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Because you can use any type of Star Alliance miles to book any Star Alliance flight, I’ve put the eight best Star Alliance award charts into one spreadsheet. Check out why I chose these eight award charts and how Americans can get these miles here. Check out the cheapest awards within the mainland USA, to Canada, to Hawaii, and to Alaska, the cheapest awards to Latin America and the Caribbean, the cheapest awards to Europe, the cheapest awards to Africa and the Middle East, and the cheapest awards to North Asia.
Today let’s look at the cheapest Star Alliance Awards to Southeast Asia.
Remember, the spread sheets in this post only capture one part of an award: its mileage price. The routing rules and fuel surcharges matter too. Where relevant, I will note those as we go through the regions, but here are a two big things that apply to all charts:
- United, Copa, and LifeMiles never collect fuel surcharges. All the others collect fuel surcharges on most awards.
- All programs allow one way redemptions for the prices listed on the charts except ANA. It only allows roundtrip redemptions for double the price on the chart. I used its fictitious “one way price” that you can’t actually book just to more easily compare to the programs that do allow one way bookings.
Cheapest Awards to Southeast Asia
For awards starting in the mainland United States and flying to Southeast Asia, these are the prices:
I’ve only included the award chart for flying United partners since United only flies to Singapore in the region
Fuel Surcharges
United, Copa, and LifeMiles don’t collect fuel surcharges on award tickets.
Asiana, ANA, and Singapore don’t collect fuel surcharges on awards on United-operated flights. They do collect fuel surcharges on all other flights that have fuel surcharges as part of a normal cash ticket.
Lufthansa collects fuel surcharges on all flights that have fuel surcharges as part of a normal cash ticket.
Aeroplan collects fuel surcharges on Air Canada, ANA, Thai, and Asiana flights. Aeroplan does not collect fuel surcharges on Air China, Singapore, and United flights.
You can figure out the fuel surcharges by calling the airline whose miles you want to use or just looking on ITA Matrix. Take fuel surcharges into account when determining which miles to use.
Best Deals
ANA has by far the cheapest awards (remember that ANA awards must be roundtrip), but you will pay fuel surcharges unless you fly United. United Business Class for 115,000 miles roundtrip from the United States to Singapore is a steal. ANA’s prices are so low, fuel surcharges may even be worth paying. You can go to Southeast Asia for 115,000 miles roundtrip in Business Class, when the cheapest fuel-surcharge-free award is 156,000 LifeMiles.
If you want to completely avoid fuel surcharges, book with United miles. You can pay 80,000 miles one way in Business Class.
If you don’t mind buying miles, LifeMiles offers fair prices to Southeast Asia with no fuel surcharges.
Searching and Booking the Awards
A truism of miles is that–with few exceptions–award space is equally available to all partners. One corollary is that you can search any award search engine that displays an airline’s award space, and if space is there, you can book it with any partner.
All Star Alliance partner award space is searchable on aeroplan.com. Here’s how to search for award space on aeroplan.com. All the award space you find there is bookable with all the miles discussed in this post. Ignore the price quoted on aeroplan.com. You will pay the price on the award chart of the miles you’re using.
To book, call the airline whose miles you’re using (or go to their website to book online if you can.) Feed the agent the award space you found on aeroplan.com.
Getting the Miles
ANA miles, United miles, and LifeMiles are the best to Southeast Asia.
ANA miles are a 1:1 transfer partner of SPG Starpoints (or 20k Starpoints to 25k ANA miles), and a 1:1 transfer partner of American Express Membership Rewards.
United miles can be earned on the personal, business, and Club cards from Chase. United is also a transfer partner of Chase Ultimate Rewards.
LifeMiles can be purchased. Right now, they are on sale for a very cheap 1.4 cents each.
Bottom Line
ANA offers really cheap awards to Southeast Asia that are all the more attractive if you can avoid fuel surcharges by flying United. Otherwise, United’s chart to the region in partner Business Class is fair, and there are no fuel surcharges on any United awards. If you want to fly ANA or Asiana First Class, I’d book with LifeMiles.
For the most part, all Star Alliance partners have access to the same award space on all airlines. There are differences in routing rules and fuel surcharges, so pay attention to more than just the mileage price when deciding which miles to use to book your award.
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Editorial Disclaimer: The editorial content is not provided or commissioned by the credit card issuers. Opinions expressed here are the author’s alone, not those of the credit card issuers, and have not been reviewed, approved or otherwise endorsed by the credit card issuers.
The comments section below is not provided or commissioned by the bank advertiser. Responses have not been reviewed, approved, or otherwise endorsed by the bank advertiser. It is not the bank advertiser’s responsibility to ensure all questions are answered.
Best Star Alliance miles to travel within Southeast Asia? Will be there in Feb, and will need to hop on flights between Hong Kong, Chiang Mai, and Kuala Lampur. Maybe it’s better to just pay for LCC flights? (ie AirAsia, Dragon Air, etc)
Cash is almost certainly going to be a better deal. Tons of LCC carriers there.
Very useful charts. One clarification, however – Your chart indicates Aeroplan awards at 45, but it depends on which country you’re traveling to. Coming from mainland USA or Canada, Aeroplan treats some southeast Asia destinations (Thailand, Singapore, Vietnam) As Asia 1, which is 75 roundtrip or 37.5 one-way, while the rest are Asia 2 at 90 (45 one-way). Since Aeroplan allows stopovers, we have flown to both Singapore and Vietnam on the same Asia 1 award for 75,000 miles, using mostly Singapore Airlines. For travel to other parts of southeast Asia, we’ve found it cheapest to use Aeroplan awards (using surcharge-free airlines, of course) to a major Asia 1 hub such as Singapore or Bangkok, then use cheap fares on Air Asia to go farther afield.
Keep up the good work.
My home airport is Honolulu. Best way to fly to Southeast Asia from Hawaii ( business or first only)? Final destination is India. Many mahalos!
India is not Southeast Asia. It is a separate region on all award charts. I do not know the answer off the top of my head. Check out the charts of the airlines in this post. All are very easy to google.
Flying economy class on Singapore Airlines from N. America to Singapore requires only 35,000 miles. True? But your table shows 55,000 miles.
My table shows prices on Singapore’s chart for Star Alliance partners.
It looks like typical flights have pretty low surcharges to Asia, from $40 – 100 but occasionally goes to $200, so using ANA or Lufthansa miles would appear to be the best deal. I tested some random dates and destinations. I probably wouldn’t waste SPG points on Asiana miles with that long of a delay, and save them for Alaska or AA transfers.
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