186. Around the World in Five Days: How We Reverse-Engineered an Epic Award Trip

Point Me To First Class

Host Devin Gimbel and guest Andrea recount their ambitious five-day journey constructed entirely around securing Singapore Airlines First Cl

Key takeaways

• The total cost for the around-the-world trip was approximately 663,000 points/miles and $1,759 in taxes and fees per person.
• Singapore Airlines A380 suites feature private doors that can be closed for enhanced privacy.

Main topics

• Reverse-engineering award travel
• Singapore Airlines First Class Suites review

Notable quotes

Sometimes the award availability is the Singapore Airlines starting point.

Conclusion

The episode demonstrates that with enough flexibility and points, trav

Transcript preview

Speaker 1 (0:01) Welcome to Point Me to First Class, the only show for employed professionals, entrepreneurs, and business owners who are looking to optimize their higher-than-average expenses to travel the world. I'm your host, Devin Gimbel, and I believe that your expenses are your greatest untapped asset, if you know how to leverage them. Ready to dive into the world of credit card points and miles so you can travel more, travel better, and travel often? Let's get started. Speaker 1 (0:29) Hey everybody, welcome back to the podcast. Today's episode is part trip report, part award booking strategy, and part cautionary tale about what can happen when two people who love points and premium cabin travel find two Singapore Airlines first class suites award seats and decide that geography is really more of a suggestion than a rule. Because today, my friend Andrea and I are taking you along on a five-day trip around the world that we built almost entirely around one goal. flying Singapore Airlines first class suites on the A380 aircraft. And if you're thinking that planning a trip around a specific airline seat sounds completely backwards, you're not wrong. This is not how typical people plan vacations. But it is sometimes how award travel works when there's a specific airline product you really want to experience. Instead of starting with where you want to go and then figuring out how to get there, sometimes you find the award availability first and then figure out where in the world it's going to take you. That's exactly what happened with this trip. And in today's episode, you're going to hear how two Singapore Suites award seats turned into an entire around the world itinerary and what it actually takes to piece together a trip like this when the flights you want aren't necessarily available in the order that you need to book them. We'll walk through exactly how this itinerary came together, why we booked the flights we did, and what the entire thing cost in both points and cash. And while Singapore Suites may have been the reason for this trip, it was definitely not the only premium cabin we flew. We're going to break down every major flight along the way, from the seats and service to the food, lounges, sleep, and all of those little details that can make an airline experience feel either truly exceptional or perhaps slightly less amazing than the internet would have you believe. And Andrea and I give our honest opinions on all of it. So you'll hear where our opinions lined up, where they did not, which experiences lived up to our expectations, and whether any of the flights surprised us for better or worse. But beyond deciding whether Singapore's first-class suites deserves a spot on your own points travel wish list, I hope this episode gives you a really practical look at another way to think about award travel. Because if there's a particular airline or first or business class product that you've been dreaming about flying, you don't necessarily have to wait for the perfect award itinerary to magically appear from your home airport to the exact destination you already had in mind. sometimes the award availability is the starting point. And as you're about to hear, if you're willing to get a little creative and possibly develop a very questionable respect for geography, you might be surprised by the trip you can build around it. So let's get into it. Andrea, let's kick off this trip report by talking about how did finding award availability for two people on Singapore Airlines first class suites turn into a five day around the world trip? Well, Devin, I think this Speaker 2 (3:17) is what happens when two people who, let's just say, may be obsessed with award travel and credit card points, find Singapore Suites availability and have very little respect for geography and are willing to do whatever it takes to fly a product that is their goal to fly. Speaker 1 (3:38) Yeah, so let's talk about how this trip came about and then we'll get into the nuts and bolts about. How do we take something that is in the idea phase and actually then book a trip around it? Because I think, at least in my experience, booking a trip like this, especially when you want to fly a specific product, even within a certain airline, there are only maybe a few aircraft that have that product. This is very different than kind of a traditional kind of cash booking where you probably start at the beginning and say, I want to fly from point A to point B. And that's what you look for and book. When you're putting together a trip like this, it oftentimes happens in multiple segments that are out of order. So we're going