KLM, the national airline of Netherlands, operates what is known as a Fifth Freedom flight between Singapore and Bali. One of the more famous Fifth Freedom flights in the world is SQ25/SQ26 which flies between Frankfurt and New York.
KLM is currently running a worldwide sale as well as a sale on its Bali route. Both of these sales end on 3 April 2018 and tickets bought during this sale period are valid for travel between 1 April 2018 to 28 February 2019 for their worldwide sale, and from 1 April 2018 to 19 February 2019 for their Bali sale.
Fares to Europe and beyond start from S$744
In their ongoing worldwide sale, fares start at S$744 to Munich. The prices are competitive with what’s being offered by Qatar, Finnair and many others at the moment. Nothing much to shout about for me. For the Singapore to Amsterdam portion of your flight, it’ll be on their Boeing 777-300ER aircraft featuring economy seating in a 3-4-3 layout. Not the best layout, but it gets the job done I suppose.
Fares to Bali start from S$189, Business Class from S$449
What I really want to talk about, is the sale which they’re having to Bali. More specifically, that on their World Business Class cabin. Bali is the quintessential Singaporean beach holiday destination. Mention a beach holiday and most likely you’ll hear the two syllable word “Bali” pop up. Ordinarily, fares on their World Business Class cabin go for around S$500 for a round trip ticket to Bali. However during this sale, you could sample their business class cabin for as low as S$449! As a point for comparison, Singapore Airlines, SilkAir and Garuda Indonesia also operate the Singapore Bali route but fares are way too high for anyone to even consider them. SQ charges more than twice what KLM is charging for this route.
KLM’s World Business Class cabin has always fascinated me, actually more specifically their special gift to business class passengers, the Delft Blue House. And it’s so darn cool. On the actual hard product side of things, KLM operates their Boeing 777-300ER outfitted with a 2-2-2 layout lie flat product.
I’m not entirely sure if their Heineken beer carts are on offer on this route but if they are then it would make for an interesting flight to Bali, with beer served on tap.
Should you purchase these sale fares on KLM, you can credit your flights to Flying Blue. Alternatively, you can always use “wheretocredit.com” to see which other frequent flyer program accrues the most miles on these revenue flights. This would also be the perfect opportunity to rake in some Flying Blue miles for flights on SkyTeam airlines.
Concluding Thoughts
If you’re able to splash out a bit more cash for your beach holiday to Bali, I feel that KLM really offers the best bang for buck in their business class cabin on this very popular route. Although you’ll only be arriving in Bali in the late evening, I still feel this would be the best opportunity to sample a business class product without having to go on a 2 months plain bread and tap water diet.
As always, you can use the following cards to perform your booking on the KLM website :
| Credit Card | Miles Per Dollar | Bonus Spend Cap |
| DBS Woman’s World Card | 4 | Capped at S$2,000 per month |
| DBS Altitude | 3 | Capped at S$5,000 for online airfare and hotels per month |
| HSBC Revolution/Maybank Horizon Visa Signature | 2 | No cap for HSBC Revolution. Maybank requires you to spend min $300 a month to earn 2 mpd on air tickets. Bonus TREATS points are capped at 30,000 per month, or $7,500 of pure airline spending |
National airlines of Amsterdam?
Netherlands you mean.
Whoops brain fart. Thanks Cher.
unacceptable.