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Singapore, along with a couple other airlines, are are offering cheap roundtrip Business Class flights between New York City and Frankfurt. Roundtrips on Singapore are pricing at $1,999. Other non-stop options on United and Lufthansa are pricing just a tad lower (around $1,972). Travel dates are available from next month through June of 2018.
That’s a great price to try out Singapore’s Business Class product if you never have. Singapore flies an Airbus A380 on the New York to Frankfurt route.
Contents
- When are the cheap fares?
- Mileage Earning
- Baggage Allowance
- Best Way to Buy the Ticket
$2k Roundtrips in Business from New York to Frankfurt
The easiest way to see the cheap fares is on ITA Matrix. For the purposes of this post, I’m just going to discuss the fares on Singapore. The cheap fares on Singapore can be found October through June, with departures in both directions Monday through Thursday.
Once you find the fare, book on the airline’s website as you cannot book in ITA Matrix.
I brought up the following calendar of prices between New York City and Frankfurt on ITA Matrix by ticking the calendar of lowest fares box, inputting acceptable trip lengths, changing the cabin drop-down to Business Class, and the Stops drop-down to Nonstop only.
The only other thing you’ll need to do to isolate the cheap Singapore Business Fares is specify the airline on the right side of the results page.
Mileage Earning
Remember you don’t have to credit miles earned to the airline’s program that you’re flying. Here’s how the process of crediting to a partner works.
If you book a Singapore flight, you’re probably better off crediting miles to Singapore unless you highly value United miles, as you’ll earn 125% of the miles flown crediting to Singapore and only 100% of the miles flown crediting to United (booking class D).
Baggage Allowance
If you book a Singapore flight, you get a free personal item, free carry on, and two free checked bags up to 70 pounds each included in the ticket price.
Buying the Ticket
If you have enough Membership Rewards and an American Express Business Platinum Card, you could buy this ticket by Paying with Points (through the Amex Travel Portal), which gives you a 50% points rebate on all Business and First Class fares if you applied by May 31, 2017. If you applied after May 31, you get a 35% points rebate.
Those that have had the card longer will effectively be getting 2 cents of value per point on all Business/First fares after that rebate. A $2k roundtrip Business Class fare between New York and Frankfurt would be 100k Membership Rewards–granted, you’d need a steep 200k Membership Rewards upfront before the rebate. Those that got the Amex Business Platinum after May 31 would effectively pay 130k Membership Rewards roundtrip (and need the same 200k Membership rewards to pay upfront). Not the best deal but not the worst either if you’re having a hard time finding premium cabin award space.
Not to mention the Membership Rewards is all you’d ultimately pay. With traditional miles, you’d pay taxes on the award as well. You’d even earn redeemable miles as well as elite credits on the trip, which you wouldn’t if you were redeeming miles on the ticket as an award.
If you don’t have an American Express Business Platinum/enough Membership Rewards to Pay with Points upfront, buy it with an Amex Platinum card for 5x earnings. Don’t have one those either? Check out the Best Credit Card to Buy Airfare. More concerned with travel insurance? Check out Travel Protection Benefits of Chase, Citi, & Amex Cards: Comparison Chart.
If interested act quickly, these kind of fares go fast.
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Hat Tip One Mile at a Time
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Great deal, too bad I’ve booked all my vacation time between now and next summer. One tip: if you open Advanced Routing Codes and input “SQ” (or UA or LH if that’s what you want) in that box for both directions, it will only show Singapore flights. I find this way easier for isolating the flights you want.
indeed, that’s another way of doing it!