to get into all of that, not only what we booked, but how we booked it, why we booked it, how a trip like this actually moves from just the idea phase to the it's booked and we are literally flying around the world in five days. So let's talk about. why this trip and why these airline products. So last summer, you and I took our first real kind of award product focused trip together. I dragged you not quite all the way around the world. I dragged you to Tokyo and to Hong Kong. We took advantage of some very surprising first class award availability on Japan Airlines A350, their new product. We both really wanted to fly that. So we flew that to Tokyo. randomly, surprisingly found two first class awards on Cathay Pacific coming from back from Hong Kong to JFK. And I had a blast. We spent not a lot of time on the ground. This again was mostly an airplane focused trip. But I had so much fun because I usually do these types of ridiculous trips all by myself. So to be able to convince one of my favorite people in the world to come along with me was just so much fun. And after we got back from that trip, we decided, well, I decided, and then I think I decided for you that we were going to make this an annual thing that if we found some amazing availability in business class or first class on a product that we both wanted to fly, that we would start doing these types of trips together. So that is kind of the backstory of how this came to be. And before we actually booked this trip, I'm curious to hear from you. Was there a specific airline or a specific business or first class product that you already knew you wanted to build a trip around? Or did we just kind of land on this together? Let me clarify something before Speaker 2 (6:07) I go forward. Dragged is quite the stretch. I would say you found the award availability, but I was enthusiastic about joining you and willing to do whatever it took to make it happen. Because I also really wanted to go on these award product focused trips because it's not something you necessarily get to do when you're traveling with family. Typically, they may release one award seat availability on these highly specialized products, sometimes two, never something like four. So I knew if I were going to fly these products, it would be solo or maybe with a friend. And it happened. And that was wonderful. So I do have a list of like my bucket list products to try. And at the top was Singapore Suites. I just. Heard these amazing things about it, the service, the soft product, the hard product, all the things. And so we started looking for Singapore Suites availability. And for those of you who know, Singapore Suites doesn't fly from anywhere in the world to the U.S. And so we knew we were going to build a trip around some sort of connecting flight between Singapore and another country. And so then figuring out the puzzle around that. was kind of where we started. Yeah, Speaker 1 (7:24) I feel the same way. I have been doing this for a long time in the best way. And I have been able to use points to book not only really wonderful business class experiences, but I think international first class is really a completely different experience. And being able to use points to fly on some really incredible aspirational first class products to me is one of the most fun parts of being in this hobby. Because I've been doing it for a while now, I've already had great experiences on a lot of first class products. I won't go into detail about all of those on this episode. But one of the airlines that has stayed on my wish list, especially for a first class experience, just like you with Singapore Airlines, I've actually never flown Singapore up until this trip, partly because. They don't service Chicago, unfortunately. So I would have to position. I know for many of you listening where that's your baseline, you always have to position. You have no sympathy for me whatsoever. You're not going to cry any tears for the fact that I would have to position from Chicago to New York or to the West Coast in order to fly Singapore. But the point is that it's just never really worked its way into a trip for me already. I haven't taken my family to Singapore yet. The times that I've flown to Asia, I have flown other Asian carriers. So Singapore Airlines has always been on my wish list. And especially when they revamped their first class product. I remember reading about Singapore suites from great points bloggers and award websites 10 years ago. And their first class product at that time was one of the most aspirational products that you could book using points. And then. Kind of similar to how Emirates came out with their Game Changer suite, I think it was around seven or eight years ago, Singapore up-leveled their first class suites on the A380 aircraft. And at that point, when I saw those pictures, and you can Google them, they're really phenomenal, I really wanted to fly this product. But here's something that I think is going to be valuable to know about, I think, especially for people who want... to build trips around flying specific airline products. Again, it's a very different mentality, a very different process than just, oh, I want to go to a place. How do I get from point A to point B? Which is that a lot of these airlines, these international airlines that have just extraordinary first class products, first class on an airline. isn't always the