYD)

I have just booked a Winter photography workshop in the Lofoten Islands a few days after we plan to arrive at LHR and will need to book LHR-EVE flights with SK. The UA website shows these flights available as a Star Alliance booking but SQ doesn't recognise EVE as a valid airport so I will have to call to see if I book them with KrisFlyer miles. I sent a query through the SQ website 9 days ago enquiring about this but haven't received a reply yet.

Whether I can book these SK flights with KrisFlyer miles or have to buy tickets, I am hoping I can use the Star Alliance Gold benefits to get lounge access, Fast Track through security and additional baggage that SK offer their Euro Bonus Gold members and book the SAS Go Smart fare that costs considerable less than the SAS Plus Smart or SAS Plus Pro fares.

 

[Ken1]

I've seen discussions about whether you can transfer another 250k miles to KrisFlyer some time before the end of February to get an additional year of Elite Gold status and it seems that it would work, according to a couple of posts I've seen on Flyer Talk.

https://www.flyertalk.com/forum/singapore-airlines-krisflyer/2037453-unlock-status-credits-without-flying-8.html

A post by hclee01 yesterday discusses this and at the end of his post he says:
If you need a detailed understanding of the program mechanics, this article gives a good detailed overview:
https://mainlymiles.com/2022/02/01/l...-2024-or-2025/

I am considering this as we are booking to travel to Norway and Switzerland for Feb/Mar 2023 and to then later do a Summer trip back to Switzerland and other parts of Europe, in 2023 or 2024, so I will use the miles I transfer on these two trips before the 3 year expiry, so long as we don't have any more major Covid setbacks affecting travel.

 

[Mr H]

We will be booking Saver J awards to fly SYD-LHR in a few weeks when flights are released for February next year and by the time we return home the extra 20kg baggage allowance may come in handy. At the moment SQ don't seem to be releasing Saver fares for return flights from Europe to SYD as discussed in another AFF thread recently but hopefully they will show up again in the next few months. (I'm mainly searching for ZRH-SYD, FRA-SYD and LHR-SYD)

I have just booked a Winter photography workshop in the Lofoten Islands a few days after we plan to arrive at LHR and will need to book LHR-EVE flights with SK. The UA website shows these flights available as a Star Alliance booking but SQ doesn't recognise EVE as a valid airport so I will have to call to see if I book them with KrisFlyer miles. I sent a query through the SQ website 9 days ago enquiring about this but haven't received a reply yet.

Whether I can book these SK flights with KrisFlyer miles or have to buy tickets, I am hoping I can use the Star Alliance Gold benefits to get lounge access, Fast Track through security and additional baggage that SK offer their Euro Bonus Gold members and book the SAS Go Smart fare that costs considerable less than the SAS Plus Smart or SAS Plus Pro fares.

You should be able to book on one itinerary using the Star Alliance redemption chart by calling the KF phone number.

 

[Ken1]

You should be able to book on one itinerary using the Star Alliance redemption chart by calling the KF phone number.

Thanks Mr H. I am planning to book the SK LHR-EVE flight to fly three days after I arrive at LHR. So I expect that I would have to book as a separate booking, and since EVE is not recognised on the SQ site I will have to call to book it. If I call to add that flight to the SYD-LHR ticket I would have already booked wouldn't it have to be booked to depart LHR within 24 hours of arriving there so it is a transfer and not a stopover, to only have to add the 1500 miles to makle it a Star Alliance one way award booking?

 

[Mr H]

If you are going back to Australia could you do it as a return booking which allows stopovers? I think you get a free one in one direction and you can get an extra one in the other direction for $100. So a return to EVE with a stop in London on the way there and a stop in Switzerland on the way back? All flights in J.

 

[Ken1]

If you are going back to Australia could you do it as a return booking which allows stopovers? I think you get a free one in one direction and you can get an extra one in the other direction for $100. So a return to EVE with a stop in London on the way there and a stop in Switzerland on the way back? All flights in J.

