SQ Tips, Trips and Tales

[jbman]

I have 700 in my account and it failed today. Yesterday the search was working after I saw the news story.

 

[mel-world]

As someone who almost always enjoys the reports and useful information on AFF, I do sometimes feel a bit of a fraud as I can no longer afford to fly frequently. Being on a fixed, and sadly ever reducing budget, we are restricted to one or two substantial holidays a year so able to plan way ahead and use some of the hints I've learnt from AFF over the years.

We try to plan one 6 week trip overseas and a 4 week trip within Australia and eat gruel for the rest of the year as we still want to fly J intentionally and I am still lucky enough to maintain TPPS for just one more year. For this reason, I have always been an apologist for SQ - they have yet to let me down. I'd love to be able to book R/F again but will just have to read your reports and remember past memorable experiences.

I thought I could give anyone looking to get the best value out of booking SQ to Europe our plan for a trip just secured when you do not have as many Krisflyer points as you used to have available. You do have to book some award flights around the day they become available and even some of the more restrictive J fares go quickly.

Our plan is to fly to Frankfurt (end May to early July '27), as we like the day flights as often as possible and the 380 usually has good availability. However, we did not have the points for MEL-FRA return.

If we booked MEL-FRA return next week the price for the 2 of us would have been more than A$38,000. If we booked the same route on the dates we want to fly next year, the tickets would have cost over A$24,000.

Here is what we did:

MEL-SIN - Aeroplan awards - 80k pts purchased for A$3000 + 72k extra during a 90% promotion. Used 152k points + A$300 for 2 x J MEL-SIN - fully refundable if circumstances change.
SIN-FRA-SIN - Cash tickets - SGD10550 = approx A$11650 at today's rate + A$35 WISE exchange fee.
(SQ immediately offered us 11D/F for both legs - thanks very much).
SIN-MEL - 2 x SQ J Saver tickets at our preferred departure time (SQ217) using a mixture of SQ and VA points to get us 144k Krisflyer points + A$111.
(These were secured on the morning they were released at around 0800 SIN time).

Total cost for 2 = about A$15050 - a saving of approx $9k, (or more, if booked closer to departure).

PS, I know we could have done even better maybe going via DPS, MNL or CGK or using a different (ME) airline from Asia to Europe but this itinerary offers the minimum stops and our preferred airline all the way.

 

[MEL_Traveller]

As someone who almost always enjoys the reports and useful information on AFF, I do sometimes feel a bit of a fraud as I can no longer afford to fly frequently. Being on a fixed, and sadly ever reducing budget, we are restricted to one or two substantial holidays a year so able to plan way ahead and use some of the hints I've learnt from AFF over the years.

We try to plan one 6 week trip overseas and a 4 week trip within Australia and eat gruel for the rest of the year as we still want to fly J intentionally and I am still lucky enough to maintain TPPS for just one more year. For this reason, I have always been an apologist for SQ - they have yet to let me down. I'd love to be able to book R/F again but will just have to read your reports and remember past memorable experiences.

I thought I could give anyone looking to get the best value out of booking SQ to Europe our plan for a trip just secured when you do not have as many Krisflyer points as you used to have available. You do have to book some award flights around the day they become available and even some of the more restrictive J fares go quickly.

Our plan is to fly to Frankfurt (end May to early July '27), as we like the day flights as often as possible and the 380 usually has good availability. However, we did not have the points for MEL-FRA return.

If we booked MEL-FRA return next week the price for the 2 of us would have been more than A$38,000. If we booked the same route on the dates we want to fly next year, the tickets would have cost over A$24,000.

Here is what we did:

MEL-SIN - Aeroplan awards - 80k pts purchased for A$3000 + 72k extra during a 90% promotion. Used 152k points + A$300 for 2 x J MEL-SIN - fully refundable if circumstances change.
SIN-FRA-SIN - Cash tickets - SGD10550 = approx A$11650 at today's rate + A$35 WISE exchange fee.
(SQ immediately offered us 11D/F for both legs - thanks very much).
SIN-MEL - 2 x SQ J Saver tickets at our preferred departure time (SQ217) using a mixture of SQ and VA points to get us 144k Krisflyer points + A$111.
(These were secured on the morning they were released at around 0800 SIN time).

Total cost for 2 = about A$15050 - a saving of approx $9k, (or more, if booked closer to departure).

PS, I know we could have done even better maybe going via DPS, MNL or CGK or using a different (ME) airline from Asia to Europe but this itinerary offers the minimum stops and our preferred airline all the way.

Shame you couldn’t get Aeroplan all the way for $10400 for the two of you on SQ. I just brought a friend back from FRA in June next year, SQ all the way, but into ADL. But plenty of seats out of FRA! And you would have kept your 144k KF points.

The fully cancellable award for aeroplan… did you pay 52.5k per person one way, or the higher 68.5k? The higher priced award, allowing free cancellation, is actually higher than paying the cancel fee in cash.

 

[mel-world]

Shame you couldn’t get Aeroplan all the way for $10400 for the two of you on SQ. I just brought a friend back from FRA in June next year, SQ all the way, but into ADL. But plenty of seats out of FRA! And you would have kept your 144k KF points.

The fully cancellable award for aeroplan… did you pay 52.5k per person one way, or the higher 68.5k? The higher priced award, allowing free cancellation, is actually higher than paying the cancel fee in cash.

Thanks for the additional info. I wanted stopovers in SIN in both directions to visit friends so did not even look at the direct option. A direct 24-hour journey is hard at our age.

I'll bear in mind the option to pay cash for a cancellation. Do the points get refunded immediately - or at all?

 

[MEL_Traveller]

Thanks for the additional info. I wanted stopovers in SIN in both directions to visit friends so did not even look at the direct option. A direct 24-hour journey is hard at our age.

I'll bear in mind the option to pay cash for a cancellation. Do the points get refunded immediately - or at all?

So for 5000 points extra you can stopover on an aeroplan award. Basically $100 extra. And you can do that both ways!

If you have purchased the more expensive award - the latitude - the cancellation will be free and you’ll get back all your points. But if you use the award, you’ve paid $320 for the benefit of ‘free cancellation’.

for a standard award, it’s $100 to change route or dates, and $150 to cancel. And al, you miles go back into your account.

The latitude award is rarely worth it, unless you are doing something like a back-up that you are almost certain you won’t be using.

And even with the regular award and $150 cancellation, it might be covered by your insurance anyway for an insured event.