Trip Introduction
Summer trips are a pain to plan, especially when you only book your tickets a month before you leave. Everything is so expensive! Somehow, I found myself a decent deal with an open-jaw to Sydney, leaving from Singapore, which would be at least 40% cheaper than purchasing a traditional round-trip ticket to Sydney/Melbourne at the time.
Even after telling myself to avoid flying with United after my last debacle with United resulting in a seven-hour layover at Washington Dulles, I decided to give them another chance after finding a cheap summer open-jaw flight to Sydney, leaving from Singapore. My other option at the time was a more expensive Air Canada/Singapore Airlines open-jaw ticket with a less exhausting routing. I was more than willing to pay more for it, but remembered Air Canada and their ridiculous transpacific tango fares, where one earns only 50 percent of the miles one travels. United also runs really old planes to Vancouver and to Australia, without any personal in-flight entertainment (AVOD), another reason I wanted to avoid it. But I really needed those miles to ensure I reach Star Gold, and I also happened to have a few United vouchers to use before the end of the year, so United it was.
When I purchased the fare on United’s website, I decided not to select any seats (for a reason). As a Star Silver not part of United’s frequent flyer program, United is not obligated to give complimentary Economy Plus upgrades. My tactic then is to not select seating in hopes for an upgrade, and sure enough, a few days later, I see that all my seats were in the Economy Plus cabin! This makes my selection of United a little easier to swallow.
I then needed to find a way to get from Australia to Singapore. I was hoping to explore other areas of Southeast Asia since I’ve been to Singapore already, but I decided to spend more time in Australasia since I don’t know when is the next time I will be back there. Australia is just really far from Vancouver. I considered a few options, but found Jetstar to be cheapest at ~$260.00. But then I found award availability onboard Qantas’ A380 on British Airways Executive Club from Melbourne. And not only in Economy, but in Business (at a cost of 40 000 miles versus 25 000)! It’s perhaps not the best use of miles, especially given the YQ of $228.15, but I really wanted to try a premium A380 product. Almost all of my miles earned were through credit card sign-up and program-to-program transfer bonuses, so why not...
Trip Contents