We'll be away for around 2 months so I don't think the chances are good of having flights available for SYD-LHR for the mid February date we want still being available when we book the return flights for mid April so I'd prefer to book them as soon as they are released. My Wife is not doing the photo workshop with me. She will stay in London while I'm in Norway and I'll fly back to LHR to meet her before we fly to ZRH a day or two later.

The separate SQ Star Alliance flights are 12,500 KrisFlyer miles for Y and 30,500 for J each way in Europe. Since the seats are the same for Y and J on the SK flights and with Star Alliance Gold I will have lounge access, Fast Track security and an extra bag, I may as well just use 12,500 each way for these flights. The flights go through OSL and there is a good SK lounge there.

 

[Mr H]

We'll be away for around 2 months so I don't think the chances are good of having flights available for SYD-LHR for the mid February date we want still being available when we book the return flights for mid April so I'd prefer to book them as soon as they are released. My Wife is not doing the photo workshop with me. She will stay in London while I'm in Norway and I'll fly back to LHR to meet her before we fly to ZRH a day or two later.

The separate SQ Star Alliance flights are 12,500 KrisFlyer miles for Y and 30,500 for J each way in Europe. Since the seats are the same for Y and J on the SK flights and with Star Alliance Gold I will have lounge access, Fast Track security and an extra bag, I may as well just use 12,500 each way for these flights. The flights go through OSL and there is a good SK lounge there.

Sounds sensible. I would check the price of revenue tix and decide whether you think it’s worth the KF points, especially as you’ll be paying the tax portion yourself.

 

[Ken1]

Sounds sensible. I would check the price of revenue tix and decide whether you think it’s worth the KF points, especially as you’ll be paying the tax portion yourself.

Yes, I'll check the taxes that SQ charge before booking it as it's probably better to keep the miles for long haul flights. The LHR-EVE flights seem to vary a lot in price for revenue tickets. Some dates the prices seem quite reasonable and others they can be nearly £100 more.

Looking at early January on the SK website I've seen prices of £129 and £209 on different days for the same flights for SAS Go Smart (Y) fares that include one 23kg bag, so the prices vary depending on the day. The Plus Smart and Plus Pro fares that include Lounge, Fast Track etc and seating up front are £206 and £227 on the same day as the Go Smart Y fare is £129.

I'll call SQ before I need to book to ask the taxes they will charge for LHR-EVE but searching for LHR-TOS on the SQ site shows KF 12,500 miles + £39.27 taxes in Y or 30,500 miles + £52.27 in taxes for J. TOS (Tromso) is a bit further north than EVE so the tax amounts may be similar since both go through OSL. I don't see the value in booking J award flights at 30,500 miles each way, since most of the extras I will now get with Star Alliance Gold anyway.

It certainly would not be worth paying $US100 to make LHR a stopover on the way to EVE with our SYD-LHR tickets on top of the SQ taxes.

 

[Ken1]

I'll call SQ before I need to book to ask the taxes they will charge for LHR-EVE but searching for LHR-TOS on the SQ site shows KF 12,500 miles + £39.27 taxes in Y or 30,500 miles + £52.27 in taxes for J. TOS (Tromso) is a bit further north than EVE so the tax amounts may be similar since both go through OSL.

I called SQ at 6.10am this morning and a message said that the wait time would be at least an hour but it was answered in 20 minutes.

I asked about booking LHR-EVE with SAS with KrisFlyer miles as a Star Alliance redemption since the SQ website doesn't recognise EVE and says "No result" when trying a search. I gave her a random date to search and she could see flights with SAS on her system. I asked her if she could check the miles and taxes required and she couldn't get the system to allow her to attempt a booking to give her these details. She suggested that I download a "Reservation Request Form" from the website and submit that.

Maybe I won't be able to use KF miles to book this but I'll try to call again when dates I require are available and then submit the "Reservation Request Form" if they still can't attempt to book it so I know if it's possible. If I can book a redemption I can then compare the cost of taxes and miles used against purchasing a revenue fare.