The U.K. has approved Pfizer’s Covid-19 vaccine. The head of the federal government’s vaccine efforts says the U.S. will have 150 million doses a month in March, April, May and enough vaccine for everyone in the country to have been vaccinated by June.
There’s a real hope we’ll be through the pandemic in the U.S. in the near future, and I think it’s reasonable to think about international travel again. Parts of the world will see vaccination on similar schedules, though it may be the end of 2022 before there are enough doses for 7 billion people. Still, many countries will re-open at least to those who have been vaccinated.
I’m making several bookings, all admittedly still speculative, and for that I love using miles where I can cancel and redeposit rather than leaving cash on the table held by airlines without a change fee. I’m really excited about the possibility of returning to Southeast Asia – I’m hungry for great laksa, prawn mee soup, chili crab and more.
So it’s nice to see how much award space is open on Singapore Airlines non-stops from the U.S. While two business class seats are common throughout 2021, in August and September there’s a wide variety of days on the Los Angeles – Singapore route where four business class saver award seats are available.
In order to book these seats you’ll need to use Singapore’s own KrisFlyer miles. Fortunately those are easy to access because Singapore is a transfer partner of all of the major U.S. bank currencies (Chase, American Express, Citibank and Capital One). Singapore Airlines charges 95,000 miles per person each way, with no fuel surcharges
It’s not clear when Singapore will re-open to visitors (but you can transit Singapore to a destination accepting Americans). Nonetheless it seems a good bet to book out nearly a year into the future, especially since four business class awards non-stop to Asia is such a great find.
I am dying to travel to Asia again too and it’s anyone’s guess what things will look like a year from now but I think Singapore will be among the last countries to open and when they do it will be with the strictest of rules. If I was going to book speculatively a trip to Asia it would be to a country more hungry for tourism income.
@ Gary — And, don’t forget this — https://viewfromthewing.com/15-bonus-on-transfers-from-chase-amex-citi-and-capital-one-to-singapore-airlines/
This is my favorite AMEX MR redemption, and I might transfer some points before December 27 now that travel on an SQ award within 3 years seems like a certainty.
Hey. Singapore. GOOD TO SEE YOU. We’ll travel to you if you let us.
We are not going to be through the pandemic in “the near future”. The US continues to set daily records in number of hospitalizations and this month it looks like we me be hitting 3k+ dead every single day from COVID. This is going to continue for months. Don’t expect other countries to welcome Americans with open arms. Its naïve to think everyone will be vaccinated by June. Remember when they said everyone who wants a covid test can get one? Chances are we won’t see normal again until 2022.
Singapore business class is nice but their first class is what really shines. What’s the status on award availability there?
Singapore airlines is the last airline I would transfer CC rewards to. I think its going to be at least a year maybe more before one can travel there. I cashed my Singapore miles out for an iPhone on Krisflyer shops at 0.5 cpp. Crappy redemption but better than having them expire I guess.
Steven – legit Q as I don’t use SIA / Am a OW FF. Don’t they have some kind of retention short cut?
For Avios u just need to add at least 1 every 36 months and that can be done via online shopping with thousands of retailers ( ie not tied to an airline store front).
Just thought that route would be a better one than taking such a hit on a sales conversion.
As I said no knowledge of how they work so genuinely interested and have to say it sucks / os very in customer friendly if they don’t have a miles retention ‘easy get out/ keep your miles’ system as BA/ OW do.
You can transit SIN right now ex USA. Just need to travel from LA or NY to one of the places listed on approved transit destination list and transit pax are kept in sterile transit area and don’t mix in main terminal areas.
https://www.singaporeair.com/saar5/pdf/media-centre/201201TableforCitiesApprovedforTransit.pdf
Too much of a crap shoot to me given SQ’s expiration policy. Cancellations for this year have already left me too many miles sitting in various programs. If I already had SQ miles this would be great but I am not speculatively transferring to AF, SQ, or ANA right now given their unforgiving policies.
What are change/redeposit fees are SQ award tickets? Have they reduced/eliminated these at all due to COVID?
@Larry.
So true for those unforgiving programs. A friend is in such situation – their AF awards were canceled and the miles would expire… BUT, it seems if you have BofA’s AF Credit Card, the AF miles would not expire. So that is what they have done, got the credit cards. He has another problem – AsiaMile which were from the time before CX modified the program – all the old miles before the program changed to better expiry policy, would still be at 3 years hard expiration – right now it seems if an award booked with those miles is canceled, then you get one time courtesy extension for one year. The problem though, it is very difficult to find awards to book so they could use up the miles…
Do not for see much of any travel for the U.S. to internationally any to e soon. Before the covid-19 there were 35 countries that did not want Americans and hated them. Now with the hights number of cases of covid-19 ot is more countries rejecting the U.S. travelers. I have flown on SQ several times to Asian countries and it was rewarding. Was planning 3 trips this year but the Asian countries I intended to visit are closed to Americans and may be for at least for 2 years. The new president intends to for the first 100 days requiring masks when outside your ho e with felony charges if not wearing one and total lock down. Sad to see.