All of these fares are found using airfare metasearch site Momondo:
Airfare Spot: New York, Chicago, and DC – Amsterdam from $386 roundtrip on United for December through March travel excluding holidays.
Copyright: jojjik / 123RF Stock Photo
Airfare Spot: DC, New York, and Chicago – Paris from $416 roundtrip on United for January through March travel.
Airfare Spot: Los Angeles – Tokyo from $446 roundtrip on United for November or January through June travel. (I’m showing a fare a few dollars less, even, because I’m including student travel agency STA Travel in the search.)
You can credit the miles for these trips to Singapore Airlines KrisFlyer and earn more than you would any other way.
While a non-elite MileagePlus member crediting United flights to the revenue-based MileagePlus program will only earn 5 miles per dollar on the cost of the ticket excluding taxes, nearly all United fares earn 100% of flown miles when crediting to Singapore Airlines KrisFlyer (.pdf). That means you earn 5-10 times as many miles with Singapore Airlines KrisFlyer for your trip flying United than you would crediting to MileagePlus.
While Singapore miles do expire after 3 years (not 3 years of inactivity), you can top off a KrisFlyer miles account with transfers from American Express, Chase, Citi, and Starwood.
Gary, what is your take on how long Singapore crediting 100% will last? I am shopping around for a new Star Alliance program. Asiana’s stability and low bar for lifetime Star Gold is appealing.
Stefan, I think Asiana is long overdue for a devaluation, as is SQ.
Wonder if any airline exec has ever thought to do the maths on all the revenue they have killed off with revenue based earning and spend thresholds. Back in the day I would have been seriously considering a long weekend in Europe. Now not so quickly.
Gary, Momondo will send you to very sketchy travel agencies (Paylesstravel, Travel123, etc) that have a long history of very shady (borderline fraudulent) practices, like charging your CC and then come back saying prices changed, so you need to pay more ( pushing you to Priceline prices) or else. Please check all of these deals and you’ll see reputable agencies are always a couple hundreds above. These agencies should never be given this publicity, please stop doing so.
Thanks
Wow!! Double exclamation point?!?!
FWIW, some of the travel sites indexed by Momondo sell consolidator tickets. Earnings are different: No PQD and distance based RDM – probably better for non-elite members and those not looking to requalify.
Caveat emptor though, on consolidator tickets.
Newbie question here, how do you credit a United flight to Singapore Airlines KrisFlyer?
Purchase the United flight through one of those partners?
I feel dumb asking this question maybe cause it’s nearly 2 o’clock and I’m reading travel blogs…
Last year I thought I was cool booking jet-blue Bos/Fll using google flights for the best price for my travel window, this year now with your help reading and reading I found some great deals, thanks for all your thorough reports, using AAmiles on jal, using BA avios on Iberia and aer lingus 2993 miles boston to dublin lovely deal 12.5k miles All this info I would’ve never known without reading blogs, simply thanks!
@matt nonsense. Sq and oz flights earn a pittance in thier own programs. Sq especially has the gulf airlines to contend with so need to offer a some what reasonable program. Saver seats are also hard to come by so lots of awards are being redeemed at the standard level already anyway.
I assumed that 100% earning on United flights would end quite some time ago. Just like it ended quite quickly in Alaska for Delta and for American flights. Sure, Etihad and Cathay still offer 100% earning with American. Their contracts presumably don’t provide for immediate changes based on changes made in AAdvantage. With Krisflyer I don’t know when their United deal gets renegotiated.
I’m just happy to have the option for as long as we will, and to be able to top off KrisFlyer miles with points from all the major US credit card transferrable currencies.
Contra @Bumsi I find their availability to be quite good and of course remember that they have access to the same Star Alliance partner award space that United does in addition to offering their members siginificantly more space on their own flights than is open to most partners (on Virgin Australia, as far as I can tell, gets great SQ availability).
@KillerMiller – buy your United flight. It doesn’t much matter where you buy it, you can buy it at United.com even. When asked for your frequent flyer account, choose Singapore Airlines as the program to credit to and give your Singapore number. If you don’t see this option, once you have booked your ticket you can ring up United and give them your Singapore number. Or you can enter the number when you check in.
Gary, see you and commenter discussing how to make the most of these deals. Only problem is , these deals just aren’t there. Let’s hear from someone who has booked from Exploretrip, TravelMerry, etc. Please look at this before broadcasting these “deals “
On the contrary, I can see that these deals I’ve posted through these types of sites have been successfully booked over 1000 times.
May I ask how do you know? Until recently most deals involved reputed OTAs. This Momondo thing is relatively recent. I really doubt there are thousands of people who have already flown these. If you check these sites’ reviews they are dismal and show a pattern. Model seems to be sell low, then try to get the ticket lower, if not just cancel booking. In fact it’s in their TOS that they are not confirming that price, something I bet most people don’t assume.
@Petecus – I can see how many tickets are booked with my momondo link
Ok, now I get It.
Thanks
@am The reason you see these new sites popping up is that (many of) these are front ends for consolidators to sell their inventory, which wasn’t always online, and which is separate from airline inventory.
I’ve booked tickets through these sites successfully, but I do wish Gary would warn readers about the differences between consolidator tickets and tickets booked through more traditional channels.