Transferring Amex rewards points to Velocity or KrisFlyer?

[gourmet333]

I’m hoping to go to the uk in December and I have enough Velocity points to get me from either Mel to Sin (29,000 points plus taxes) or Sin to LHR (50,000 plus taxes) but not both.
I also have about 400k Amex points and I’m in a quandary as to whether to transfer some of them to Velocity or to KrisFlyer so I can buy the other leg. I think the date I want will come online in a week. I’m velocity gold if that’s relevant.
Is one more beneficial than the other? It’s the same exchange rate ie 2 Amex points = 1 airline ff point. But I seem to remember if you transfer velocity points to KrisFlyer it’s a 3 to 2 exchange.
Any help gratefully received (I’m reasonably au fair with Qantas classic rewards ins and outs but new to the Velocity rewards stuff).

 

[Bell21]

Are you looking to travel in economy or business? I would personally wait to see what's available before transferring, esp if you're only booking for one, and then transfer. When transferring to sQ, it's always worth bearing the 3 year expiry rule in mind in case plans change.

My view would be if you're travelling economy, then I'm not sure it matters much - if you want to travel business (or premium), then SQ is a better bet. As a rule, I find lots of economy rewards on Virgin when I look, but not much business, whereas SQ tends to be more generous (and has both cheaper and more expensive J reward seats to give more options), even if less so in recent times.

The exchange between VFF and KF is the same in both directions.

Note - you can of course book SQ reward flights using VFF points and vice versa, so that's something to bear in mind as well!

 

[hossein_au]

May I ask why you want/prefer to book MEL-SIN and SIN-LHR separately? Unless you have a specific reason, one multi-leg ticket would usually need less points than multiple separate tickets.

 

[gourmet333]

May I ask why you want/prefer to book MEL-SIN and SIN-LHR separately? Unless you have a specific reason, one multi-leg ticket would usually need less points than multiple separate tickets.

As I want to stay a couple of nights in Singapore I assumed I would have to make 2 bookings. On the Virgin website it doesn’t seem to give a multi city option for international flights, just domestic ones.

 

[hossein_au]

As I want to stay a couple of nights in Singapore I assumed I would have to make 2 bookings. On the Virgin website it doesn’t seem to give a multi city option for international flights, just domestic ones.

If you book with SQ, you get the option of paying about $100 to add a stop over in Singapore. This may or may not be worth it to you (versus booking 2 separate tickets with more points).

 

[gourmet333]

Are you looking to travel in economy or business? I would personally wait to see what's available before transferring, esp if you're only booking for one, and then transfer. When transferring to sQ, it's always worth bearing the 3 year expiry rule in mind in case plans change.

My view would be if you're travelling economy, then I'm not sure it matters much - if you want to travel business (or premium), then SQ is a better bet. As a rule, I find lots of economy rewards on Virgin when I look, but not much business, whereas SQ tends to be more generous (and has both cheaper and more expensive J reward seats to give more options), even if less so in recent times.

The exchange between VFF and KF is the same in both directions.

Note - you can of course book SQ reward flights using VFF points and vice versa, so that's something to bear in mind as well!

Thanks that's good advice.
Probably economy on the first leg and if I was able to find a seat, then Business for the Sin-LHR segment. Because my dates aren't live yet I can't tell if there is any awards Saver B Class availability. If I find some I'll have to hurriedly transfer some AMEX points to Krisflyer and hope the seats are still there when I go to book. Or just book directly with VFF. It looks like it costs less with KF ie SIN - LHR with VFF is 50K points plus taxes and with KF awards saver it's 42K points plus taxes but the saver option is waitlist with KF and it's 70,000 for an advantage reward. It's soooo complicated

 

[Bell21]

There's always a bit of a risk balance in these situations, but it will probably unclutter your decisions if you wait for seats to become available, as that may help make the decision for you, esp if you're flexible what category you fly in and what date - I find AMEX rewards, as a rule, are quick to transfer points (eg, within 1 business day, occasionally 2 days at the outside), even if their 'rules' say it could be quite a bit longer.

 

[Bell21]

Btw you should really look into hossein-au's advice above as well when tickets available, for a few reasons - 1) it saves points used (which sounds like it could be important for you), 2) it's always better to have flights on the one ticket whereever possible, and 3) I found with SQ that sometimes you can generate a greater range of options if looking at stop-overs in SIN (not always though).

 

[PeterE]

Also look at MAN as destination. It’s just a two hour trip to London and the station is on site. Good connections to just about anywhere