The occasion for this flight was an exciting trip to Thailand and Singapore, my first time in both countries and only my second time in the South-East Asian region. I arranged the trip together with a fellow friend and co-founder of LittleBonsai, a product development studio that we had been running since graduating from college two years prior. Although business was running well, we had decided that it was time to move on to new things (in my case, looking for opportunities in the aviation business) and planned our two-week trip to celebrate our successes and achievements over the past years. After some extensive brainstorming, we narrowed our list down to three options: riding the Trans-Siberian Railway, driving a car from Boston to Alaska on the Trans-Canada Highway or a trip to Thailand. After exploring flight and accommodation options, we realised that Thailand would fit best into our budget, especially given that we could keep costs fairly low once we had arrived.

Now commenced one of my favourite phases of travelling: figuring out how to get to my destination! My primary task was to work out how I could efficiently get myself on to SQ 21 or 22 using my Lufthansa Miles and More miles for one leg of the trip, in combination with one-way ticket in economy for the other leg. I chose to only redeem a one-way award as I was saving the rest of my miles for a future ticket on Lufthansa First Class, another item on my bucket list. A few calls to the incredibly friendly US Lufthansa Frequent Traveller hotline showed availability on SQ 22 on the 26th and 27th of June, a day later than I was originally intending to return from our trip. However, I decided that this was a blessing in disguise as it would allow me to tack-on a short visit to Singapore at the end of our Thailand trip. I had read a lot about this unique city-state through airline magazines, trip reports and my general interest in geography and travel, so I was now looking forward to stepping out of Changi’s doors for some exploring.

After another call to the hotline and overcoming of the pain of parting with 67.5k hard-earned miles, I was immediately issued an e-ticket from Singapore to Boston via Newark on SQ 22 and UA 994. At the time of booking the majority of seats were still wide open, so I requested 16K towards the front of the cabin and with a good front-view of the wing (seat numbering started at row 11 on SQ’s A345s). Unfortunately, there were no domestic first class seats open on United’s A319 serving UA 994, so I opted for an economy seat rather than waiting an additional two hours at Newark for the next connecting flight. The agent advised me to call back a few days before departure to see whether any seats had opened up. The ticket was issued on Lufthansa stock with separate SQ and LH reservation numbers. All the booking management (including changing seat assignments) was done through the excellent Lufthansa website. I would definitely rate LH’s online services as some of the best in the industry.




With my return flights booked I now worked on finding an well-priced one-way outbound ticket from Boston to Bangkok, fearing greatly that United would be the only Star Alliance carrier with a reasonable fare. Those of you who have read my previous reports know that I tend to avoid United whenever I can, especially for such a long itinerary which would be served by literally dozens of other interesting and top-notch carriers. As luck would have it, Singapore Airlines actually turned out to be the second cheapest option overall, after Aeroflot. Booking directly through their website, I was half considering grabbing a ticket from BOS-LHR-SIN-BKK with the first leg operated by Virgin Atlantic (which I have never flown on before), however, I decided to count my pennies and go for the $200 cheaper option from BOS-JFK-FRA-SIN-BKK. This was still an exciting itinerary as I would get to spend a lot of hours onboard the A380 and enjoy a brief taste of “home” in a familiar lounge during the Frankfurt stopover (I grew up in Vienna, Austria). The first flight was operated by JetBlue, an airline that I came to appreciate during my time in the US. I have not written a report on the outbound journey, however, I could be convinced to do so having taken some good notes and lots of pictures

The full itinerary including all the flights taken during this trip is listed below. Let me know whether you have any questions regarding these other sectors — I would be more than happy to share my experiences!

11.06.2013 / JetBlue B61009 / BOS-JFK / Embraer E190AR
11.06.2013 / Singapore Airlines SQ 25 / JFK-SIN (via FRA) / Airbus A380-841
12.06.2013 / Singapore Airlines SQ 972 / SIN-BKK / Boeing 777-212ER
18.06.2013 / Thai AirAsia FD 3162 / CNX-HKT / Airbus A320-200
22.06.2013 / Tiger Airways TR 2153 / HKT-SIN / Airbus A320-232
26.06.2013 / Singapore Airlines SQ 22 / SIN-EWR / Airbus A340-541
26.06.2013 / United Airlines UA 994 / EWR-BOS / Airbus A319-131