Originally Posted by james84
With that said, is there any other *A carrier worth considering if I were to be in the US for like 4-8 years?
Also, I've considered your point about the 25% mileage bonus if I were to stay with SQ. However, as I would be studying in Baltimore, I was thinking of redeeming *A awards instead of SQ awards. Considering that fact, the discrepency between the number of miles needed for a *A award greatly outweigh the 25% bonus. But is it true that it's really tough getting a *A award with SQ using UA miles?
LH might be a good choice. I'm sure they can get you IAD-FRA-SIN. Going east, this is decent time-wise. On the return, the fastest route is probably the SQ SIN-EWR nonstop. If you're willing to go non-*A, VS is another SQ partner. I don't know anything about their program though.
See this thread on the UA board for award availability:
http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/showt...ward+singapore
This is one of many, but the only one I could readily find. The consensus is that F and C availability is very hard, Y is easier, but you'll still get better results being in KF than M+ or another *A carrier.
But yeah, from BWI, it's tough to do it SQ only. You'd have to trek up to EWR (not too bad on Amtrak) for the nonstop or JFK for the JFK-FRA-SIN on SQ. I've heard that there are decent fares available for the RTW JFK-FRA-SIN-EWR, but that may only be in C.