Yes, I did just come back from a trip to Asia. But, I’m not done exploring the area, and I want to go while I’m still “young” -ish. My daughter and I set our sights on visiting Thailand next year, which is a longer flight than flights to Japan and China. My goal was to find award seats in business class, but I’d settle for premium economy since business class award availability to Asia is usually hard to find. Well, luck was on my side, and I just booked our award flights to Thailand in business class both directions!
Flights to Thailand
To make it easier to search for flights, I upgraded to a paid membership ($12/month) to point.me. I was ecstatic to find award availability for two people on Singapore Airlines from San Francisco to Bangkok with a stopover in Singapore. I chose the flight combination with a 24-hour layover in Singapore, which gives us a day to explore. Singapore Changi airport actually offers free tours for passengers with layovers from 5-24 hours.
Each ticket cost 107,000 Singapore KrisFlyer miles plus $18.80 in taxes/fees. I transferred Amex points (from my husband’s recent card upgrade) and Capital One miles to Singapore KrisFlyer to book these flights. Since the Amex points belonged to my husband, we had to transfer them to his KrisFlyer account and add me and my daughter as redemption nominees before booking.
Return Flights
I had a stash of 189k Air France/KLM FlyingBlue miles that I had transferred from Chase during a previous 20% transfer bonus. I had transferred the points to FlyingBlue for a flight home from Asia for my recent trip. But, the award space wasn’t real, so I wound up sitting on these miles (see this post). I was hopeful that I could use these FlyingBlue miles for this next trip to Asia.
Through the point.me tool, I found award space in business class on Vietnam Airlines from Ho Chi Minh City (formerly known as Saigon) to San Francisco through partner program FlyingBlue.. This route appeared to have 4 business class seats available on some days! Each ticket cost 83,100 FlyingBlue miles (69,250 Chase points before the transfer bonus) plus $472.28 in taxes/fees. Yes, the taxes are steep. But, considering the length of the flight and the cash price of over $3200, the taxes are worth it for me.
With only two of us traveling on this trip, it was much easier to find and afford business class award tickets to and from Asia.
Positioning Flights
I still need to get us flights from DFW to San Francisco at the beginning and end of the trip. In addition, we need to get flights from Thailand to Ho Chi Minh City (just a 90-minute flight) before our trip home. We plan to fly to Vietnam a day early so that we can spend one day exploring Saigon before we fly back to the US. I have plenty of time to book those flights using miles (or cheap cash flights).
In total, we will have 10 days in Thailand plus one day in Singapore and one day in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam. Let the planning begin!
Author: Nancy
Nancy lives near Dallas, Texas, with her husband and three kids. Her favorite vacations include the beach, cruising and everything Disney.
Nice awards! Hope you’ll get the upgraded Singapore business eats as the older ones are not optimal (my least favorite business-class seats). Would be easier to fly DFW-Tokyo-Bangkok but stopover in SIN might prove to be enjoyable. You can also research if spending couple more days in Vietnam possibly make sense vs extra days in Thailand, plus hotels/flights schedule will be more relaxed.
Happy travels!!
Awesome. On positioning to SFO, my wife and I flew from DFW to Monterey, rented a car and drove up to Santa Cruz for the day then onto San Francisco. Stayed at the SFO airport Grand Hyatt; great breakfast. Had lunch at United Polaris Lounge then flew to Papeete. Singapore Airlines Business should get you into Polaris lounge.