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My friend just booked a Singapore Airlines award with two stopovers, one destination, and one open jaw. He’ll be hopping through the Americas for six weeks for 60,000 miles and $123.
I’m especially keen to highlight this award because:
- it’s interesting
- easy to copy
- similar to awards I’ve written about theoretically
- Singapore miles are the easiest to amass. Singapore KrisFlyer is a 1:1 transfer partner of American Express, Chase and Citi.
Singapore Routing Rules
The type of miles you use determine the rules your award has to follow. He chose to use Singapore miles because of their great stopover rules. Unfortunately, it meant he was limited to six segments total.
Full Singapore Award Routing Rules
Relevant rules:
- Singapore Airlines allows six segments per award.
- Singapore allows one free stopover per roundtrip award and up to three additional stopovers for $100 each.
- Singapore does not allow a stopover on one way awards.
- Singapore allows one open jaw per roundtrip award.
- Singapore Airlines is a member of the Star Alliance with access to Saver award space on all 27 airlines.
The Plan
My friend spends the South American summers in Buenos Aires. He wanted to visit family in Los Angeles over Christmas. He briefly toyed with heading to Hawaii, which is very possible on an award like this, and it even drops the price, but decided instead to focus on breaking up his journey with a stopover in each direction.
Since you probably don’t live in Buenos Aires, just imagine he lives in Los Angeles and wants to go to Buenos Aires with a stopover in each direction to make this more analogous to an award most Americans would want to book.
This award between the United States and South America costs 60,000 miles roundtrip in economy and 100,000 in business according to the Singapore award chart. United charges the same 60,000 miles roundtrip in economy, but 110,000 roundtrip in business.
In addition to the destination Los Angeles, my friend wanted a stopover in each direction. The first one is free, the second is $100 on a Singapore award. United would just allow one stopover.
Singapore awards usually include fuel surcharges, but none of Singapore’s partners to South America–United, TACA, Avianca, or Copa–have fuel surcharges on their award flights booked with Singapore miles.
Routing
Copa Airlines offers a ton of award space from its hub in Panama City to 10 American cities and throughout Central and South America.
My friend decided to stopover in Panama City in one direction.
For the other direction, he got even more creative, checking all the direct flights out of Los Angeles on Star Alliance carriers on Wikipedia.
One that caught his eye was United’s flight to Cancun.
Unfortunately because of the six-segment limit on roundtrip Singapore awards, he’d probably need a direct flight on Copa from Cancun to Panama City to keep his segments total low. Wikipedia confirms there is such a flight.
Finally, he decided to return to Montevideo instead of Buenos Aires. Montevideo is just a short ferry ride away from Buenos Aires.
That left his routing like this with the minimum segments possible in parentheses:
- Buenos Aires to Panama City (1 segment) stopover 1
- Panama City to Los Angeles (1 segment) destination
- Los Angeles to Cancun (1 segment) stopover 2
- Cancun to Montevideo (2 segments) open jaw between origin and destination
This award is valid with one segment to spare (that he’d end up using because of less than ideal search results.) It should cost 60,000 Singapore miles total in economy plus government taxes plus $100 for the second stopover in Cancun.
The Execution
All the Star Alliance partners that fly in the Americas are searchable on united.com. Here’s how to search united.com.
The idea is to search all four “parts” of the award–separated by bullet points above–separately. If he found Saver economy award space, he would note the date and flight number, and later feed that to a Singapore phone agent. Singapore Airlines can book all the Saver award space of Star Alliance carriers found on united.com.
I’d strongly recommend performing these searches one way at a time instead of trying to save time by cramming them into a multi-city award search on united.com. You will just get error messages at worst and see fewer search results at best.
Searching one way at a time several months ago, he had success finding economy award space on all legs. His only hiccup was that he didn’t find direct award space from Panama City to Los Angeles, instead he’s connecting in Las Vegas on a combination of Copa and United flights.
I just did a quick award search of the four parts of his award, and you can see there is excellent Business Class award space and good economy award space.
Buenos Aires to Panama
I limited the search to direct flights. Business Class award space (blue days) is widely available, while only February 23 has economy award space. My friend found economy award space when he searched, so the pattern of availability may have changed, or he may have been lucky.
Panama to Los Angeles
This is the calendar for Copa’s three direct flights only. There is plenty of space in both cabins. Possibly because this leg is on Christmas Eve, he didn’t find economy award space on the direct flight. There are connections available in El Salvador and Guatemala plus the one he chose in Las Vegas.
Los Angeles to Cancun
Los Angeles to Cancun has a lot of award space in both cabins on the direct United flight if you fly Friday to Monday.
Cancun to Montevideo
These results are mostly with one stop in Panama. For whatever reason, February only has Business Class award space, while March has plenty Business and economy. He booked economy.
After finding the award space, he called Singapore Airlines at (213) 404-0301. He fed the agent the date, cabin, and flight number of each segment he had noted from united.com. The agent quickly pieced together the award.
This is the confirmation email that Singapore sent him.
He is spending:
- 6 days in Panama
- a month in Los Angeles including Christmas and New Year
- 9 days in Cancun
- returning to Montevideo instead of Buenos Aires
The award priced at 60,000 miles + 154 Singapore dollars ($123).
That is all taxes. He was not charged $100 for his second stopover in accordance with the written rules of the KrisFlyer program. Sweet! Maybe you’ll get lucky too.
I’m not sure which points he transferred to his Singapore account, but in my experience Ultimate Rewards and ThankYou Points both post in 24-48 hours.
Bottom Line
My friend booked an incredible award with two stopovers, an open jaw, and a destination for only 60,000 miles and $123 in taxes. He’ll get to spend Christmas with his family, explore Panama and Cancun en route, and end up in a different city than where he started.
