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Save 50% on Regional Southeast Asia Awards with SilkAir!

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I’ve found SilkAir and Singapore Airlines to be very helpful when finding regional flights in Southeast Asia. It’s allowed me to hop around Asia and include a stop in Singapore for many trips. . Right now, you can save 50% on Regional Southeast Asia Awards with SilkAir, which makes it even more of a bargain.

Singapore KrisFlyer SilkAir 50% Discount

Save 50% on Regional Southeast Asia Awards with SilkAir

It is important to note that this only applies to flights that are operated by SilkAir, Singapore’s regional carrier. SilkAir primarily operates narrow bodies, but they are comfortable for a sub 4-5 hour flight. I flew a SilkAir 737 from Phuket a few years ago and much enjoyed it.
SilkAir Seat, Save 50% on Regional Southeast Asia Awards with SilkAir

You can save 50% on Regional Southeast Asia Awards with SilkAir!

 
The terms of the promotion are pretty simple: Book between 12 June and 11 July, for flights 1 July through 31 October and choose from 53 destinations. 
 
This is for economy and business class awards. But, to be clear, they must be operated by SilkAir. 
 
To give you an idea of some of your options, here’s a snip from Singapore’s website:
 
Singapore KrisFlyer SilkAir 50% Discount

SilkAir Flights eligible for 50% Discount on Award

Singapore KrisFlyer SilkAir 50% Discount

SilkAir Flights eligible for 50% Discount on Award

 
As you can see, you can fly SilkAir to Myanmar, Cambodia, Vietnam, Thailand, Malaysia, Laos. You can also fly to a number of cities in China, India, Sri Lanka, and even the Maldives! There are even more options for Economy class upgrades. 

Wrapping Up

This is an excellent opportunity if you will be flying to Southeast Asia. Its a great opportunity to nest these 50% award flights with a tough to find over-water flight. It also is an excellent opportunity to leverage if you want to hop around Southeast Asia or even fly up to parts of China or out to the Maldives. 

Will you be leveraging this amazing deal to save 50% on Regional Southeast Asia Awards with SilkAir?

Singapore Airlines KrisFlyer Devaluation

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Singapore Airlines KrisFlyer program has announced that they will be amending their award chart and removing some key benefits. Worse, they’ve essentially given KrisFlyer members only three weeks to respond and plan under the old award chart. While this Singapore Airlines KrisFlyer Devaluation is not the end of the world, it is unfortunate.

Background

Singapore Airlines KrisFlyer program is one of the easier programs to utilize, for a few reasons.

  1. They provide very reasonable amounts of award space to their own members for all cabins.
  2. Singapore Airlines KrisFlyer is a transfer partner of all major transferable point currencies (Ultimate Rewards, Membership Rewards, Citi Thank You, and Starwood Preferred Guest).
  3. Singapore Airlines operates flights to the US, both direct (SFO-SIN), and via 5th Freedom rights (SIN-NRT-LAX, SIN-FRA-JFK, etc), so you can in theory, fly entirely on Singapore Airlines metal.

Additionally, there hasn’t been a Singapore Airlines KrisFlyer Program Devaluation in quite some time. In fact, Singapore’s own announcement states:

We had last made adjustments to award levels in various zones in 2012

Its hard to fault them in this one. Mile Lion has a more complete history of Singapore Airlines KrisFlyer devaluations, if you are curious.

Singapore Airlines KrisFlyer Devaluation 2017

Singapore Airlines KrisFlyer Devaluation

There are a few changes that Singapore Airlines is making in 2017. All are very much tied together, but I’ll try to parse them out below:

Award Chart Update: Singapore Airlines KrisFlyer award chart goes by zones (screenshot of old chart), and the fact is, some of those zones are going up. If you compare the old award chart to the new one (screenshot of new award chart), you’ll see that it doesn’t look materially horrible. I’d argue that if it stopped here, its not as bad as the American Airlines devaluation announced in 2015 and enacted in March 2016. 

No More Fuel Surcharges for Awards on Singapore Airlines or Silk Air metal: This is excellent. Its needed. Fuel has been cheap for a while, and I suspect that since some airlines have already done away with the fuel surcharge, it is at least getting on the radar of folks. This is pure money in your pocket. Its not as meaningful as British Airways Avios fuel surcharges, but, its still meaningful. On a recent trip, I paid about $50 in fuel surcharges for a couple of regional business class flights in Asia. Every little bit helps.

So far, we’re looking pretty positive, right?

Wrong. Here’s the kicker:

No More 15% Discount on Mileage Required When Booked Online: Previously you could save 15% of the mileage required by booking online. In fact, if the itinerary was mixed (e.g. business for one leg and Suites for another, like my itinerary last year, you could still get the 15% even by calling, if you at least tried to do it online first). So that changes the math on the devaluation; essentially, the starting point is a 15% increase, rather than the previous award chart.

How big a deal are the changes? I did a brief analysis of traveling from Zone 13, which is the US East Coast and Houston, to Zone 9, which is Eastern Australia and New Zealand, and the difference is pretty drastic, take a look:

Singapore Airlines KrisFlyer Devaluation

So, using this example above (which I took out the 15% discount from the old chart, mind you), each class of service jumped a bunch, double digits at least. You can look further by looking at the old award chart, and the new one.

The changes go into effect for awards ticketed on or after 23 March 2017 – So if you are looking for an award that you see availability for – do not delay.

