You're right. And, truthfully, having the one-way option could be more useful to me.

With Singapore and Thailand moving, what does that mean for the Mini-RTW?

Definitely not happy!:td:

(though as others as mentioned, it could have been even worse)

Since most of my rewards are booked ex-Europe, those changes really suck. An increase of 20%-40% to most destinations is quite brutal. (And the 160% increase for intra-Asia J awards requires no further comments.:eek:)

Bangkok to Hong Kong 2 ways on Emirates in J = $800 (if you're lucky, you can get this in F)

Aeroplan will now charge 80,000 points plus maybe $250 in scamcharges.

There is no real comparison there, the Emirates paid flight wins hands down.

Narita -> Shanghai -> Hong Kong you can do for $800 as well, and this would be 80k points and $250 scamcharges again.

I was already in some of these cases buying instead of spending 30k points.

On the shortest routes where you have Air Asia it's not even worth flying it in business class because the cost differential is so big and sometimes AA is just really convenient.

I can't see any way I would redeem for an asia 1 -> asia 1 with the new charge.

As a one way. Or to one of the hundreds of city pairs that are not HKG BKK (which is usually 1k, despite your number). No one's saying this is a good change, but having one ways is nice.

Again, this was very sadly inevitable given the massive increase in supply in the system through credit cards.

Asia 1 to Asia 1 - from 30 K to 80 K !!!!!!!!

That has been one of my regular redemptions. No more.

Earn and Burn indeed
but wow, Intra Asia 1 J 30K->80K is crazy!!

but doesn't affect me as much, as I'm stuck booking Y tickets
Mini-RTW in Y is still 75K, yah!

Asia 1 - Asia 1 was the sweet spot I loved.

from Japan to anywhere in Thailand is very good value for 30000 points in biz. I knew its days where numbered but this is a huge increase.

+1

I think quite a few have been enjoying SIN or BKK to Japan or Korea. I'm surprised it has lasted so long. No surcharges on Singapore Airlines either if you can find the space.

Problem is that genuine short hops like Seoul to Tokyo or Singapore to Bangkok are now priced beyond all logic.

At least I'm down to 208 Aeroplan miles so no real impact here...

Canada to Thailand went from Asia 1 to Asia 2, but points are "only" up 5K, so not a disaster. I guess a Mini RTW touching down in Asia 2 (SIN or BKK for instance), will just be charged at the Asia 2 reward.


OLD Reward:

SWISS First Class is not available for reward travel

NEW Reward:

no mention

By the way:

Great way to book TG J (on revenue tickets) is NRT-BKK-FRA/LHR/etc. with a stop allowed in BKK in both directions, essentially making it two trips in one, at about the same cost or in some cases even less cost than flying from BKK to Europe.

No stopover on one ways.

"Important changes" is basically a euphemism for "major devaluation" since the best sweet spots are now butchered, while "One way awards between any regions" comes with the caveat that they'll be unattractively priced to discourage anyone from ever redeeming them

Thanks. The PDF was not working for me either.

I hate how Europe went up, but Canada to Asia 1,2 stayed the same (so good for me. As well as intra Canada long and short haul J stayed the same) :D

A good thing about one way awards between any region is that (theoretically) you'd be able to search for flight routing options one way instead of making each leg you're searching for a round trip. Not a big deal, but should be a bit quicker.

Canada - Eur1 is the biggest downer for us, since we were aiming towards that for our next trip. Probably change that line of thinking now.