Best J class one world partner to Singapore?
 

Hi Guys,
I'm looking to spend my 130,000 Amex MR points on a trip to Singapore with the wife for our first experience in Business class. After reading about club world in multiple trip reports and and experiencing Club Europe I simply don't want to take the risk of having a sub par J experience. It seems these days Far East carriers are the best to use when heading eastwards from LHR.


Based on your collective wisdom and knowledge, which one world partner would you recommend?

Before I get shot down for not using search function, from my research I can see QATAR seems to be the most popular choice.

QR, CX, JL, MH and finally BA.

Agree with Swanhunter's ranking, and I know you said OW, but if you have the Amex MR points, why not SQ?

SQ has good availability on this route (much easier to get than BA), plus will be direct and hence less points needed than using one of the indirect options. Maybe even try for Suites for the similar amount of points as QR J?

I love QR and have taken it many times on this route, but it's usually so cheap in J that it isn't worth using miles (given the amount needed for two legs).

Err, you can transfer Amex Rewards to SQ - go with them?

silvergirl beat me to it!

SQ now go and book it. Thank us later.

Best J class one world partner to Singapore?
 

I'm a relative newcomer to MR points. Are there ways to maximise earning? My wife and I have a BA Amex each and combined with earning Avios from flying, 1.5 Avios per £ on the card and the 241, we can get a decent number for LH redemptions.

I got the Gold Amex originally for the bonus to boost my Avios balance. But I'm keen to try another airline (or maybe use points for hotels) and so haven't transferred them. My wife and I both got the welcome bonus but our normal spend isn't going to get us the kind of points needed any time soon. Is that just the way it is (I.e we would really need more activity on the card from normal spend) or am I missing something?

Apologies if this is OT!

Basically, yes. You need to spend to get MR points. Every once in a while, Amex will have a transfer offer to a certain partner when you can receive significantly more points in the destination programme from your MR points. A few years ago, for example, Amex had a 3 for 1 offer to transfer MR points to BA Avios. You need to look out for these, though, as Amex doesn't really do a great job of advertising them.

Best J class one world partner to Singapore?
 

Thanks! I guess we should just see what we value most. Maybe we could switch some of our BA Amex spend to the charge card.

I don't know if this is the case in the UK, but in Germany Amex sometimes offers promos. E.g. a few weeks ago you got 4 extra MR points for every euro spent on Amex travel bookings.

Or another example: an organic supermarket chain had a promo for several weeks last year. They awarded 300 MR Points for every time you spent at least 30 Euros.

But promos like these unfortunatly occur quite rarly. :(

is 130k enough for two people in J LHR-SIN with any airline? even with a bonus that seems insufficient and I'm assuming you want to return to the UK.

Finnair without a doubt if you are booking for a period once the a350 goes on the route

If you are going to go indirect I would go on QR. This is because:

i) you will get two longhaul sectors, with full service and IFE, rather than a longhaul and a shorthaul on CX or MH; and
ii) the route via Japan is 30.6% longer than via Doha.

I'm not sure I really agree with this. From memory, the only QR flight DOH-HKG leaves early in the morning, meaning that you either have to take a LHR-DOH flight that similarly arrives early (which means not great sleep on such a short overnight sector) or you have a night to DOH if you take away service. I'd much rather a proper lingual LHR-HKG, where I can sleep for eight hours and still have a meal, followed by a decent enough regional J offering for the shortish hop to SIN.

But YMMV.

+1

SQ are best direct on this route.

Ignore all the nonsense about breaking up the sectors to fly OW, none of them will be as good as SQ anyways and you're just adding time to the trip.