Jade_BR

Hi everyone,

I am a Plat CO flyer based in Washington DC. I credit roughly 80-100k per year. Most of my trips are international, and typically I'll buy a B fare - the highest "non-Y" economy and use miles to upgrade. This was a great deal because my employer will only pay for economy Unfortunately, CO has literally DOUBLED their B fares, so that ride is over for me. Instead of switching to another US carrier program, I was wondering if it would be best to switch to an international carrier, like Singapore, considering that:

1. I don't really care much about the free domestic upgrades since most of my trips are international
2. Singapore seems to have "upgradeable" fares pretty close in price to what I used to pay in B
3. Most of my trips are to Asia

Thoughts? Thanks in advance

weero

Look at the earning-spending ratio of KF for these flights. Further familiarize yourself with the factoid that upgrades and premium redemption on any decent SQ aircraft again costs twice the points (say A380, 77W, A345) ...

Then decide which US program you want to stay with or switch to....

eriond

The Krisflyer FFP leaves much to be desired. Low COS bonus for premium classes, and a limited range of routes with Saver awards. The earn/burn ratio if redeeming on Standard awards is easily one of the worst in the market. From your post, you are expecting to travel in Economy, so you won't be able to qualify for PPS Club.

Krisflyer would be useful if you have to travel a fair bit on MI metal though.

P.S. KF miles expire after 3 years.

dsquared37

You will also need to consider that SQ (and the other Asia based *A carriers) do not have good earn/burn rates.

What is it about B fares you like with CO? Extra EQM's? Upgrades for B cost the same as all lower fare classes, so I'm wondering why these B fares are important to you.

Jade_BR

B fares in CO do not require an upgrade co-pay, only miles. It's a big deal for me because I travel for work, and my employer will pay economy fares only. So I've been often able to buy B and just use my miles to upgrade... now that B fares are literally double what they used to be, no way I can buy them within budget. So I can pay $1,000 out of pocket on every trip (and go broke), or I'll be flying Y to the end of days

PS - extra EQM's was nice too, but I would be ok without them

bagold

A lot depends on what you are looking for. If you want to use miles for upgrade, as others have said you better look at the earn / burn rate.

Also, don't forget if you waitlist for upgrades, even with SQ Gold you won't be top tier. There is PPS, TPPS, LPPS above SQ Gold which can only be earned traveling J and F tickets. So it depends on which routes you are flying. Now with A380 and 77W planes, upgrade, free tickets, etc... require double the miles as 747 or 772 planes.

If you primary objective is to buy full-fare economy tickets and upgrade, you better stick to US airlines. Or you can look at CX even though that is not in Star Alliance, CX is more generous in upgrading their own members with status and I find easier to get award /upgrades tickets than SQ.

QF Lad

SQ is a wonderful airline, and if you are intending to pursue this route you would be best to just pay the cash upgrade to Business class yourself. This would probably cost between $5000 - $7000 per trip, depending on fare availability for the trip you are looking for.



Doing this would mean that:


(1) you would enjoy your SQ business class flights;


(2) once every 10 trips or so you would have sufficient miles to upgrade to J on SQ (assuming you upgrade on the newer aircraft, which require double miles to upgrade); and


(3) you would qualify to be a PPS on SQ, which means you would enjoy various types of preferential treatment when travelling on SQ. However you should not expect upgrades as one of those benefits.


SQ is one of the most profitable airlines in the world, and there is a reason for this....

ande777emt

If you can hit 100k EQM, then UA/CO will be a better bet as you will earn 6 SWU's now. I don't know any other *A that is as generous. As a 1K in the new UACO you would be a lot more likely to get an op-up than a SQ KF Gold, especially if you were flying UA/CO.

There's also more RDM benefits when flying UA/CO over being SQ Gold and flying SQ.

My dad is also a Solitaire PPS, and he has never had an Op-up from C > F.

weero

Profit for the airline = lost for the pax.


... or loss for the crew too as in the case of SQ.

Supersonic Swinger

Unless you are flying in premium cabins, generally US programs > Asian programs.

Bear in mind that SQ has no home competitor airline or program and trades on its reputation. I get the sense that many in Singapore who don't earn PPS are happy bank to SQ and redeem for Y on short haul flights and don't compare relative value to other programs. When I try to book work travel on other alliances or credit flights to another *A program (OZ in my case for easy *Gold), my travel coordinator gives me an incredulous look and asks me to repeat what I've just said, muttering "Not SQ?".

At least CX's Asia Miles has the same 3 year point life as SQ (regardless of how much activity) but many more options to earn and they don't (yet!) have SQ's three tier availability and unavailability of the lowest tier for most long haul business or first.

Unless there's no other option (such as for flights on SilkAir), I'd recommend looking at other *A programs.

aster

If you can go for saver awards (not available for all destinations) then the redemption value is probably the best I've come across, so I'm more than happy to credit miles to KrisFlyer and redeem in J.

I am moving to M&M for other reasons though (lots more credit for flying in C, no need to worry about status each year, etc.) but even recently I flew on an intra-European flight on an integrated M&M carrier and would have earned more miles by crediting the flights to KrisFlyer then M&M...

friendlyplanet

If most of your miles are flown to Asia, I'd guess that you do 4 or less round trips a year? It also sounds like you are near 100K/year, so why aren't you looking at a program like MP, where you will get 6 free SWU's a year- you can use those to upgrade United Economy - Y, B, E, M, U, H, Q, V, W. Sure, you are on UA, but in C- still way preferable to me than SQ in Y.

As others have pointed out, the best way to upgrade on SQ is to pay for it- if you have the $25K/year this strategy would cost. Given that you thought $1K per trip was high, I doubt you want to pay $7K, no matter how nice the service! Otherwise, the cost in miles to upgrade on SQ is high, the odds are low, and there are no "free" upgrades, regardless of status...

Friendly

tanlines

I would urge you to explore the differences very carefully before you make any decisions, because the choices you've listed (CO vs SQ) have very significant differences.

For CO, you're likely used to paying <~$2000 rt for a US-Asia B-fare, correct? To upgrade that to BF round-trip, it takes 60,000 OP miles (+$0 co-pay).

On SQ, however, you likely won't find many B-fares in the Eastern US-Asia market in the sub-$2000 range, AND even if you can, you'll need at LEAST 100,000 miles per rt to upgrade east coast-US to SIN (or 110K for China, 120,000 for Japan and S. Korea, etc.).

And, if you're wanting to upgrade to business class on the newer 77W or A388 aircraft, you'll need at least double those miles for a rt upgrade, since "saver" awards aren't available on those aircraft.

For example, a "full" upgrade on SQ from Econ B to Business, could set you back a hefty 770,000 KF miles per ticket.


Finally, keep in mind that double upgrades (e.g., from Econ to First) aren't possible on SQ for any amount of miles, and the upgrades to Suites (when available) require a truly astronomical number of miles.

I'd do my homework on this one before I dove off into the deep end.....