Singapore Airlines Business Class Loophole

As someone who’s into frequent flyer points, I spend an unhealthy amount of time searching for flights, pricing and interesting routes.

Last month Air New Zealand announced they would launch a direct flight from Auckland to Singapore starting March 27th, which seems to open a new “loophole” to save some miles.

As it turns out, Air New Zealand is a Star Alliance member — groundbreaking; I know!

• Tip: looking for a Singapore Airlines KrisFlyer credit card? Here’s our list of the best KrisFlyer credit cards in Australia

Singapore Airlines Star Alliance Award Chart

Singapore Airlines has a pretty interesting Star Alliance award chart. Its award chart for Star Alliance flights has New Zealand and Australia in 1 category.

However, here’s where the loophole comes in. If you do a mixed airline redemption involving Singapore Airlines, the Star Alliance chart will be enforced. This means that even if you have a stop in Singapore….the same price remains.

The “Loophole”

Since Air New Zealand is now flying from Singapore, you can effectively book Australia-Singapore-New Zealand for just 31,000 KrisFlyer miles 1 one + $167.30 in taxes.

This is insane value! Consider for a minute Perth to Singapore costs 36,500 in business and Perth-Singapore-Auckland costs 98,500 KrisFlyer miles if you fly Singapore Airlines, you get the idea!

This means you could essentially even book this if your only intention is to travel to Singapore and abandon the second flight to Air New Zealand. By doing so, you would save 5,500 KrisFlyer miles!

Available from other Australian cities?

From my research, I could only get this flight to price up when departing from Perth. However, I think it should be possible when done over the phone via Sydney/Melbourne/Adelaide/Brisbane, which would be a huge saving even if you just wanted to fly to Singapore!

What other options are there?

Potentially you could try this trick for any of the countries listed under “Southwest-Pacific”, which include: Australia, Cook Islands, Fiji, New Zealand, Niue, Norfolk Island, Samoa, Tahiti, Tonga, Vanuatu.

However, I couldn’t price up any of these options and it might not even be possible.

Summing Up

This is a fun little loophole for those of us who either like going “the long way around” or, if you want to get to Singapore, saving some points. It’s unlikely this will last long because Air New Zealand is notoriously stingy with award space, so even now, the flights available are sporadic at best!