same exact thing. And what I mean by that is a lot of these airlines, they operate multiple different aircraft, multiple different types of airplanes. So while they might offer first class on many of their international or long haul flights, the actual airplane flying the route can mean the difference between very, very different experiences in terms of different hard products, meaning different actual seats on the airplane, different configurations, different amenities. And so If you're going to want to do a trip like this, it's not just about what is an amazing airline you want to fly, but sometimes it's even what is the specific aircraft? And then that in and of itself will really determine what your options are available, because a lot of times these airlines will fly these specific aircraft only on designated routes, so only between designated cities. And because you and I both really wanted to fly this specific A380 first class product, I think Singapore has this on maybe nine. of the aircraft and their entire fleet. So again, this is not on every single one of their airplanes. And as you mentioned, at least currently, when we took this flight, they don't have this new first-class product on any of the aircraft that operate flights from Singapore to North America. So we knew, okay, we're going to have to get ourselves either to Singapore and then take this flight from there or position. to another major hub, maybe in Europe, and then fly from there to Singapore on one of these long-haul flights. So kind of where this all started was if we know we want to fly first-class suites on the A380, the other priority that I had that came into play when really starting to look for award availability was, listen, if I'm going to book a first-class aspirational flight, especially one that's going to cost a lot of points, and we'll talk about what that looked like for this trip, I do not want to skimp. I want to take the longest possible flight I can find. I want to spend every single minute I can on this product. I want to do all the things. I want to eat all the food. I want to sleep in the bed. I want to watch all the movies. You know, it's a very, very different experience to be in one of these just incredible products for three or four hours versus 10, 11, 12, 13 hours. And so when we were looking at what are the different routes that Singapore Airlines actually flies these aircraft. What's interesting is that a lot of them are actually what I would consider shorter haul flights. So somewhere in the three to six hour range. So based in Singapore, and I think this list sometimes changes. If you're interested in recreating this type of itinerary or this flight, you'll definitely want to check what the most updated information is. But from Singapore, I think they mostly fly these A380 aircraft within kind of Asia, Asia Pacific. So they service. Shanghai, a couple of airports in Australia, New Zealand, I think Delhi and Bombay in India. So all of these flights kind of fall on the shorter end segment. I think between Singapore and Auckland is a bit longer, but the two longest haul flights that this aircraft flies are between Singapore and then London and Frankfurt. So when we were originally looking at this, I had my eyes set on how can we get. from Singapore to either London or Frankfurt, because again, I want to maximize the time that we have on this flight. So that being said, again, we knew we weren't just going to fly from the U.S. on one of these flights. And so I had done, I think, a lot of the background searching and When I was looking on Singapore Airlines for award availability, the criteria was I wanted there to be two seats. I didn't want to fly on a different flight than you and then compare notes like we knew we wanted to be on a flight together. And we wanted to get again on one of these long haul flights. And at least the time that I was looking for availability, there was not great availability on the flights between Singapore and London. That flight is slightly longer than the Singapore to Frankfurt flight. But there was actually really great award availability between Singapore and Frankfurt. And I think that that brings up an interesting point about booking specifically first class on Singapore Airlines. You'd mentioned, and when you were talking a little bit earlier about how rare it can be, especially for first class products, top tier aspirational first class products, to actually have one award seat available to book on points, much less two. That is exceptionally rare. Singapore Airlines is an exception because while they do have saver awards available, their pricing structure for award flights has a couple of different award buckets. So there's saver, which I don't know you're ever going to find, frankly, on the A380. Then they have their advantage level, which is they're kind of like not the lowest steal of a deal level, but. a solid number of points to fly a product. And now they have what's called access, which is basically like they're going to price this award so astronomically high. You can pay, you know, 100 billion points if you want to be able to book this trip, but it's not going to be cheap. But the benefit of this type of award structure is there is actually availability. And I think that especially for a first class product like the A380, that is incredibly rare. We are seeing so many airlines now where. You cannot book