Does anyone else find this deceitful?. It may not be just SQ who does this but this is the only airline where I have noticed such a huge increase in taxes and surcharges when you book the same flight using points.
Yes.
And yes I think that there doing it to deliberately to milk extra $ from their points program.
However on the upside they have 25-50% discount on some flights (unfortunately I can't take advantage of this.....or at least with their HUGE fuel fines I will not be.....) and 15% off on all on-line redemptions.
However the fuel fines make redeeming for economy poor value given what one can buy flights for.
However with the discounts Business and First Redemptions can still be good value for some destinations in J or F if you can get a Saver Award.
Getting the Saver Award is really the key on SQ...but unfortunately this is not available to all destinations...and even on the destinations that have it the new aircraft mean that not all flights are available.
At Xmas I have redeemed for 4 J seats to Vietnam ...
Fuel fines and taxes were a VERY hefty $1900 for 4.
But points used were only 306K for MEL-SIN -Ho Chi Min..and then returning from Hanoi.
Paying for this would have been $21K inc fuel fines and taxes.
So 306K for $19k..or over 6 cent per point.
Points from Amex transfer to SQ at 1.1.
To get to Vitenam in J on other airlines I can transfer points to, if I could have got 4 J seats, would have cost a lot more in terms of MR points (considering both transfer rates and redemption rates) and so paying the hefty fuel fine was still better.
So for at least this trip despite the fuel fines SQ was my best option.
however if it was not for the fuel fines I would probaly be booking some short-stay redemptions which currently the combined fuel fines and taxes deter me from doing.