According to The Lazy Traveler’s Handbook (and shared by Million Mile Secrets) you can find extremely rare award space for Singapore Airlines Suites Class on routes from the United States. It’s still not there on every single day, but a few days per month are better than nothing.
Singapore Airlines operates an A380 with Suites Class from Los Angeles to Tokyo and from New York (JFK) to Frankfurt. Both flights continue onward to Singapore. Of course, there are other routes served by the A380, but many readers of this blog are based in North America, and award availability on these particular flights is more difficult to find.
The least expensive option is to fly from New York to Frankfurt for 57,375 miles, but for such a short journey I don’t think it’s a good value. I would almost be willing to fly coach between the East Coast and Europe. However, Los Angeles to Tokyo is just 74,375 miles one-way, after taking into account a 15% discount for booking KrisFlyer awards online (the first price you’ll see is 87,500 miles).
Amol wrote a very popular review of the LAX-NRT route and the NRT-SIN route if you want to learn more about the Suites Class experience. Connecting onward to Singapore would cost a total of 91,375 miles. I have been to both cities and personally think that Singapore is the more exciting one, but both Tokyo and Singapore are fun destinations in Asia.
To book Singapore Airlines awards, you’ll need to have a KrisFlyer account and enough miles. The miles can be transferred from Starwood Preferred Guest, Chase Ultimate Rewards, Citi ThankYou Rewards, and American Express Membership Rewards. All programs transfer at a 1-to-1 ratio, although you get 20% more miles if you transfer a block of 20,000 SPG Starpoints. (Be warned: it’s possible the award space will disappear before the transfer takes place, but KrisFlyer is generally a good program for booking other travel on Singapore Airlines and its Star Alliance partners, including United Airlines.)
I have not yet written my series on how to find and book Singapore Airlines award flights. However, this motivates me to finish the job — just as soon as I wrap up Delta. Meanwhile, visit the KrisFlyer website to get started; it is not terribly complicated. Log in, click on “Book a Flight” and then check the box for “Redeem flights.”
Keep in mind the prices in this post are only for itineraries that include Singapore Airlines-operated flights, so I recommend you use miles or cash to book a separate positioning flight if you don’t live near a Singapore Airlines gateway.