their best first class product with points at all. Or if you can, there's so many qualification steps you have to go through. You have to have status with that airline or you have to hold the credit card and then also be able to do like a backflip on a Tuesday. And then you have access to the award space. There are not that many airlines that allow you to just easily, as long as you don't mind paying the price, easily book multiple first class awards. This, I really felt like, was doable for us, as long as we had the points we were willing to spend them that we were going to be able to book this flight. So this long-haul flight is really what anchored this entire trip. And interestingly, Singapore Airlines has a really fantastic kind of policy around booking award flights where they have a stopover program, meaning that you can book. a connecting itinerary. So two flights on Singapore Airlines. And if you book, at least at the advantage level award rate, you can build in a stopover in Singapore. And I don't think this is the case year round. But when you and I were flying, we took this trip at the end of June. Singapore Airlines was actually also operating their A380 aircraft on a shorter haul flight in between Hong Kong and Singapore. So again, that's I think it was. about a four-hour flight. So not a huge amount of time, again, in this product. But when I saw that there was an itinerary where we could fly the A380 on a short flight, get a little taste of it, then we could spend a little bit of time on the ground in Singapore and then take the really long-haul flight and book that all as a continuous itinerary. That just seemed to me such a great way to get kind of two looks at this product, two experiences in this product. And so that was the itinerary that at least was the anchor for this entire trip. So I convinced you to do this. I was like, I Speaker 2 (16:41) found Speaker 1 (16:41) this award availability. We get to fly the A380 on two different flights. You know, this is going to be amazing. But now we've got to get ourselves to Hong Kong and we have to get ourselves home from Frankfurt. When you think about constructing an award trip like this, again, we're not starting at point A and then kind of booking sequentially that we book these segments out of order. Once we had that set, Andrea, how do you kind of conceptualize then kind of the next step, which is how do we get ourselves to Hong Kong in this case? How do we get ourselves home from Frankfurt? What was kind of the next priority for you in terms of the awards that you wanted to fly or what you wanted to look for to build out the rest of this itinerary? Speaker 2 (17:21) And I agree with you about the long-haul flight experience. As you learned from flying with me last summer, a flight without kids and a little bit of champagne and someone waiting on you hand and foot is like the strongest sedative for me at all. Trust me, like I come home from these trips so well rested and refreshed. Usually we come back on like a Monday or Tuesday. I'm at work the next day and my staff are all like, are you not exhausted? And I'm like, no, I feel better than I felt in months. When we were on the flight from Hong Kong to JFK, I slept a solid 10 hours during which Devin was waiting on me to wake up to eat dinner together. And I feel horrible. because I didn't intend to sleep that long on the flight. And when you wake up and you've slept on a six hour flight, you don't have that much time to enjoy the caviar service and all these other things. So yes, long haul on these really great products is a priority. But I did also like that we got to experience the short haul flight, in which case I did also sleep. But we were able to get a little taste of it. So then, you know, when we sat down for our 12 hour Singapore to Frankfurt journey. I was in my little suite and I looked over and there was a nice gentleman sitting next to me and he kind of air toasted me and I air toasted him because we're fancy like that with our champagne. And he goes, is this your first time on Singapore suites? And I was able to go, no, actually it's not my first time. So it was nice to get to experience it twice and just be like, oh yeah, I've done this before. This is totally normal part of my life. But Looking at, okay, we're going either London or Frankfurt. That's a priority. Well, I had not yet at that time flown Lufthansa first. And so Speaker 1 (19:17) Frankfurt became the number one priority for Speaker 2 (19:20) us so that we could consider flying out of Frankfurt on Lufthansa first. And then I got to experience the Lufthansa first terminal. And so that's why that became a first priority. So then now how are we going to get to Singapore? usually revolves around basing ourselves in Chicago. Devin's there. And it is a quick hop for me to get from where I'm based in Little Rock to Chicago. So now we're looking Chicago to Asia. And one airline that has great award availability pretty consistently is Eva. So then we started looking at Eva Airlines. And then we knew Lufthansa first was a goal to get home. And so then we started again. piecing these things together. Yeah. Speaker 1 (20:06) And I think that even though Eva doesn't have a first class product, they are a really, really highly rated business class product. I had never flown that one either. So I think part of when we were putting this itinerary together is that it's