I’m shocked to see that Alaska Airlines appears to have wide open award availability for Singapore Airlines business class awards between the U.S. and Asia. In fact it seems they have at least as good availability as is offered to Singapore’s own members.
That’s shocking because there’s a basic rule of Singapore Airlines availability.
- Singapore only lets their own members book long haul business and first class awards
- There was a brief exception to this rule where partner programs had full access to Singapore Airlines premium cabin award space but it was a full decade ago.
- That’s why it’s useful that Chase, Amex, Capital One and Citi points transfer to Singapore’s miles
Oddly, despite being a member of oneworld, Alaska Airlines has a partnership with Singapore Airlines which supports Singapore’s Seattle flight. This bilateral agreement works outside of the normal systems. And perhaps that’s why Alaska Airlines is showing crazy good award space on Singapore Airlines right now. For instance, here is Los Angeles – Singapore next July for two passengers in business class:
Alaska Airlines charges 100,000 miles each way for Singapore Airlines business class between the U.S. and Singapore. This isn’t a cheap award. But it’s fascinating to see availability through an airline’s program besides Singapore’s own. I haven’t tried ticketing this year, but it does appear to be bookable at this time.
Unfortunately Alaska doesn’t offer Singapore redemptions between the U.S. and Europe (Houston – Manchester, New York JFK – Frankfurt) and doesn’t offer premium redemptions at a low price. But there are no fuel surcharges and this was new to me.
(HT: Alexisonsmith)
I’ve booked LAX-SIN-DAD and LAX-SIN-BKK for upcoming travel, all segments in biz. The same flights were not available using UA miles.
You can book US to Europe, but it has to be via SIN and will be 2 awards , not one.
Same with Australia to Europe. Two separare awards add up to 175,000 Alaska miles which is pretty hefty.
Low fees and taxes takes a bit of the sting out of it I suppose.
100K miles one-way is too expensive for biz class.
If you use Alaska miles on Cathay Pacific to Asia, you only need to pay half the amount (50K) from the US to Asia in biz class.
Why would anyone pay double the amount?
Kind of old news. Available since before the pandemic. You pay a little more, but you don’t have to deal with KF.
@JL uhmmm, because CX is barely flying and keeps cancelling flights, HKG is too risky to transit through because of extreme Covid-zero rules. But yeah, sure, other than that, who wouldn’t want to fly CX /s
Flew back from Australia last month on them using Alaska miles…SYD-SIN-SFO in J. 125K each for myself, wife, and daughter.
There were seats from the US to Sydney and Brisbane through Singapore months ago and now for the Fall it seems to have all dried up.It was 145 k one way
Still less that United and mots of the time American by far
I used this to book JFK-SIN-JFK on the A350 direct flight in biz last month. There was availability showing that no other partner could book!
LAX-SIN-HAN; it is a little pricey – but a nice way to go. Frequent Miler has a good post on AS Singapore redemptions.
Also even at the ridiculous 109k..it’s almost always a stupid mixed class itinerary.. Lax to NRT in business and then in coach.. Qatar is even more ridiculous at 200k.. I miss Emirates partnership with Alaska…it was only 82.5k miles to Asia business one way. Alaska miles are not as useful anymore and this is why they have a sale on miles almost every other month
Some of it is phantom, will not ticket when you try. Seems to be issue with as/sq systems.
Singapore Air Business class has gotten much worse lately. I flew SIN to SEA in Biz class a few months ago and had a terrible experience.
1. No champagne/welcome drink upon taking your seat
2. No amenity kit
3. Service was terrible. Once it took 35 mins to get my meal after I ordered it
4. No option to choose your meal combinations after you board. The flight attendants did not treat us with biz class service. Felt more like economy.
5. The cabin felt dark and the attendants did not check upon us as frequently as they should have. I had to call them twice for water and each time there was a 10 min wait. No apologies.
Singapore Business class, other than the flat seats is not really business class. I sense they got rid of their flight attendants after Covid and then rehired new employees that are not trained that well.
My CX award flight using AS to come back from New Zealand recently fell apart, had J to HKG and F to JFK. Akl-Hkg was pushed forward a day and First class dropped on all routes. Anyway, immediately booked 2 seats SIN-JFK for 100k each, very expensive but saved the day. 40k J via AA for Fiji to SIN I thought was pretty good though (10 hr flight)
I’ve taken advantage of Singapore Air redemptions on AS four times in the last few months. LAX-SIN and back. It’s worth it to me because CX availability is almost nonexistent from LAX, even on their own website.
On the “Available award flights” screen on the alaska air site (https://www.alaskaair.com/Shopping/Flights/Shop), I’m seeing flight option and their cost in points but only the “Main” column is showing points costs. The “Partner Business” and “First Class” columns are showing “N/A”. How can I see the pricing for singapore airlines business class flights with alaska points?
Was able to book BNE-BKK using AS miles in business class. Was more miles than some alternatives, but the other schedules kept blowing up, so was worth the extra. 65K per ticket.