Jeff Rowland

Hoping you can offer some direction to help me clear up some confusion on how to secure award tickets for a vacation to Europe next year.
I am hoping to secure business award tickets and have identified the following route/airlines that could get me to/from my destination.

Departure: JFK -> Frankfurt on Singapore airlines
Frankfurt -> Istanbul on Lufthansa
Return: Athens Greece -> Frankfurt on Lufthansa
Frankfurt -> JFK on Singapore airlines

I will assume availability of award flights for each of the 4 flights.

Questions:
Both airlines are members of the Star Alliance. My confusion is how to determine which airline I make my flight reservations with? Can I reserve both Lufthansa & Singapore flights thru Lufthansa or vise versa all the flights thru Singapore airlines?


Having miles/points with both Chase and SPG for transferring, any suggestions on what considerations I should take into account when determining which airline to make my reservations with?

Danny1K

Singapore offers more availability through KrisFlyer than do A* partners, so you might be better off going that route. Keep in mind the reward chart for award partners: https://www.singaporeair.com/pdf/pps...Trip_Aug14.pdf

Unterwegs

You always make reservations with the airline you have your miles/points on. If you use United miles you need to make reservations with United (most likely you need to call since they don't show all seats online.
I recommend some reading on the forum of 'your' airline, there is a lot of information about how to find seats, what is blocked etc.

claurianta2

That's not an assumption you want to make. Check availability before you transfer.

Mwenenzi

And the cost in miles/points and cash surcharges can be very different between freq flyer programs. Time for some detailed research