A few weeks ago, I wrote about how I booked business class award seats for my son and his friend to Asia for their Thailand trip over Christmas/New Year holidays. But, I still had to find award seats back to the USA.
I planned to try my hardest to get Premium Economy seats or better for the way back, primarily because my son’s friend is very tall (6’7″), and economy legroom would be tough for a 14-hour flight. How would my luck pan out for these flights back home?
A Bird in the Hand…
So that old saying “A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush” came into play for my award search. In other words, it is better to hold onto something than to risk losing it by trying to get something better.
Award availability turned out to be even tougher for these flights home. I was hoping to find Premium Economy availability on Cathay Pacific of EVA. Unfortunately, nothing was available at all for our desired date range. Then, I saw that Singapore Airlines had Premium Economy seats from Singapore to the USA for 79,000 miles + $68 in taxes.
Now that is not the cheapest award price for Premium Economy seats compared to other airlines. I could have waited to see if Alaska (Starlux partner) or American Airlines or United had award availability when their schedules open up in a few weeks. However, the risk is that those PE seats on Singapore would be snatched up by other travelers. So, I decided to book those seats on Singapore.
But, the process wasn’t as easy as I thought. I had to transfer points from Chase and Citi to Singapore Airlines, and those transfers took 48 hours to show up in my Singapore KrisFlyer account. In the past, Singapore phone agents would put award flights on hold while your points transferred. However, that was not my experience this time (and others on reddit has similar experience with no award holds allowed). I held my breath during those 48 hours, and thankfully, the seats were still available when my miles showed up. Whew!
Bottom Line
Finding award availability to/from Asia over the Christmas/New Year holidays isn’t the easiest. I may not have gotten the best deal on award flights back home, but I’m still happy with the outcome. Now, I can move on to the next trip.
Author: Nancy
Nancy lives near Dallas, Texas, with her husband and three kids. Her favorite vacations include the beach, cruising and everything Disney.
I’d also consider Cathay as they have a very decent Biz product, and stopover in HKG for 2-3 days are totally make sense in any direction. Would give it 4* out of 5 after flying with Cathay from East coast to HKG/Asia few times. From HKG it’s easy to get to Thai, Cambodia, Singapore or other nearby places. Award prices used to be decent, along with the availability. Too bad Alaska/AA no longer showing them upfront.
Good game plan. And tough find considering holiday timeframe – my guess Asia is super popular with tourists because of much cheaper prices for hotels, food, attractions vs Europe/USA. We were able to take taxi everywhere in Japan and Singapore on past trips, because prices in dollars were low (and saved us a ton of time compared to public transport). To compare, in Europe train tickets between the cities are at the premium, and triple in summer time.
On side note, I wasn’t impressed with Singapore business seats and service was just average, impersonal. Hopefully the tall friend will find enough legroom at PE seat.
Happy travels!!
Thank you Aleks! I’m looking forward to cheaper prices in Singapore and Thailand for my trip and for the boys’ trip. I’ll report back on my experience with Singapore business and the boys’ Singapore PE.