Round trip on SQ & *A: best use of KF miles?

[cgichard]

While I wait on confirmation of a tour in Georgia in June next year, I've started looking at flights and would welcome advice on how to book and best usage of my (rather few) KF miles.

The itinerary is MEL - IST - TBS dep. MEL 12/6/15. There is Saver award availability for MEL- IST which would use 42,500 of my 48,888 miles. I could book that online. IST - TBS would be on Turkish Airlines: presumably SQ could book this as a partner airline?

Then TBS - MUC - MRS (Marseille) on Lufthansa on 27/6/15. Could SQ book this for me?

Then MRS - LHR on 3/7/15. Is there a *A flight that I could book via SQ? Matrix shows only BA as non-stop.

Then LHR -SIN -MEL dep. LHR on 17/7/15. Has to be the 22.05 departure as I would be travelling from remote Wales and would not be in time for the earlier departures. No Saver awards for this, but I found a fare in GBP for a 'Pay with KrisFflyer Miles' option for that flight, and would have the minimum 5,000 miles left if I had used most of them for the MEL - IST flight. I'm not clear how this option works? And if I book it online from Australia am I still charged in GBP with attendant currency conversion costs, or could I charge it to a UK debit card that I have?

Am tempted to go through a travel agent for all except the award and Pay with KrisFlyer miles flights that I can book online, but haven't used a TA for years, and they might not be keen to pick up just segments of the total journey for me.

 

[RooFlyer]

Just found your post as I'm scrounging (ie AFF searching) for info on Georgia, which is on my hit list for this year.

Can't help you with your specific questions, but FWIW, I'd say get a TA to do the non-Award flights. They really shouldn't care how you do other flights. I've done this with my TA: I like the re-assurance that some-one else is figuring out the connections, fares etc (and lso helping if things go pear-shaped) in places I'm very unfamiliar with.

What are your plans in Georgia?

 

[cgichard]

Thanks for your interest, RooFlyer. Georgia is a wonderful country. This is my second visit. In 2011 I went on John Graham's Monastery tour. He's offering a different itinerary in 2015 www.georgianchant.org/tours/monastery which looks interesting, but before he finalized the dates I'd booked instead on this Georgia ~ a Cultural Walking Tour, having decided I'd like more walking and the company of a mainly UK group, rather than an American one. Still a small group, though. But if that isn't your 'thing' it's still important to go beyond Tbilisi, and these two itineraries may help you decide on your preferences.

Martin Randall also propose a Georgia tour in the autumn of 2015, but no details are available yet. Several companies offer Armenia+Georgia (e.g. Armenia & Georgia - Ancient Lands of Transcaucasia - Steppes Travel) but I liked Georgia far more than Armenia, having gone to Armenia MR before Georgia in 2011, and I think you'd miss a lot if you wanted to see Georgia in just 7 days.

In the end I did go with my (long-neglected) travel agent for the IST-TBS booking and she tipped me off to the trick of booking IST-MUC-MRS [-MUC] on LH online. For MRS to the UK I did book online with BA because my plans for the next sector have changed and I'll overnight in Newcastle on the way to Durham rather than in London.