First Award Redemptions: Away to Asia - CX J, SQ Suites, WN Y
PROLOGUE
I love trip reports. Well, reading them, at least. This is my first attempt at scrawling into the tablets of FlyerTalk a written testament to our travels. I hope you’ll enjoy following along on the journey.
My wife and I began planning our trip to Southeast Asia in December 2015. We had just returned from South Africa (a potential future report) and were a bit remiss about not having another major destination on the horizon. Through several years of study and mistakes, I’ve caught on to the points and miles game and learned a number of lessons along the way. (Redeeming your American Express Membership Rewards for statement credits is, generally speaking, a horrible idea.) We have accumulated a number of miles through the past few years and I finally felt comfortable stepping out and making my first award booking.
I wanted to experience a true international business class on a long-haul flight, so we booked a one-way ticket from Kansas City to Hong Kong via Chicago on Cathay Pacific. Initially, we wanted to split our time between Hong Kong and Singapore, but in the end we decided to spend a few days in Bangkok in the middle of our trip and add an extra day to the end. We then proceeded to Singapore for a few days before heading back to the U.S. These intra-Asia flights were both on Cathay Pacific in business class on long-haul configured aircraft.
As the icing on the cake, I redeemed for two seats on Singapore Airlines in Suites class, which would take us from Singapore to New York City via Frankfurt. For the final leg of the trip, we then transferred to LaGuardia and took a nonstop Southwest flight to Kansas City. Yes, you’re reading the correctly: from Singapore Suites to a middle seat on Southwest.
Final routing:
I plan on updating this report every few days as I process through the images and eventually listing all the links to travel posts on this original.
A few selected teaser images:
Not our plane; just a gorgeous British Airways 747:
Tian Tian Buddah in Hong Kong:
The raccoon-faced Cathay Pacific A350:
Garden at Wat Pho in Bangkok:
Central Business District of Singapore:
Singapore Airlines A380 at dawn, Frankfurt:
Please let me know any feedback, good or bad, along the way. Thanks for reading!