Bottom Line

No devaluation is good. This Singapore Airlines KrisFlyer devaluation and past ones seem to have been more reasonable over the years, as compared to some US based airline program award changes. But the fact remains, it hurts. At least Singapore tried to find something of a balance here. I would just argue that if you consider the impact, you must include that 15% discount going away as a comparison.

Of course, there are ways that these new developments can give you an opportunity for savings, you just have to look harder.

What are your thoughts of this devaluation?
 

1 Million KrisFlyer Miles, Lemon Law for Hotels, Cathay Pacific’s Revolutionary Headrest

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The Weekly News Roundup is a collection of headlines from around the internet that caught the attention of the Tagging Miles team. Content on these blogs do not necessarily reflect the positions of Tagging Miles, and should not be considered endorsements. Have a great story we should read? Contact us now and let us know.

Travel:

Miles and Points:

  • Joseph Schooling, who won gold for Singapore in the men’s 100 meter butterfly received 1 million KrisFlyer miles from Singapore. There have also been reports on Twitter that he’ll earn ~$753k too. Not too shabby!
Singapore Olympic Gold

Found on Twitter.

Tagging Miles:

 

 

What is left In North America post-British Airways 4,500 avios award?

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roadstocompanionpass

Last week, I asserted that British Airways taking award the 4,500 Avios point award in North America was not the end of the world.

I may have been shortsighted. For my  personal travel patterns, this change sucks, but it isn’t the end of the world for me. But, my travel patterns aren’t yours.

Reader Jessica rightly stated that for some, this can be a big hit. I still personally believe that no award chart change or devaluation should be the end of the world, as, your mileage account is not your retirement account (believe me the past few months have seen the market issue big hits in that regard!). That said, Jessica makes a very valid point, in that this change will hurt some-perhaps many-more than others.

So what alternatives exist?

For those who can and do Manufacture Spend, hopefully you weren’t hurt by the demise of RedBird, but as long as you can still MS, then you just scale up (unless of course your chosen method can’t scale further), then you need to open the aperture. The Saverocity Forums level 2 have great options here.

For those that don’t MS as much

Credit card sign ups, I don’t often advocate them, but right now the Chase British Airways card has a 50k offer after $2k spend, and if you can do more, $20k spend will get you a total of 100k Avios points. That’s a lot of spending, but it is even more points. Even at 7,500 points per award, that at least extends your options.

Look at other programs

American Airlines AAdvantage saver awards, I think are 12.5k for contiguous North America.

Southwest, as reader Horace commented, could be an option. You can also get 2 Chase Southwest cards for 106k points after meeting minimum spend and spending another $4k doesn’t seem all that hard for organic spend. Just make sure you don’t earn the bonuses until January, then you get 2 years with a Companion Pass.

As an aside, last year, I got a Southwest Companion Pass without a single credit card application, but that isn’t for everyone.

You could open the aperture even more, let’s say you like Ultimate Rewards Points (and don’t we all love getting 5x points!), well they transfer to United Airlines Mileage Plus for 10-12.5k Saver in the contiguous North America. Or transfer to Singapore Airlines’ KrisFlyer, for again 12.5k saver awards.

Wrapping Up

So while British Airways takes away a great award, there a handful of other “cheap” options, none as inexpensive as the 4,500 avios point award. That doesn’t take away the sting of British Airways’s decision to remove the 4,500 avios point award. But hopefully these alternatives at least show where the proverbial goal posts now stand.

Follow-up to Singapore KrisFlyer Awards – Examples

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Introduction

Yesterday, I posted about using Singapore’s KrisFlyer miles from Singapore, and how many great options there are. Reader @Sanaial posed a great question:

A few examples

So I thought I’d put together some examples. The first option I looked at was Singapore to Phuket, Thailand in economy and business class. Its a short 1 hour, 45 minute non-stop flight operated by Singapore’s Silkair.

Singapore to Phuket Award Flights

As you can see – Airport / Government taxes are constant at SGD 34.00 ($27.29 USD). You essentially pay a premium of 6,375 KrisFlyer miles and SGD 20.30 ($16.29 USD) to fly up front.

The second I chose to look at was Singapore to Denpasar-Bali, Indonesia in economy and business class. This is actually a longer flight at 2 and a half hours, and on Singapore’s regionally configured 777-200 (I think an angled layflat in business). The fares are consistent for economy and business, but you get an upgraded product and experience.

Singapore to Denpasar-Bali Award Flights

For example, just looking at a revenue ticket, ITA shows the same flight in business at SGD 1,096.50, so you’re looking at a roughly 90% discount for using miles, or 6.7 cents of “value” per mile.

Starting to see a trend here, I decided to look a little harder at the award chart, and found an interesting route that could be considered a sweet-spot on the award chart. First, here’s the map:

Hong Kong to Darwin, Australia via Singapore, courtesy of www.gcmap.com

Hong Kong to Darwin, Australia via Singapore, courtesy of www.gcmap.com

The flights are pretty reasonable with respect to miles, but its much more expensive with respect to out of pocket costs, but really the difference between Business and Economy is 10,625 more miles, but not even 10% more in cost.

HKG-SIN-DRW Awards

Ok, so in hindsight, maybe this isn’t the sweetest of spots, but I’ll keep looking.

Conclusion

So, while Singapore does charge fuel surcharges, you can still do reasonably well flying shorter distances on Singapore and Silkair metal. Given that, Singapore’s Changi Airport is both served by a bunch of airlines, and perhaps my favorite airport for a long layover.

 

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