Hello! I have a goal to fly my husband, infant son and I, business class return from Sydney to Zurich over Christmas this year. I am researching researching researching, and dollar for dollar after comparing qantas, virgin and Singapore, Singapore comes out cheapest at $14,474. In regards to points redemption, both Qantas and Virgin were in excess of 2 million points for all three of us flying business, while krisflyer is 380,000. I understand that krisflyer are not valued as highly as the others, but at a rate of 1:1.35 virgin-krisflyer, isn’t that still much cheaper? if converting krisflyer at the mentioned rate, I would need 513,000 points. Still a far cry from 2 million points. Am I missing something here? I am not great at math so please feel free to correct me!
Thanks-
Rachael 
when I searched on Qantas, Sydney to Zurich via HK one way business is 139,000 points. and Sydney to Zurich via Dubai is 128,000. so for 2 adults return to Zurich it’s either 512,000 or 556,000 points not 2 million points. you might have been looking at points plus pay.
I think your maths sits correct with the Velocity points transferred to Krisflyer miles
This is the great thing about the Singapore/Virgin Relationship.
Krisflyer miles are of much Greater value than Velocity or Qantas points.
You get a lot more for a lesser amount of miles used in award redemption’s
Although!!! taxes and fuel surcharges are substantially high with Krisflyer.
If you have 513k Velocity points on hand, I’d recommend converting to get your 380k Krisflyer Miles and making the booking, + Pay the taxes… vs the $14k cash fare.
I would just add that make sure there are award/reward space before making any transfers. Xmas is peak season.
I personally value Krisflyer miles above Qantas and Velocity too. However, it is a personal value. I still hate paying the taxes but I will have to live with it.
Good luck.
Hi Rachael,
Great question.
The biggest challenge you’ll face is the time of the year - it’s peak time and most people would book 330 days out for Xmas so you’d be very lucky to get seats a this time of year. You’re competing for space on Qantas and Virgin with all their partners around the world so if they only release a handful of award seats they tend to sell out quickly.
The level of points you’ve been quoted would be because you’ve been quoted for a non award flights. Classic awards,as Qantas call them, are priced at a lower rate than the 2 million you’ve been quoted. so one way business is about 128,000 points, first is 192,000. When classic awards are booked out, then the pricing engine takes the cash fare price and converts it into a points cost. Most airlines work this way so the reason you’ve been quoted these high fares are because they’ve sold out of the awards so not a good redemption price - you’d be better off paying cash in this instance.
Singapore airlines work in a similar way but it’s not based on revenue. So the saver price SYD to ZRH is 95K miles one way per person in business class, standard is 150K. Plus you get an online booking discount so this brings it down to 80.75K for saver J or 127.5K for standard J.
I did a quick search on some dates in December and they had no availability for the saver awards but they had standard awards which cost 150K (127.5K after discount). They also had first class saver on 21st December which costs 132.5K (112,625 after discount). So in this instance it would be cheaper to fly first class than standard business class award. Sounds weird but often the case.
But for that date they only had one seat per flight so you’d have find a date with two seats which won’t be easy on any airline at Xmas. Another alternative is to fly separately or pay the standard business class price of 127.5K or standard first price which is 260K (221K with online discount).
My wife and I fly with our infant and this adds an extra level of complexity on award bookings due to the way airlines charge for infants. Some airlines charge for infants at 10% of the miles costs, others 10% of revenue fare cost, some free. Virgin and Qantas don’t charge for infants, Singapore charge 10% of the revenue fare.
If you find availability, you could split the booking and book using velocity points for one adult plus infant on Singapore Airlines so the infant goes free, then book the second adult using SQ Krisflyer miles - that would work for business class but not for first on that route as they only seem to fly the A380 from Singapore to Zurich and first on A380 can only be booked using Krisflyer miles directly.
A few things to consider. Also remember you can do a one way with one award programme and return with another. Also may want to re-consider flying at Xmas as it can be hard to redeem points unless you do it as soon as the seats are released.
Cheers,
Dave
Thank you both very much for your replies
Great idea about booking one adult + infant. I didn’t mention that we are going for a month, looking around 13th Dec-11 Jan which so far still has award seats available but I can see they will be snapped up quickly. I’ve only started researching combined/one way/ multi city/multi carriers etc… no doubt this will throw a whole new set of spanners in the works!
Very grateful for all the info, thanks again
Rachael.