I've just discovered something today as I was going through all the FF schemes I'm enrolled in (too many!) and checking that all the FF miles have been awarded. Also have lots of (US) Amex reward points which can be moved to a variety of airlines eg. CO, Virgin.

In October last year my spouse started a new expat posting in Singapore and I'm currently splitting my time between our house in New Jersey (15 mins from EWR) and Singapore. This is probably a 3 year posting although last time we lived there it was for 5 years, spouse just missed out on getting Solitaire status!

I've tried a few combinations to fly between EWR/JFK & SIN going over the Pacific & transatlantic, have to honestly say that I much prefer Asian and European airlines to the US ones. Sadly I can't afford SIA's all-business class non-stop flight so it isn't even an option.

I've flown EWR-LHR-SIN on a Virgin ticket and VS/SIA planes (although was stuck outbound in LHR overnight as the VS flight departed 21/2 hours late). Loved the A380.

I've twice flown JFK-FRA-SIN on their old 747s, but one trip was on spouse's FF Krisflyer miles....(he was peeved, was originally going to be 90k miles but return flight was waitlisted. When it cleared he did it online and suddenly it was 180K!!!)

Anyway, since I'll be flying a lot between New York & SIN I've rejoined Virgin's Flying Club and then discovered that my spouse enrolled me in Krisflyer when he booked my last trip out to see him (He is now PPS Gold).

I checked my FF miles today and these were the miles for cattle class:

Virgin Atlantic: EWR-LHR-SIN round trip - 15,980 miles

SIA Krisflyer: JFK-FRA-SIN round trip - 19,066 miles

It seems odd to me that the miles are so different with pretty much the same start and end points of the journey...ok JFK-EWR is about 50 miles by road, but surely it's not so far between LHR-FRA...? I'm a bit of an airhead, brunette not a blonde - so could it be that the curvature of the Earth might be a reason?

The online statement from SIA states that I only need to fly another 5934 miles on SQ to get 'silver' status, no idea with Virgin and in any case have used Tiger Airways and BA/QF on shorter trips from SIN.

OTOH - is it easier to redeem FF miles for free flights and/or upgrades on Virgin which isn't a Star Alliance member than on SIA? (We're British and our daughter lives in London as do all of our relatives, on next trip which need to book ASAP plan to stopover in London for a few days to see Brit family members just before Xmas. Won't risk BA due to poss strike action and it's nice for most of the journey to be on SIA metal.) Don't know which FF scheme to use! (travel office at spouse's co. will book this flight as he's coming out to the US for Xmas and I'll fly back with him from SIN)