My Experience With Booking Singapore Airlines Awards

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Singapore Airlines is probably one of the best airlines in the world.

I’ve had the privilege to fly Singapore Airlines almost 2-4 times a year since I was born. I was even one of the first “children” to fly the nonstop LAX-SIN flight which was then dubbed as the A345 Leadership. Although I always flew in Economy, in the next few days, I’ll be flying Singapore’s Suites product from Singapore-Los Angeles. I’ve dreamed of this day since I first knew what the First Class product looked like. I plan on writing about every detail on an upcoming trip report after I fly but for now, I want to talk about how I booked it.

A few days ago, I wrote about Singapore Airlines KrisFlyer program. I was able to show you guys some cool ways to redeem points with them and how easy it is to transfer American Express points to KrisFlyer.

Recently, Singapore Airlines started to release First Class A380 space. The Singapore A380 is easily on of the most luxurious First Class products in the sky. The A380s feature a fully enclosed sliding door suite. Singapore has worked hard to protect the product, and before it began releasing saver space, a flight on the A380 could cost up to 1 million points!

I wanted to take full advantage of this suite so naturally, I booked from Singapore-Los Angeles. I did this for a few reasons:

• First Class Check In Experience
• Access to Singapore Airlines First Class Lounge
• Access to “The Private Room”
• Some people say the food from SIN-LAX is better than LAX-SIN
• Availability is really wide open

Now, although availability is open, only one First Class Suite is released per flight. This makes it extremely difficult to get two passengers onboard but if you’re traveling between London-Singapore and Australia-Singapore, Lucky reports that Singapore is opening multiple Suites on the same flight. 

In my decision, I also took into account that I had a free Singapore roundtrip ticket that needed to be used before March 31st. I pondered on this for a while and decided I would split my free roundtrip ticket into two flights and combine it with two awards:

LAX-SIN (Free Singapore Ticket in Economy)

SIN-LAX (KrisFlyer Points)

LAX-Europe-SIN (One Way Business United for 60K)

SIN-LAX (Free Singapore Ticket in Economy)

From Singapore-Los Angeles, it costs 107,500 miles one way in First Class. Singapore Airlines has a 15% discount on awards booked online so Singapore-Los Angeles in first class can be booked online for 91,375 miles!

While booking, I found dates with availability and started my American Express points transfer. It can take 24-48 hours to transfer American Express Membership Rewards points to Singapore. However, if you transfer the points before 10AM pacific time, it usually posts by 12 midnight pacific.

At 12:01, I logged in and saw my points had posted. I also saw that space on my flight was still available. The one issue with SIA is that they charge fuel surcharges on their flight (except for origination out of Brazil) and this can sometimes devalue an award. The taxes and surcharges on my flight were coming out to $475 SGD or $~383 USD. I consider this price worth the Suites product, so I booked it.

The confirmation email was sent to me instantly and was followed by the E-ticket.  My ticket was now booked and I’m awaiting my trip on Singapore Suites!

Has anyone else had a different experience booking SQ tickets?