SYD-LHR Jan 2017 - How Best to Book?

[smd100]

Hello All - I am planning some travel SYD-LHR to visit the family at around 18th Jan with my partner and infant daughter who will be 7 months old at the time of flying.

My partner and I have been saving/acquiring velocity points and we have total of 278,958 -not a great deal but better than nothing

I was hoping to get some suggestions about how best to use these points to make our $$$ expenditure at a minimum

Thanking you

smd100

 

[Lemon_Party]

Your two main options are SQ or EY. You have enough points to both fly one way business or return trip in economy I think. SQ taxes and fees will probably be a little cheaper than etihad following the new charges.

Check out point hacks for detailed guides Our Velocity guides updated with new June 2016 changes: a summary - Point Hacks

Availability for rewards seats on SQ is generally better through Krisflyer and you can transfer your VA points there.

If it was me, I'd book business back to UK and pay for a flight back. Cheapest option for you will be economy award flights...

 

[bwhouse]

I would agree with Lemon_party and go one-way business and then pay for the flight back, however by warned one-way fares from the UK are not cheap. By the time you pay taxes for you Business fare and the one way paid fare you are probably going to be above what you would pay for a discount return economy ticket.

I was recently looking for one-way fares from the UK and they were coming in at close to 1300AUD per person, which is crazy when you can get return for that! So I ended up using some life miles to get back home.

You will need to double check but from memory with SQ you need to pay 10% of the ticket price to add an infant to an award booking, I am not sure what the deal with infants and EY is though.

 

[Moindardt]

Why not 2 J return to somewhere like Singapore and then cheap flights to London. You may also find it cheaper to book return flights from somewhere like Oslo than a one way from London. Malaysian quite often have $900 one way from bkk-syd.

 

[Milboo]

If you're going to pay that for a one way fare then why not look at booking Y on SQ then upgrading to J on points. Will need to transfer them to KF, book the less restrictive fare class and line up upgrade availability.

That way you get J both ways for not much more than a one way Y ticket. Plus you get points and SC for the flights.

 

[bwhouse]

If you're going to pay that for a one way fare then why not look at booking Y on SQ then upgrading to J on points. Will need to transfer them to KF, book the less restrictive fare class and line up upgrade availability.

That way you get J both ways for not much more than a one way Y ticket. Plus you get points and SC for the flights.

If my math is correct you won't have enough points, upgrades from Y to J are 75k KF points for saver awards, so assuming you get the 15% online discount (do you actually get that on upgrades?) it will be 344k VFF points for 2 pax both ways.

A return to BKK or SIN in business and then purchasing an economy round trip is probably the best bet I reckon if you want to avoid the steep one-way fare from Europe, or a couple of CC sign up bonuses

 

[Lemon_Party]

I was recently looking for one-way fares from the UK and they were coming in at close to 1300AUD per person, which is crazy when you can get return for that

I saw some Thai return economy fares to Europe for sub $1000 the other day, maybe secret flyer website. And etihad had a 20% discount code giving $1200 ish return economy fares. Crazy low.

 

[darraghk]

A real benefit of using Velocity points on EY is the infant flies for free, no points required. The new surcharge they just implemented is a real bummer though.
I am not sure about whether you can add an infant to a booking on SQ with points or wether you have to pay the dreaded 10% of the fare.

 

[smd100]

Thanks for the replies!

i managed to get 2 X one way business class fares SYD-LHR for 278,000 points all up flying SQ A380 with the infant travelling free which I'm pretty happy with and includes one night stopover

I'll pay for flights home and take in SIN for 3 days on the way back!

smd100