Cheapest ways to fly between Singapore and Europe using Miles/Points from Singapore cards

Have you been accumulating a lot of miles/points by using the best cards for your spending? In this article, I’ll be ranking the cheapest award flights to/from Europe that you can redeem your hard-earned credit card miles/points for.

Have a look at the other versions of this article, for the cheapest award flights to/from:

• North Asia (Japan, South Korea, China etc.)
• US/Canada (New York, Los Angeles, Vancouver etc.)

Singapore Credit Card Transfer Partners

Miles/Points from most credit cards can be transferred to KrisFlyer and Asia Miles. However, as shown in the table below, Citibank cards have many more transfer partners than most others, giving cardholders fantastic flexibility when redeeming for an award flight.

In the Miles Game, flexibility is very important. For this reason, when deciding which card to transact with (between cards with similar earn rates), I recommend picking Citi and HSBC cards over the others.

P.S. Although AMEX has many transfer partners too, they do not have any good cards for earning miles/points.

Frequent Flyer Program	Citibank	HSBC	OCBC	DBS	UOB	Maybank	American Express	Standard Chartered
Singapore Airlines KrisFlyer
Cathay Pacific Asia Miles
EVA Air Infinity MileageLands
Qatar Airways Privilege Club		(via BA Executive Club)					(via BA Executive Club)
British Airways Executive Club
Finnair Plus	(via BA Executive Club)	(via BA Executive Club)					(via BA Executive Club)
KLM/Air France Flying Blue
Qantas Frequent Flyer
Turkish Airlines Miles&Smiles
Thai Airways Royal Orchid Plus
Etihad Guest
Malaysia Airlines Enrich
Vietnam Airlines Lotusmiles
Air Canada Aeroplan
United Airlines MileagePlus
Hainan Airlines Fortune Wings Club
Vistara Club Vistara
Japan Airlines Mileage Bank
Emirates Skywards
China Airlines Dynasty Flyer
Marriott Bonvoy
Hilton Honors
Accor Live Limitless
IHG One Rewards
= Poor transfer ratio

Frequent Flyer Programs and Partner Airlines

These are the top 7 Frequent Flyer Programs (FFPs) that Singapore credit cardholders should consider, when booking award flights between Singapore and Europe:

Miles/Points from every airline’s FFP can also be redeemed for flights on partner airlines.

For example, miles in Turkish Airlines Miles&Smiles can be redeemed for flights on its Star Alliance partners like Singapore Airlines, Thai Airways and Lufthansa.

Star Alliance

Here are some Star Alliance airlines that you can fly in, between Singapore and Europe:

• Singapore Airlines
• Turkish Airlines
• Thai Airways
• EVA Air
• SWISS
• Lufthansa
• Air India

oneworld

Here are some oneworld airlines that you can fly in, between Singapore and Europe:

• Cathay Pacific
• Qatar Airways
• Finnair
• British Airways
• Sri Lankan Airlines

SkyTeam

Here are some SkyTeam airlines that you can fly in, between Singapore and Europe:

• KLM
• Air France
• Garuda

Cheapest ways to fly between Singapore and Europe

The award rates shown below are only for the lowest rates available on each FFP, ignoring low-value “Advantage”, “Flexi” or “non-promotional” rates that some FFPs offer.

Economy Class

Travellers are usually advised against redeeming miles/points for Economy Class flights as they can often get far better value on Premium classes. For example, Business Class flights from Singapore to Europe cost as much as 500% more in cash (vs Economy), but only require as little as 50% more in miles.

However, travellers who can only travel during peak holiday seasons (when Business Class availability is bad), or have a large family to redeem for can still get good value by redeeming their miles/points for Economy Class flights on some airlines/FFPs, especially when the cash fares are very high.

Here are the cheapest ways to travel between Singapore and Europe, in Economy Class, using miles/points from Singapore credit cards:

Premium Economy

This is a smaller list, as not all airlines have Premium Economy seats on flights to/from Singapore. On top of that, not all FFPs have the Premium Economy class listed in their award charts.

Here are the cheapest ways to travel between Singapore and Europe, in Premium Economy Class, using miles/points from Singapore credit cards:

Business Class

Here are the cheapest ways to travel between Singapore and Europe, in Business Class, using miles/points from Singapore credit cards:

First Class

This is also a small list as not all airlines have First Class seats on flights to/from Singapore, and not all FFPs allow booking of First Class awards for partner airlines.

Here are the cheapest ways to travel between Singapore and Europe, in First Class, using miles/points from Singapore credit cards:

Why are some taxes/fees so high?

The taxes and fees on award flights depend on a number of factors:

1. Airport fees (United Kingdom airports charge over S$300 in “Air Passenger Duty” for long haul flights in a Premium cabin)
2. Whether the airline carries fuel surcharges (e.g. Singapore Airlines, Finnair and Air India do not)
3. Whether the FFP passes on fuel surcharges (e.g. KrisFlyer does not, but only on Singapore Airlines flights)
4. The amount of fuel surcharges (e.g. EVA Air has fairly low fuel surcharges, but Qatar Airways has much more, for a similar flight distance)
5. Other additional FFP/airline fees (e.g. Privilege Club charges additional fee per award segment, depending on cabin class)

Should you only aim for redemptions with low taxes/fees? The short answer is no.

In some cases, the FFP-airline combination that has lower taxes/fees, also has a much higher mileage requirement.

For example, a traveller can redeem 75k miles + ~S$300 in taxes/fees for Qatar Airways Business Class flights on Privilege Club. With KrisFlyer, the traveller would need 103.5k miles + ~S$62. In short, that’s S$238 less cash for 28.5k more miles (worth S$533)!

While Privilege Club may look like a clear winner here, there are other factors that can influence your decision, because everyone’s a different traveller:

1. Is there award availability on your preferred route/date/airline/class?
2. Do you only want to fly direct?
3. Does the airline fly to your preferred destination?
4. Do you care about the values of miles?
5. Are you earning miles much faster than you have time to redeem them?
6. Do you have miles that are expiring very soon?
7. Are there any special transfer bonus or award discount offers?
8. Do you prefer the seat/food/service on some airlines?
9. Do you feel the need to “make good use” of your airline status by sticking to a particular airline/alliance?

How to search for award space

To check if there is award availability, travellers can visit the respective FFPs’ website. However, most of them are really slow, as they only allow users to search date-by-date or week-by-week.

Search faster with calendar views

For oneworld flights, travellers can search for partner award availability much faster through the calendar view on American Airlines’ website.

For Star Alliance, this can be done on Avianca Lifemiles’ website. However, I do not find the calendar view to be very accurate in displaying award availability.

Use these websites only as a guide and ignore the mileage requirements that are listed. When you see availability, repeat the search on the website of your preferred FFP.

Do note that some FFPs, like KrisFlyer and Infinity MileageLands, may release more award seats on their own airlines. This means that members will not be able to see the additional award availability on partner websites like AAdvantage or Lifemiles.

Independent award search engines

Travellers can also find near-term award availability across different FFPs, airlines or alliances through independent search engines like seats.aero and awardfares.com.

Again, use these websites only as a guide and repeat the search on the website of your preferred FFPs.

Get alerted when there is award space

Travellers can also receive alerts when there is award availability on their preferred date and route, with paid services from websites like expertflyer.com and seatspy.com.

Bottom line

The “best” award redemption depends almost entirely on your preferences. There is no right answer.

Travellers who earn flexible miles/points through their credit cards will always have the upper hand in finding award availability across multiple FFPs.

I hope that this article gave you the required knowledge to make the best decisions to suit your travel needs, when redeeming miles/points for flights between Singapore and Europe.