Trip Notes: Singapore A380 Suites And 46 Hours In Paris
Related: May 2010 Trip Notes, Part 2: Paris
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I wrote on December 20th in my credit card lineup post that, “I’ve opened over 300 cards building a nest egg of over 10 million miles and points so that I can always hop on a plane, fly in first class somewhere, and stay in a 5 star resort without having to pay for it.”
As I was writing that I got bit by the travel bug and started planning the next trip…
More after the jump…
Sunday night, 12/23: Mimi agrees to let Rafi be spoiled by his awesome Bubby for a few nights, our first trip ever without him (thanks Mom!!!) Traveling without him felt really strange, but boy what a flashback it was to when traveling was light and easy.
I’ve been wanting to try out Singapore Airlines’ Suites Class on the A380 for years and just recently they started allowing people to book it using Singapore miles in saver class. You can transfer points from American Express Membership Rewards at a 1:1 ratio or from Starwood at a 20K:25K ratio.
The A380 flew between JFK and Singapore via Frankfurt until last Thursday and is taking a hiatus for a few months on this route, so I wanted to hop on a plane to try it out even if that came at the expense of being able to better plan out an itinerary. It is serving S. Fransisco-Hong Kong until late March at which point it will return to serving JFK-Frankfurt again.
The return flight time from Frankfurt to JFK is at 8:20 in the morning, which means it’s nearly impossible to get a connecting flight from most European cities, so I had to find another way home.
Originally the itinerary I held was using 4,500 BA Avios to get to JFK on AA, 53,375 Singapore miles to get to Frankfurt in Suites, and 50,000 United miles to get from Frankfurt to Paris, stopover in Paris for 2 nights, and then fly home to Cleveland via Zurich and Chicago on a Swiss A330 in business class.
However I spotted another option and decided to go with USAirways from Paris to Cleveland via Philadelphia so that we would save a stop and get home earlier on Thursday. I did debate the pluses and minuses of having superior service on Swiss versus saving a stop on USAirways, but the USAirways option would allow us to put Rafi in bed on Thursday so that won out.
A friend of mine booked his Singapore A380 Suites trip further in advance and was able to request and receive kosher wine and champagne aboard his flight. Kosher meal and kosher wine/champagne requests must be made more than 48 hours in advance, so they were not able to do anything for us, unfortunately.
In total for this trip I burned 9,000 BA Avios for 2 tickets to NYC , 114,750 Singapore miles+ $430 in fuel surcharges for 2 seats on the Suites flight, 100,000 United miles for 2 seats for the connecting flight to Paris and the return flight in business, and 44,000 Hyatt points for 2 nights at the Park Hyatt Paris, which otherwise would have cost over $2,000. You can transfer Ultimate Rewards points to BA, United, and Hyatt, and Membership Rewards or Starpoints to Singapore or BA.
I brought along an unlocked phone with an international SIM card from OneSimCard that works worldwide. I also had GrooveIP on my Galaxy Nexus, a free app for phone calls when you’re within a wifi zone. Other apps I used were Offline Dictionaries where I downloaded French and I downloaded Google Maps cache for Paris.
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