chicagodesi

Hello all,

We are planning a trip to Hyderabad, India from Chicago in November. We've always flown Emirates or Qatar, but this time around we want to do a stopover in Singapore before continuing on to HYD. Another motivation is that we have never flown Singapore Airlines and would love to have that experience. We will be flying economy class (2 adults, 2 children ages 4 and 8) Now for the advice part. There are several options and wanted to get your opinion on the routes:

ORD-JFK-FRA-SIN-HYD (A380)
ORD-SFO-SIN-HYD (A350)
ORD-SEA-SIN-HYD (A350)

I am intrigued by the ORD-SEA-SIN-HYD route as it will be a new route and hopefully a new airplane? Any advice or thoughts or other recommendations? Thanks so much!

eponymous_coward

SQ has been flying A359s for some time. You're just as likely to have a new or "older" A359 on SFO-SIN as SEA-SIN.

You're in for a very long flying day on any of those flights- easily 24 hours when you include connections. The ORD-JFK-FRA-SIN route will break it up to segments to let you walk around a bit, but will be the longest. ORD-SEA-SIN will be the shortest.

chicagodesi

True, either way it's going to be very long. Hopefully the sea-sin flight won't be too full. Does anyone know what they do for kids? Any special toys, goodies? My kids always look forward to those on international flights.

shuigao

I wouldn't get my hopes up too high, there's only so much airlines can do in economy class so there isn't really that much difference between any of the top 10 or 20 airlines.

Unionruler

You really should be flying ORD-HND/NRT-SIN on ANA. They have discounted child fares and are at least as, if not more family friendly than SQ. SQ is not a good option out of ORD. If you are okay to transit in SEA I can still understand, but are the fares from SEA cheap? With kids, I would not subject myself to the additional stress of a transit in most US hub airports (JFK, SFO, LAX etc.)

eponymous_coward

OP apparently (?) wants to fare and fly this as an ORD-HYD fare with a SIN stopover- they haven't indicated this is an award and they said SIN is just a stopover for a final destination of HYD (presumably a return to ORD). I suspect buying the NH ORD-TYO-SIN fare as an SQ codeshare (with SIN-HYD-SIN on SQ) is going to be prohibitively expensive compared to using SQ metal, unless for some odd reason NH wants to have people buy their SQ codeshares (it's not like NH and SQ are doing revenue sharing). I don't know if buying this on NH and having SQ segments/stopovers will work either.

While I guess they could buy two fares/sets of tickets (ORD-SIN-ORD, SIN-HYD-SIN), the problem is that unless they want to do stopovers/long layover on both outbound and inbound, if they have a problem on HYD-SIN that makes them miss their SIN-ORD flights on NH, it's on a separate ticket, NH doesn't have to help them out- there's no connection. Personally I'd judge having to suffer through a US domestic airport connection to be less of a nuisance than two sets of tickets where you don't have protection on a missed flight. I've visited all the airports you've mentioned- while HND and NRT are nice enough that's just not much of a reason to contort your planning. Now the child fares MIGHT be helpful for cost... but even then, two sets of tickets has nonzero risk unless you build in sufficient time to mitigate that.

Unionruler

Okay. It appears the prices are closer than I thought. To do it your way and buy a protected ORD-SEA-SIN-HYD on AS, SQ and MI is S$1780 without stopovers, and S$40 of airport taxes for stopping in SIN, so S$1820.

To do it my way ORD-NRT/HND-SIN on NH is S$1,110 and SIN-HYD on MI is S$390, for a total of S$1,500.

So if you don't factor in child discounts, the OP is essentially choosing between suffering (1) paying S$320 more per pax and connecting in the US vs NRT/HND; and (2) having a long day layover in SIN OR an overnight layover at HND on the way back.

chicagodesi

Thanks for the responses everyone! We would like to do a 3-4 day stopover in Singapore before continuing on to HYD. This is not an award/miles flight, just plain old normal economy. If I were to do ORD-SEA-SIN-HYD, would I have to pay for checked luggage on Alaska airlines? We are 4 people with 2 suitcases each, that adds up to 8 checked in suitcases. For return, we can do any combination back to ORD. Thank you again for all your help!

Unionruler

Your baggage allowance throughout (assuming you book on one ticket) should be that of SQ, SQ being the most significant operating carrier.

chicagodesi

Appreciate the advice!