Originally Posted by
RAMSWISS
Am maintaining accounts with Turkish, Singapore and Air India n normally redeem to/from Europe and Delhi.
Turkish redemptions are 90k one way in business. Recently used United 12.5k miles on Geneva Istanbul sector in economy and onward Istanbul Delhi sector 50k Turkish miles in business. This also lowered the Taxes substantially.
Air India redemptions are 90K miles one way in business but taxes are nominal. Also have to fly 2 paid sectors (domestic or international) on Air India before an award ticket can be issued. Currently all Award redemptions on Air India are discounted 25%.
Singapore redemptions to Europe in business are 62k one way and taxes vary depending on the star alliance partner. A sweet spot is 78k miles for a Delhi to Bali return redemption ticket in Singapore airlines business.
I check options in all 3 programs. No hard and fast rule which program will offer the best deal. You will need to credit a few miles in any program before checking options.
I still remember the days when one could fly India-US for 47K miles one way in business on TK. Was just 3-4 years ago. I've done that more times than I can remember. They also offered 3-4 seats on the same flight. Now I find it hard to get 2 seats. I don't see much advantage in their program now.
I gave up on AI a very long time ago. I still end up taking over 50 domestic flights with them every year but credit everything I can to UA. I don't see value in their program anymore. The 25% discounted deal ends in September so not much use for me as I'm looking for tickets for next summer.
SQ I use every now & then. Flying DEL-DPS in October for 78K miles. That is a good deal. I'll look into the partner redemption to Europe. 62K looks pretty decent.
I'm not sure about AI but I don't need to transfer any miles to either TK or SQ to check flight options.