Questions and Answers

I am making myself crazy trying to figure out where to transfer my Thank you points for later use – most likely Europe or Asia.
I think I’ve narrowed it down to Air France, Cathay or Singapore. I ruled out Ethiad as it appears they’re difficult to book with. Don’t know much about Avianca. I’d be very grateful for input on which one offers best redemption value for international travel from US, hopefully business class or higher in consideration of fuel surcharges, ease of booking and perhaps miles expiration date in their program.

I’m assuming this is because you’re canceling your citi card? Otherwise, it’s of course best to wait until you’ve found an actual award ticket and then transfer miles to that specific program.

Having said that, both cathay and singapore would be good possibilities. Cathay offers discounts on round-trip flights and you could get good value if you can find awards using their special one-world chart (ie, multiple one-world carriers). I love singapore, award availability is generally great — especially on their “special” routes (eg, lax-icn, iah-man, jfk-fra). I wouldn’t consider Air France right now because there’s a lot of uncertainty about upcoming changes to award redemption rates, so your points might lose value.

Honestly I don’t know much about avianca (lifemiles), except I understand they offer frequent sales on miles, so that could be useful to top-up your account.

[QUOTE=”Andy 11235, post: 53887, member: 3494″]I’m assuming this is because you’re canceling your citi card? Otherwise, it’s of course best to wait until you’ve found an actual award ticket and then transfer miles to that specific program.

Having said that, both cathay and singapore would be good possibilities. Cathay offers discounts on round-trip flights and you could get good value if you can find awards using their special one-world chart (ie, multiple one-world carriers). I love singapore, award availability is generally great — especially on their “special” routes (eg, lax-icn, iah-man, jfk-fra). I wouldn’t consider Air France right now because there’s a lot of uncertainty about upcoming changes to award redemption rates, so your points might lose value.

Honestly I don’t know much about avianca (lifemiles), except I understand they offer frequent sales on miles, so that could be useful to top-up your account.[/QUOTE]

This is very helpful – Thanks so much!

Once your miles hit SQ, you have 3 years before the expire with no free way to reinstate them. However, they are a good option. Lifemiles is good in that you can purchase more miles when you book awards, instead of using all your miles. If you transfer miles here, it’s a good way to stretch out your miles a little. However, I’m not sure what the expiration on miles there. ASia miles is good too – they have a distance based award chart and there are some good redemptions to be had. Etihad’s awards are easy enough to book for travel on their own metal.

I was in your situation a year ago and I transferred the points to SQ and booked a ticket for travel on ANA F.

Keep in mind that with Asia Miles you only get one connection each way. I tried to price PVG-HKG-ORD-BNA for some friends and the agent said it would be two awards because of the “one connection” rule. That might be fine if you live in a large, gateway city – not-so-good if you don’t.

[QUOTE=”MidSouth Skier, post: 53915, member: 184″]Keep in mind that with Asia Miles you only get one connection each way. I tried to price PVG-HKG-ORD-BNA for some friends and the agent said it would be two awards because of the “one connection” rule. That might be fine if you live in a large, gateway city – not-so-good if you don’t.[/QUOTE]

Thanks for sharing this information – It is something to consider.

[QUOTE=”David W, post: 53902, member: 29″]Once your miles hit SQ, you have 3 years before the expire with no free way to reinstate them. However, they are a good option. Lifemiles is good in that you can purchase more miles when you book awards, instead of using all your miles. If you transfer miles here, it’s a good way to stretch out your miles a little. However, I’m not sure what the expiration on miles there. ASia miles is good too – they have a distance based award chart and there are some good redemptions to be had. Etihad’s awards are easy enough to book for travel on their own metal.

I was in your situation a year ago and I transferred the points to SQ and booked a ticket for travel on ANA F.[/QUOTE]

Thank you David – dumb question: what is SQ?

Not a dumb question!

SQ is the two letter code representing Singapore Airlines.