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Throughout the course of the year, we’ll be keeping up with several TPG readers as they work toward meeting various travel goals. We kicked off this series with Heather P., who’s hoping to open her first travel rewards credit card in 2018.
Today, let’s meet Bryan O., who has a specific trip in mind. (Comment has been lightly edited for clarity.)
A handful of frequent flyer programs let you redeem miles for around-the-world itineraries, typically with a maximum number of segments and stopovers allowed. Of course, you could always piece together an award itinerary that takes you around the globe, but redeeming your rewards specifically for an around-the-world trip can take out some of the guesswork — not to mention there’s something pretty satisfying about locking in this type of trip. Singapore’s round-the-world award option lets you visit up to seven cities served by Star Alliance airlines.
Between his balance of KrisFlyer miles and Ultimate Rewards points (which transfer to Singapore KrisFlyer at a 1:1 rate) Bryan currently has enough rewards to book one business-class around-the-world award through Singapore — and he’s just 20,000 miles short of one first-class award (360,000 miles) or two economy awards (180,000 miles each).
This trip will be much more fun when shared with a companion, of course, and we don’t blame him for wanting to ride in comfort, especially when some of those flights will be on the long side. Bryan is currently about 140,000 miles short of the required 480,000 to book two of these awards in business-class, and he’s luckily given himself plenty of time to earn the extra rewards — he’s not planning to travel till 2019, though he would like to book by the end of this year.
Luckily, Singapore KrisFlyer is a partner of all four of the major transferable points programs: American Express Membership Rewards, Chase Ultimate Rewards, Citi ThankYou Rewards and Starwood Preferred Guest. That means he has tons of options for earning the Singapore miles he needs. Our next step will be checking in with Bryan to learn which cards he currently has in his wallet, which ones he may be considering applying for, what categories he spends the most in and more. And we’re pretty curious about which destinations he’s considering for this around-the-world ticket, too.
Of course, he could already have a strategy for earning those 140,000 miles in place, but we’ll be here to offer advice along the way — and to share his progress a few months down the line!
Source: thepointsguy.com