Hi polarpacific,

since you stated that most if not all of your longhaul travel leads to europe/US and you are based in singapore I would go for CX since HKG is a very viable transit point. This probably also counts for all the travel to China because of the excellent destinations KA offers.

As people have already stated, A3*G is perfect if you only are going for the normal *G benefits like lounge access when traveling economy. Also miles on A3 dont expire, so you can dip a few miles every year and get your award threshold in years after that...
As for Asian carriers, your miles will expire which means that if you dip enough to SQ to reach gold and enough to CX to reach gold, you might not be able to make use of all the miles in the end...

Obviously then it comes to personal preference of travel, you have to ask yourself which airline you like better in terms of seats, service etc.

Another point: Your final destinations in Europe/US... If for example you travel to smaller cities in europe I'd go for *A in your longhaul travel since they offer better connections in europe.

Another point to consider is lounge access: CX SL gives you lounge access on CX and KA while most SQ silver wont (correct me if im wrong about SQ not giving access to silver tier).

So the obvious conclusion for me would be:
- go for CX GO/DM in the long term since it has a lot more to offer than SQ gold and its easier to reach than SQ PPS.
- go for A3 *G since status validity is LONG! (got status jan.2012 and valid until 2015). Your miles will be safe as long as the airline doesnt go bankrupt


PS: I forgot to mention that IMO other benefits like upgrades etc (when flying eco) are probably astronomically better with CX GO/DM than SQ GO. Even when I only was MPO green I received an opup to C.... Im pretty sure SQ GO might not be getting as many, although I shouldnt say anything since im not a SQ FT.

cheers.