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Old Apr 9, 2012 | 3:01 pm
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eponymous_coward
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Originally Posted by pogreen
hello,

New to the whole miles program at Alaska, but am contemplating buying miles on Alaska Airlines given the 40% bonus offer.

Am based in SIN at the moment so I usually travel *A flights.

What I would like to know are the availability of award flights out of SIN (and the ease of getting them), specifically on Cathay since I'll mainly be traveling around out of South East Asia. Are premium flights (F class) hard to come by?

Thanks!
I am not sure that using AS miles as a primary program for travel on CX based out of SIN is wise, even if the miles are cheap at the present time.

AS's CX award chart for Europe, Africa/Middle East/India and Australia requires origination in HKG. This would mean you would need to use a second AS award, or alternate flights to get to HKG from SIN and v.v..

The award where it would be possible to originate in SIN is AS's North America-Asia award on CX, but that's a limited number of CX's destinations. There is also the problem of having very limited options intra-Asia for redemption of AS miles (basically, CX and KE, with KE having lots of blackout dates, plus perhaps DL going SIN-NRT-USA, but good luck with that- DL is notoriously stingy), as well as being limited to partner inventory only. I think having heavy investment in a program with limited redemption options at your location has some risks.

FWIW, US often sells miles at a price lower than or comparable to what AS is selling right now (in fact, they have a sale on right now), and *A partner premium class options for travel out of SIN are much better than CX/KE/DL (TG is nearly always available, for instance).

If you were to do go ahead and accumulate in AS, it might behoove you to also accumulate BA Avios, as their distance-based chart would help reduce costs for flying to HKG or BKK in premium cabins on award.
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