All posts filed under: Fly

Singapore Airlines increases miles required to redeem flights on Star Alliance partners from 7 December 2017

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If you are one of the few people who uses your KrisFlyer miles to redeem flights on Star Alliance partners instead of Singapore Airlines (horror of horrors!), you will need more miles to book your flights with these partners from 7 December 2017 onwards. This follows a devaluation SQ made on their own award redemption requirements in March this year. While that increased the number of miles required for bookings with SQ and removed the 15% online redemption discount, the change also removed the surcharges (which typically cost a couple of hundred bucks), so it was considered a nominal inflation. So what has changed this time? Across the board there is an increase in the new of miles required for redemption, particularly in Business and First. For those who have been using KrisFlyer miles to redeem on EVA Air to Taipei, it’s now a lot more expensive (and a poorer use of your miles). Here’s a look at the old and new charts: Old Chart (For bookings made up to 6 December 17) In Economy, travel …

Black Friday Airfare Deals from Singapore

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November and December are really some of the hottest sale periods traditionally for retail, but in recent years airlines and hotel partners have also jumped on the bandwagon to offer their own irresistable (some not so) sale to customers too. This year for Black Friday, here’s a round up of some of the deals available: Cathay Pacific two-to-go fares Booking period: 24 November 2017 only Travel period: 5 January 2018 to 30 April 2018 (except departures from Singapore on 9-18 February; 10-16 & 28-30 March) Return fare to Economy Hong Kong S$208 Taipei S$388 Beijing S$408   British Airways  Booking period: Now to 28 November 2017 Travel period: Now to 31 March 2018 Return fare to Economy Premium Economy Business Sydney S$684 S$1484 S$3682 London S$1210 S$2390 S$5579 Barcelona S$1118 S$2354 S$5355 Amsterdam S$1123 S$2459 S$5373 Dublin S$1135 S$2721 S$6462   Singapore Airlines two-to-go fares (technically not a Black Friday sale, but still on sale) Booking period: Economy class: Now to 15 December 2017 (except to Hong Kong, which ends 30 November 2017) Premium Economy and …

FLIGHT REVIEW: Singapore Airlines A330-300 Regional Business Class, Taipei – Singapore

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Singapore Airlines / 28 Aug 17 / A330-300 / SQ879 TPE-SIN / Business Class While planning for my weekend trip to Taipei I realised that Sunday evening flights back to Singapore were getting really expensive, so I decided to burn some miles as a treat to get home on Singapore Airline’s business class, partly to review the SilverKris lounge at Taipei airport which hardly had any reviews online (for good reasons). Some people may not believe that short haul business class tickets are worth burning miles on, but I beg to differ. At 27,500 miles (each way) for a saver redemption (and this is after SQ scrapped the 15% discount for online redemptions), I do feel that the Singapore-Taipei sector is still worth the miles given that it’s the farthest SQ sector within the Hong Kong/Taiwan/South China region. By contrast, Singapore-Male is comparable in terms of flight time, but it will cost you another 7,500 miles in business class. In terms of value per mile, given that SIN-TPE business class tickets on SQ trends around …

LOUNGE REVIEW: Cathay Pacific Lounge – The Wing, Hong Kong International Airport

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On a whirlwind business trip to Shanghai and Hong Kong, I managed to spend some time at the very much acclaimed Cathay Pacific lounge at their home base – Hong Kong International Airport. Cathay Pacific has a ridiculous number of lounges in HKIA itself – a grand total of six, of which two have dedicated first class lounges. If you need a whirlwind introduction, Lounge Buddy has a handy guide here. For this trip I went with The Wing, Cathay’s flagship lounge which was recently renovated. The double-storey lounge is located closest to the immigration counters, on the left right after immigration and security right across gate 2. The lounge has two sections – one for business class and oneworld sapphire members, accessible through the entrance opposite gate 2, while the first class and oneworld emerald section can be accessed directly to the left once you clear immigration into the upper floor. For business class passengers this can be quite a walk (maybe five minutes), which was the case for me. Upon approaching the lounge …

REVIEW: SilverKris Taipei Lounge

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Singapore Airlines has its very own lounge at Taipei Taoyuan International Airport Terminal 2. While some people may find it odd that SQ operates its own lounge at an airport where there’s only two flights a day, frequent flyers will recall that SQ used to run its Singapore-US services via Taipei until the 2000s, and this lounge had a far better service proposition back then for Singapore Airlines’ very own premium customers. Star Alliance gold members have no lack of lounges to choose from at Taoyuan International Airport. With home carrier EVA Air operating out of Terminal 2, Star Alliance gold members and business class passengers on the Star Alliance carriers can either hop into EVA Air’s several lounges or to the Singapore Airlines lounge. So let’s focus a little on the Singapore Airlines lounge. Tucked away on the fourth floor, a level above the retail level, the lounge is well sign-posted even though the entrance is not very obvious. The lounge is one of the smallest out of all the SQ SilverKris lounges around …