If you’re hoping to redeem miles for Business Class travel to Europe or the USA over the rest of 2022, you might be out of luck.
Award space is as tight as I’ve ever seen, with only sporadic waitlist availability for Advantage or Saver awards (and keep in mind this is searching from a PPS account; KrisFlyer members will see even less). Load factors on Singapore Airlines flights to Europe and the USA are even higher than pre-COVID days, so it’s not surprising they’re reluctant to open up seats for award redemptions.
However, not all is lost. If you can’t stand the thought of a 13-hour flight at the back of the bus, it’s still possible to find good value Business Class fares for year-end travel: you just need to trade some vacation time for it.
Repositioning for cheaper fares
Let’s not mince words: compared to other countries in the region, Singapore is an affluent market. Airlines know this, and price their airfares ex-SIN accordingly.
But if you don’t mind repositioning yourself elsewhere in the region, you can find some good deals. The easiest tool to find these is Google Flights and its Explore feature.
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| Google Flights |
Google Flights Explore shows you all the places you can fly to for a given budget, in a given cabin, during a given period.
Two of my favourite starting points to search for bargain Business Class fares are Bangkok and Jakarta. They’re both less than two hours away, have a ton of cheap airfares on low cost carriers, and don’t require pre-departure testing for fully vaccinated travellers.
Enter BKK or CGK in the “where from” field, leave the “where to empty”, select “one-way”, “Business”, and “1-week trip in the next 6 months”. You can put a price filter too if you like; I set mine at <S$2,000.
Here’s what I managed to find:
| From Bangkok (BKK) Travel on SQ |
From Jakarta (CGK) Travel on TK |
|
| Amsterdam (AMS) | – | S$1,347 |
| Catania (CTA) | – | S$1,423 |
| Copenhagen (CPH) | S$1,478 | – |
| Edinburgh (EDI) | – | S$1,427 |
| Frankfurt (FRA) | S$1,443 | S$1,438 |
| Geneva (GVA) | – | S$1,499 |
| Istanbul (IST) | S$1,285 | – |
| Los Angeles (LAX) | S$1,817 | |
| London (LHR) | S$1,598 | S$1,320 |
| Milan (MXP) | S$1,820 | S$1,307 |
| Naples (NAP) | – | S$1,423 |
| New York (JFK) | – | S$1,817 |
| Paris (CDG) | S$1,337 | S$1,514 |
| Rome (FCO) | – | S$1,423 |
| Venice (VCE) | – | S$1,423 |
| Zurich (ZRH) | S$1,467 | S$1,499 |
The fares out of Jakarta are on Turkish Airlines, while the fares out of Bangkok are on Singapore Airlines (yes, it’s cheaper to fly BKK-SIN-wherever than SIN-wherever).
| ❓ Why not skip the first leg? |
| Before you ask: no- you cannot book a BKK-SIN-X ticket and only fly the SIN-X leg. If you miss the BKK-SIN flight, your entire ticket will be cancelled |
Amsterdam, London and Milan for ~S$1,300 in Turkish Airlines Business Class? That sounds good to me. You can even find Singapore Airlines Business Class for <S$1,500 on certain routes.
What’s the catch?
The most obvious downside of repositioning is time.
While Bangkok and Jakarta aren’t very far from Singapore, it’s advisable to build in a connection of at least 2-3 hours– especially if you’re checking a bag. You may be able to check your bag through to the final destination if the carrier you’re flying from SIN-BKK/CGK has an interline agreement with the long-haul carrier, but through checking luggage on separate tickets is never guaranteed.
If the first airline won’t check your bag through, you’ll need to clear customs and immigration, claim your bag, then check in and clear customs and immigration again. All this would be eased by holding an APEC card, so try and get one if you’re eligible.
Moreover, you’re looking at at least two connections– the first in Jakarta or Bangkok, the second in Istanbul (via Turkish) or Singapore (via SIA).
That said, if you were looking to fly to a place like Edinburgh, Geneva, Naples or Venice which don’t have non-stop service from Changi, you’d be looking at at least one connection even when starting from Singapore. In that case, the additional time might not be as significant.
Since you’re travelling on separate tickets, you won’t be re-accommodated if something goes wrong with your positioning flight. It’s on you to make sure you’re in Bangkok or Jakarta in time for the next segment. Some may even prefer to fly into Bangkok or Jakarta a day ahead, spend a day exploring the city, then catch their flight the following day.
