You're going to thank me after reading this.

So, I was reading a TR by some poor guy who had to endure Jetstar from Singapore to Auckland. That's over 9 hours of flying on an LCC. Wouldn't be caught dead doing that, though I'd probably die in the process anyway.

That's what I thought anyway. His TR actually makes Jetstar sound like a pretty good way to fly. And his ticket worked out to be S$ 600, or AED 1,800, or USD 500. Round trip, including purchased food and amenity kits etc. Not bad for such a long flight.

So, naturally, the first thing I had to do was figure out how much EK wanted for this routing. You can fly via either BNE or MEL, which does give some flexibility. EK's cheapest fare is just above S$ 900, or AED 2,700 or USD 750. Probably worth the difference.

Here's where it gets interesting. If you purchase a flex fare, and that costs about S$ 1100, or AED 3300, or USD 900, you get a lot of miles. Like seriously, a LOT. 22,000 to be precise. And that's tier miles. There's another good 4-5k of miles accelerator bonuses to be had.

And if you do this in J for about S$ 4,000, you get 38,500 tier miles. But given that the MEL flights are apparently easy to get op-ups on, why spend all that extra money, right?

I think I know where I'm going for my next holiday.