NZbutterfly

I don't have any experience in the last 2 weeks but last year I switched the fields once in the NZ lounge to SQ after having a bite. I always felt uncertain whether I'd get in without SQ status. On here it seems other people flying NZ pop over to SQ lounges if they think the NZ lounges are too full even when flying NZ.

I never had any problems whether I had a VA # whilst building status and entering an NZ lounge, still showed that card.

I think VA is useful for shuffling points through to SQ albeit at a bit of a loss but as long as you have activity with VA every 24 months then the points live forever (for now), whereas with SQ it's a hard expiry of 36 months. I think you can pay to extend for 6 months or something. Or worst case scenario shuffle the points back to VA at a loss and accrue some activity there to prevent your SQ points from expiring.

I guess you just need to figure out if your flying pattern is going to get you a decent haul of points to redeem on SQ. Use SQ's calculator for an idea of earn and then look at the redemption chart. You can also search award availability to see if you think it's ok. I did this last year and thought it was ok.

You can buy SPG points during promo's and convert to SQ KF miles and also convert any AMEX points. Good way of keeping them in accounts where they don't expire.

Check out their partners also. I think they partner with Jetblue in the US if your flying leads you there, Kempinski and other hotels etc. Even rental cars have had promo's apparently just to boost your points.

I haven't really looked into the upgrade system. I think I read that people felt it was best to go for the award flights instead. To date I've only redeemed KF miles to bring down the price of an already low Scootbiz fare (not the best use but I was really curious about them). Not actually sure when I'll redeem but sometime before 36 months is up!

re: the APD valuation - I've not seen any but I guess it's because 1APD gets you $1 spend and that isn't variable. The earn is tied to spend and then there are the credit cards. Then there's the RU's and you can get as much or as little value out of those depending on what routes you use them on.

I should have accrued a J flight on NZ to SQ but at the end of the day I thought - I just find the NZ APD's more useful so accrued to NZ. It sounds like you'd travel to Asia more frequently which will give you more opportunities to use your KF miles than myself.