Ok, ok — not everyone has 250,000 points laying around. Even if you do, you may not want to spend them all in one go. The good news, is you’re not technically doing that. The other good news is that if you do, it’s for a flight in one of the most stunning airline cabins ever created, and you’ll earn a year of lucrative perks in the process.
How does a year of Star Alliance Gold, and a round trip journey in an incredible flying suite, replete with Dom Perignon and Krug, sound to you?
Unique Opportunity To “Win” With Points
View From The Wing recently highlighted some incredible availability using points on Singapore Airlines, for its (new) A380 first class suites. These are O-T-T, which is British for “over the top”.
These planes were briefly retired during the pandemic, but as demand resumes, they’re roaring back into service. Singapore Air even worked to continue refurbishing some of these planes to feature the latest and greatest suites, during the slowdown.
In any previous times, wide open availability on routes like New York-Frankfurt and the Frankfurt-Singapore flight would’ve been exciting stuff alone, but a couple other things make it all so much better right now.
Singapore is open to Americans with digital vaccination proof, among many other countries, and that makes this availability feel “real” and like something you can really stand a chance to. Star Alliance Gold, just for booking, sounds nice too though, right?
Getting a seat all the way from New York to Singapore (or vice versa), or just between Frankfurt and Singapore on the A380 was never easy, so it’s a big deal, but for a limited time — yes — Singapore will also allow you to earn Star Alliance Gold for a trip like this.
But it’s a long running promo that makes this shockingly exciting.
Singapore Air has had a long running KrisFlyer promotion this year, where anyone who transfers 250,000 points into the KrisFlyer loyalty program (from credit cards is fine), can get rewarded with KrisFlyer Gold status.
With KrisFlyer Gold, you instantly become Star Alliance Gold. This would allow a United flyer in the US to access lounges, even on domestic flights, or a European flyer to use lounges on each journey all the same.
Pricing It Out
The journey between Frankfurt and Singapore costs 125,000 miles each way (the same price applies for London), and the same plane that carries on between Frankfurt and New York is 86,000 miles one way for first class suites, in either direction.
Thankfully, Singapore (kindly) doesn’t just add them up if you want to go all the way.
If you book the New York-Frankfurt-Singapore journey as one, it’s just 132,000 miles each way, or 260,000 round trip. It’s a hell of a lot of points for one trip, but easily one of the coolest flying experiences you can have.
This means any trip which requires 250,000 points transferred into Singapore, or more, would earn you Star Alliance Gold for a year, in addition to the amazing flying. Obviously, once the points are in Singapore you can spend them how you want.
It does not need to be on first class, it’s just a suggestion. These points could fuel multiple trips, or just one mega-first-class trip for the ages. All that matters is that 250,000 points get transferred.
Singapore does not have a friendly mileage expiry policy and points do disappear after 3 years, so this only makes sense if you will use them in that time frame.
Best Advice: Find Seats First
Whenever you’re moving points from a safe haven like a bank, to an actual airline, you want to ideally have a “bird in hand” use. You want to be able to redeem your miles right away.
If you’re considering this, it’s best to find availability with Singapore Air (you can search directly on their site). The best availability is currently for travel later in 2022, like Sept, Oct. There are great ways to use Singapore KrisFlyer miles each month, so even if your plans don’t work perfectly, there should still be ample opportunity to “win”.
It’s just hard to beat more than 28 round trip hours in First Class Suites and Star Alliance Gold for circa 250,000 points.
Hi.
Is it possible to put a reward flight on hold while transfer the points over to KrisFlyer?
Thanks,
Dale.
No
I’m already a M&M Senator for life. I have many hundreds of miles with LH. Can I use those to transfer to SQ Kris Flierr?
Sadly, not! Once miles are in a specific airline currency, it’s very difficult to get them out. It’s why, whenever possible, earning points via a centralized hub, like Amex can make a lot of sense. Of course, there’s no opportunity to do this with earning from actual flights, but for spend its helpful.
So this all sounds great in theory but from my search there unfortunately aren’t any availability for the JFK – SIN route in first class suites at the savers award level which is the redemption point that you and gary discuss. all the available redemptions are at the advantage redemption point which is pretty much double the savers award level.
granted i think just having great availability for first class suites at the advantage redemption is rare in itself, it’s a little harder to speculatively transfer miles for this.
SIN-FRA-JFK is Old Suites really just a Regular Sleeper Seat in a Cage.