Well it's like this ... advance planning pays dividends ... on 23 Dec last year I booked to Business Class tickets courtesy of Velocity FF points from Darwin to Frankfurt via Singapore in September. Silk Air and then 13 hours in Singapore Airlines' delightful Business Class pods. 2 tickets one way for 208,000.
The trip SIN-FRA leg was characterised by exceptional service and while the service provider was Singapore Air it does reflect positively on Virgin to have partners that offer quality service. In fact the only thing that was wrong with the flight was that I will never be satisfied with anything less than Business Class in the future.
And now for a little lesson from the trip, well the booking process actually. At the time of booking I wasn't sure when or where we would be returning from and ultimately we left from Oslo. This is where it gets tricky, a single one way Bus Class home was going to require more than twice the points of two tickets going over i.e more than 4 times the going over points price. Needless to say I didn't have the points for us to come home in style and ended up in cattle class. Note: I am still happy with the program as I fully appreciate why it happened but I just wasn't ready for the difference.
So now that I know my recommendation is: if you even roughly know where and when your going to return, then it is better to buy a return trip even if it means you might have to fund connecting flights to access your points flight - B/Class in a pod is on definitely worth it!
The trip SIN-FRA leg was characterised by exceptional service and while the service provider was Singapore Air it does reflect positively on Virgin to have partners that offer quality service. In fact the only thing that was wrong with the flight was that I will never be satisfied with anything less than Business Class in the future.
And now for a little lesson from the trip, well the booking process actually. At the time of booking I wasn't sure when or where we would be returning from and ultimately we left from Oslo. This is where it gets tricky, a single one way Bus Class home was going to require more than twice the points of two tickets going over i.e more than 4 times the going over points price. Needless to say I didn't have the points for us to come home in style and ended up in cattle class. Note: I am still happy with the program as I fully appreciate why it happened but I just wasn't ready for the difference.
So now that I know my recommendation is: if you even roughly know where and when your going to return, then it is better to buy a return trip even if it means you might have to fund connecting flights to access your points flight - B/Class in a pod is on definitely worth it!
