One of the biggest questions that floods the inbox is always “any tips to save on flights to Australia?”. For most of our readers, it’s about as far away as you can get, and with at least 16 hours in the sky, or even much more, a little bit of comfort goes a long way. Since Asia is the new hotspot for excellent deals in all cabins, I wanted to take a second to note just how valuable one monthly points opportunity can be to quelling your Australia woes…
Whether you’re coming from Europe or the USA, Singapore makes for one of the more logical places to stop en route. The fact that it also has the world’s greatest airport and a very accessible city never hurts either. Singapore allows you to split the journey up rather than going ultra long haul and further, it’s become one of the key battlegrounds for great flight deals.
It’s not at all uncommon to see €1400 business class from Europe to Singapore, or premium economy from the USA to Singapore under $800 round trip. These are fares that never used to exist, yet are now readily available, provided you know where to look.
On the other hand, other than a few awesome flash sales, Australia is hardly ever on sale, and can easily add $2000 to either of those totals. Enter: Singapore Airlines monthly “promo awards” which regularly bring opportunity to cash in a relatively small cache of points or miles and save quite a lot of cash.
Right off the bat, one of the best things about the Singapore KrisFlyer loyalty program is that you can convert Amex, Citi, Chase or Capital One Venture miles into Singapore Airlines miles. This instantly makes the program accessible to millions of people around the world who may not have yet had the opportunity to fly the airline, but can transfer points to have their first go!
Every 15th of the month, Singapore Airlines releases “promo awards” where flights between cities around the world and Singapore are discounted. Almost every month, Australia tends to have at least a couple on the list. These flights typically cost over 62,500 miles each way in business class, but during the monthly promo awards, they can regularly be had for between 42,000 and 44,000 points each way in business class, with minimal taxes and fees.
In other words, rather than adding thousands to your flight bill by booking a flight to Australia, booking a flight to Singapore, and then a promo award from Singapore onto Australia can save big bucks without breaking the points bank either.
The mission is simple: see if you can save on a trip to Australia by stopping in Singapore on the way, and using miles to cover at least part of the journey. With the ability to convert credit card points into Singapore Air KrisFlyer miles, that’s pretty easy. Here’s a complete guide to promo awards, including where to search and how to book.
Each month brings award discounts which are valid for the upcoming travel period, but availability is generally great, so even if your trip is far away and isn’t currently included in the promos, think about this handy tip before booking something crazy expensive, or giving up and settling into the back of the plane!
Of course, this logic works vice-versa as well, so if you’re reading in Australia, you could use the promo awards to get you up to Southeast Asia, where good deals in all cabins are far more prevalent to Europe or the USA…
Great stuff as usual!
Great Gilbert’s highlighted this option, apparently not widely known about, including by us Aussies, ie focusing on good premier class deals, but out of S E Asia, and using points if possible for the shorter leg to & from Oz, even low cost positioning flights to Singapore within S E Asia. Date of release of Spontaneous Escapes is not set in stone, though, can be up to 19th, very occasionally even later. This month’s, for October travel, includes J class Brisbane and Adelaide for 43000 KF miles. Other watchpoints with this promo: Sometimes, it’s only one direction, not return. It’s only on certain flights that day. That flight of course, can be different to the same day, but different class. Darwin’s worth considering also, via Silk Air, and use even a domestic LCC if heading further south. For Velocity card holders, points can also be transferred over to KrisR at the now devalued 1.55 to 1 (& vice versa). The US flights have for a while been the second month after the month of release, whereas its normally for other flights, travel the following month.