I've been frustrated at the elusive awards flights in J using the Velocity website. So I transferred all our VA points into Kris Flyer. There I was able to snag 2 biz tickets to FRA for next July 1, but absolutely nothing in return on July 13. School holidays and peak season, I guess. This was done around August, and I've since been waiting for any of ten standby bookings I made with Kris to come good.
Then I consulted the global guru of these matters, Lucky at onemileatatime. I love reading his reviews, and I also love how he ignores the trolls who slag off at him for no real reason. Using some Lucky logic, I called Kris and subjected a very patient agent to a L-O-N-G search for Star Alliance flights out of Europe to anywhere this side of the globe.
We exhausted all Thai Airways flights from everywhere they fly, and then started on Asiana. She twigged I was up to, and tried to wriggle out of the call at about the 30 minute point by suggesting I call back in January. 'No thank you', I said politely. 'There are a dozen Star carriers, we will start with Asiana, then try ANA, Lufthansa, Austrian and maybe SAS....' I could hear the resignation in her voice by now, as her next tea break vaporised.
Lucky logic is to find newly changed or up-gauged routes, and I saw that Asiana had added the A380 to the Frankfurt - Incheon (Korea) route. This means first class is available for the first time and BINGO, we got 2 x one way FIRST tickets for 255,000 Kris miles! (Plus $630 taxes). These are worth about 330,000 Velocity, as the miles transfer at a rate of 0.7 from VA to SQ.
All we have to do now is get home from Korea, but given the battle between Asiana and Korean, fares in J are reasonable at about $2,000 each (one way). So we have a roundtrip using miles and money, that has us in SQ Biz to Fra, and Asiana First to Korea. Happy enough with that!
Then I consulted the global guru of these matters, Lucky at onemileatatime. I love reading his reviews, and I also love how he ignores the trolls who slag off at him for no real reason. Using some Lucky logic, I called Kris and subjected a very patient agent to a L-O-N-G search for Star Alliance flights out of Europe to anywhere this side of the globe.
We exhausted all Thai Airways flights from everywhere they fly, and then started on Asiana. She twigged I was up to, and tried to wriggle out of the call at about the 30 minute point by suggesting I call back in January. 'No thank you', I said politely. 'There are a dozen Star carriers, we will start with Asiana, then try ANA, Lufthansa, Austrian and maybe SAS....' I could hear the resignation in her voice by now, as her next tea break vaporised.
Lucky logic is to find newly changed or up-gauged routes, and I saw that Asiana had added the A380 to the Frankfurt - Incheon (Korea) route. This means first class is available for the first time and BINGO, we got 2 x one way FIRST tickets for 255,000 Kris miles! (Plus $630 taxes). These are worth about 330,000 Velocity, as the miles transfer at a rate of 0.7 from VA to SQ.
All we have to do now is get home from Korea, but given the battle between Asiana and Korean, fares in J are reasonable at about $2,000 each (one way). So we have a roundtrip using miles and money, that has us in SQ Biz to Fra, and Asiana First to Korea. Happy enough with that!