Singapore miles’ fantastic stopover rules and access to award space on all 27 Star Alliance carriers make this award possible. The best place to book an award like this is to South America because Singapore doesn’t collect fuel surcharges on Copa, TACA, Avianca, or United award space, and the carriers have great award space throughout the Americas.
Singapore miles are easy to get because they are a transfer partner of every transferable points program!
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I’m trying to book a ticket from NYC to EZE for next Christmas for 3 people, coach or business. I have UR points and tons of AA miles. I know it can be hard because everyone wants to travel around that time. I have looked at a combination of flights, leaving from MIA, Bogota, Panama, Houston, etc. but i can’t find a good combination to then get me from NYC to those cities. Do you have a suggestion where I can look? Ideally with only one stop.
Thanks!
Go to their wikipedia pages and see where there cities in common with flights to NYC and EZE. I don’t think you’ll find any right around Christmas. That is by far the worst time to use miles unfortunately.
I’m trying to book a ticket from NYC to EZE for next Christmas for 3 people, coach or business. I have UR points and tons of AA miles. I know it can be hard because everyone wants to travel around that time. I have looked at a combination of flights, leaving from MIA, Bogota, Panama, Houston, etc. but i can’t find a good combination to then get me from NYC to those cities. Do you have a suggestion where I can look? Ideally with only one stop.
Thanks!
Go to their wikipedia pages and see where there cities in common with flights to NYC and EZE. I don’t think you’ll find any right around Christmas. That is by far the worst time to use miles unfortunately.
Availability from US to southern South America from Dec 15 till Jan 5 is almost nonexistent at lower levels ( nonexistent in AA at least since 2009, almost nonexistent in United/Copa). That includes EZE, MVD, SCL and most of Brazil. Sometimes GRU will show availability, but then you need to buy the GRU-EZE leg (not very cheap). Sometimes there is good availability to Iguacu, but again, last leg is not cheap.
Finally, many times there is availability to travel Dec 24 or 25th since most people avoid flying then. I’m not sure if that affects you or not.
Good luck.
Availability from US to southern South America from Dec 15 till Jan 5 is almost nonexistent at lower levels ( nonexistent in AA at least since 2009, almost nonexistent in United/Copa). That includes EZE, MVD, SCL and most of Brazil. Sometimes GRU will show availability, but then you need to buy the GRU-EZE leg (not very cheap). Sometimes there is good availability to Iguacu, but again, last leg is not cheap.
Finally, many times there is availability to travel Dec 24 or 25th since most people avoid flying then. I’m not sure if that affects you or not.
Good luck.
Scott,
Just a quick comment about the above award:
The fees were actually a bit higher than that. I believe that I sent you an amended itinerary that just showed the additional fees after a change was made to the reservation. It was actually over $300us pp, and I was charged the additional $100 for the second stopover. Had I been a bit more flexible with dates, I’m sure that I could have finagled the lower redemption to Hawaii, but it has worked out fine. Normally, I would have looked to book it all in business class, but the b-class on Copa is like domestic first, and with much of the itinerary on Copa I didn’t feel that it was worth the extra miles.
The stop in Panama included chartering a sailboat in the San Blas islands, which I highly recommend…if you are into things like turquoise waters, white sand, palm trees and fresh lobster.
The destination of LAX was a launching point for other travel. AA happens to have a direct flight from there to Aspen, which is bookable with just 7500 British Airways miles + $5 (a steal if transferring over membership rewards points with a 40% bonus), so we got in a quick ski trip and a visit with my brother. Northern CA was also in the cards, so I purchased a Southwest ticket from LAX to Sacramento. Why SWA? Because it allows two free checked bags and we had a lot of luggage. Why Sac? Because after checking car rental rates from San Jose, San Francisco, and Oakland, it was by far the cheapest option. I was able to rent a full-size car from there for less than $200 for 15 days, which got us to Napa/Sonoma, Mendocino, San Francisco, and Lake Tahoe.
I’m writing this from Playa Del Carmen, so we still have a couple of Copa legs left to get back to BA. See you soon!
Thanks for the info, Cory. See you soon.
Scott,
Just a quick comment about the above award:
The fees were actually a bit higher than that. I believe that I sent you an amended itinerary that just showed the additional fees after a change was made to the reservation. It was actually over $300us pp, and I was charged the additional $100 for the second stopover. Had I been a bit more flexible with dates, I’m sure that I could have finagled the lower redemption to Hawaii, but it has worked out fine. Normally, I would have looked to book it all in business class, but the b-class on Copa is like domestic first, and with much of the itinerary on Copa I didn’t feel that it was worth the extra miles.
The stop in Panama included chartering a sailboat in the San Blas islands, which I highly recommend…if you are into things like turquoise waters, white sand, palm trees and fresh lobster.
The destination of LAX was a launching point for other travel. AA happens to have a direct flight from there to Aspen, which is bookable with just 7500 British Airways miles + $5 (a steal if transferring over membership rewards points with a 40% bonus), so we got in a quick ski trip and a visit with my brother. Northern CA was also in the cards, so I purchased a Southwest ticket from LAX to Sacramento. Why SWA? Because it allows two free checked bags and we had a lot of luggage. Why Sac? Because after checking car rental rates from San Jose, San Francisco, and Oakland, it was by far the cheapest option. I was able to rent a full-size car from there for less than $200 for 15 days, which got us to Napa/Sonoma, Mendocino, San Francisco, and Lake Tahoe.
I’m writing this from Playa Del Carmen, so we still have a couple of Copa legs left to get back to BA. See you soon!
Thanks for the info, Cory. See you soon.