The upshot is that repositioning will eat into your vacation time. If you’re on a tight schedule with limited vacation days, this probably isn’t right for you. Book the cheapest non-stop flight you can find, gut it out in Economy, and enjoy your extra time overseas. But if you’re willing to trade time for comfort and savings, well, this is how you do it.
What about the return leg?
I’ve quoted the outbound leg as a one-way because I’ve found it’s generally cheaper to buy two one-way tickets on different carriers than a round-trip ticket on the same carrier.
Award space from Europe to Asia is generally not as bad as Asia to Europe, based on my searches, so in an ideal scenario you’d be able to redeem a one-way award back home.
In the event that you can’t, however, I’ve managed to find some decent one-way Business Class fares from Europe to Singapore (or close by):
- Ex-BCN
- SIN: S$1,359
- Ex-CDG
- SIN: S$1,824
- Ex-FCO
- SIN: S$1,620
- Ex-FRA
- CGK: S$1,639
- SIN: S$1,866
- Ex-LHR
- BKK: S$1,815
Again, it’s about running permutations through Google Flights Explore and seeing what comes up.
| ✈️ Potential deal |
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It’s currently possible to book a BKK-SIN-CDG round-trip flight for S$2,371, with the BKK-SIN leg in ScootPlus, and the SIN-CDG leg in Singapore Airlines Business Class.
Do note that this is for travel in February 2023. |
Conclusion
Getting gouged on premium cabin airfares is an unfortunate reality of living in Singapore, but a simple repositioning flight opens up a whole lot of possibilities. The key question is whether you’re willing to sacrifice vacation time, and navigate additional overseas connections which might not be easy with children or elderly parents.
Any other good cities within the region to consider repositioning to?
Hi thanks for the informative guide. Is it feasible to no-show the last leg of such a return flight – in your example the SIN-BKK leg?
You can- but you can’t short check your bag just to sin
Is there any implication on the no-show besides not being able to check the baggage?
possibly. if you include your frequent flyer number and do it too often, the airline might shut down your account. i wouldn’t recommend making it a habit.
Miles, if you do not complete your entire journey there are airlines that do not grant the miles for that segment of the journey, eg inbound is CDG – SIN – BKK, if you miss the SIN-BKK leg, the entire CDG-SIN-BKK segment has no miles awarded. I had it with Finnair once before, it caused me OW Sapphire status as i was 1 trip short.
LH was famous for sending warning letters to those who are doing this, but never took any action. While AA’s audit dept. closed one account and demanded 10K USD as a fee for the difference of hidden city in order to restore the account for an unlucky AA Plat Pro member who spends 10K+ with AA annually.
I don’t know for SQ, but I managed to short check bags at FRA with LH without issue on a long connection (but not stopover). No question asked. I short checked only some of them, and re checked in some others in FRA.
No issue short-checking bags to SIN either most of the time, provided you have built in a long lay-over, E.g. >8h (In the case of a stopover it’s obviously not a problem at all). As others have said, don’t do it too often, and ideally not always with the same airline. But in principle and practice it’s eminently doable.
You can try to convince the check-in that you need to deliver a package to a friend in Singapore providing that you have a scheduled connection long enough.
Yes. No check in luggage or have a stopover in SG and dont check in for SIN-BKK
See reply below Aaron’s response.
Apart from the aforementioned BKK and CGK, I have done successful cheap repositioning flights via KUL (smooth) and MNL (don’t do it – not worth the trouble!) for SIN-EU and Ahmedabad (AMD) for SQ21/22 (why not – was ok).
MNL sounds like a nightmare to transit in.
CMB was the sweet spot for J class fare deals pre-covid, but with all the unrest it’s probably better avoided for now
Ah yes! I had been on the lookout for CMB as I have never been there, but so far never got lucky to come across a good timed deal. Hoping for better times for Sri Lanka!
My go-to was always SGN (once HAN) – as close as BKK, no backtracking compared to CGK, and I like to add an overnight, which is cheaper than in BKK and much more pleasant compared to CGK.
which airlines did you fly on ex-SGN?
Pre covid I’ve had some good deals in J ex KUL on TK and QR. Even Y on SQ was hundreds of dollars cheaper.
Love this idea! Thanks for sharing, really useful.
How about via KUL? Surely SIN-KUL being a shorter leg would avoid travel & luggage delays
Yes, can sometimes find fares ex kul. But I didn’t see anything attractive when searching this time round
How do you book such flight via SQ website? Via multi city?