Today is one of those days where I can’t help but to feel grateful. I’m grateful because I’m trying to decide which super luxurious airline and product to fly from Hong Kong to Sydney. As far as problems goes, this is among the most first world of them all.
Before I dive in, I want to explain the situation. In a few months my girlfriend and I will take, what we expect to be, our first major trip together. In total, we will fly well over 20,000 miles together in about a week. I’m extremely excited about the trip and I want to make it special for us both.
That is where I’m running into issues. We have a ton of options to travel between the two cities, but some are more exciting than others. Likewise, the more exciting options cost a ton of points and I’m not sure the premium is absolutely worth it in the long run. I’ll hopefully use this post to convince myself you which option is best.
Already Booked Travel
To start the trip off we will be flying from Los Angeles to Hong Kong in American’s new Premium Economy cabin on the 77W. I’ve flown American Airlines Premium Economy once before, but that time was on the 787-9. Although we booked Premium Economy on that flight, I’m hoping to upgrade to Business Class a miles and co-pay upgrade.
After arriving in Hong Kong we only have a few hours until we need to catch a connecting flight to Sydney. We originally planned on staying a night in Hong Kong, but given the available flight times and aircraft flown on certain days have decided to fly out that evening; maybe.
Once in Sydney we will spend a few days exploring the city and the surrounding area before heading to Auckland. Sydney to Auckland is easy and there are literally dozens of options available.
From Auckland we head back to Los Angeles on American’s 787-9 in Economy. This aircraft again features a Premium Economy cabin so I hope to at least end up flying in PE. That being said, I’ve already applied two systemwide upgrades to this itinerary in hopes of again sitting in business class for the nearly 15 hour flight.
Getting From Hong Kong To Sydney
As you can see, it’s between Hong Kong and Sydney that I’m having a tough time. We booked the rest of our trip with ease thanks to some incredible American Airlines fares.
The problem is that there are just so many options to get between the two cities. Not only do we have a great selection of airlines, but we also have to choose between four classes of service (Economy, Premium Economy, Business Class, First Class).
After spending a ton of time looking at various flights I’ve come up with a short list of options. Those options include the following:
- Singapore Airlines Suites Class From Hong Kong To Singapore To Sydney
- Singapore Airlines Business Class From Hong Kong To Singapore To Sydney
- Cathay Pacific Premium Economy From Hong Kong To Sydney
- Qantas Economy Class From Hong Kong To Sydney
The above options are listed from the most aspirational option to the most economical option. Now, I’ll go through each one to weigh the pros and the cons.
Singapore Airlines Suites Class HKG-SIN-SYD
By far the absolute coolest option has to the flying Singapore Suites from Hong Kong to Singapore To Sydney. This is the coolest option because it would not only give us a chance to experience the double bed in the sky, but it would also allow us to visit “The Private Room” in Singapore Airlines’ First Class lounge in Singapore.
This itinerary includes Singapore’s “Old” suites (pictured above) as well as their new suites (pictured below).
Another amazing aspect of this particular itinerary is that we could then hang out for about 5 hours in the Singapore Airlines First Class lounge and visit “The Private Room.” I’ve read fantastic things about this lounge and would love the opportunity to visit it along the way.
There are however two major downsides associated with this itinerary. The first is the price. This trip would cost us each 150,000 Singapore Airlines KrisFlyer miles! Since this trip would cost $5,000(USD) if we paid cash we’d be getting about $0.033/mile of value from our KrisFlyer miles, which isn’t great.
Another issue with this itinerary is the timing. The flight from Hong Kong to Singapore is just 4 hours and the flight from Hong Kong to Sydney is just 8 hours. I know those sound like long flights, but to only spend 4 hours in Singapore’s New Suites and 8 hours in the, still amazing, old suites just isn’t enough. I feel as though to really enjoy the Suites you would need to take a 10+ hour flight.
Overall, this is my favorite option, but it is by no means the most economical. The final issue with this option is that we would not be able to spend a night in Hong Kong, which would be nice.
Singapore Airlines Business Class HKG-SIN-SYD
Another, much less expensive option, is to fly from Hong Kong to Singapore to Sydney in Singapore Airlines business class. This option only cost’s 58,000 KrisFlyer miles by comparison. Additionally, this option gives us significantly more flexibility. However, there is no denying that business class on Singapore Airlines is dramatically inferior to Suites class. The divide becomes even greater if we end up flying one of the older business class cabins on the Boeing 777-200.
If we chose this option we would pick an itinerary which included flights on the new Airbus A350-900 and on either the 777-300ER or the Airbus A380. However, even when cherry picking the best business class cabins there are a few issues with this option.
Particularly, I’ve read that the lie-flat bed isn’t especially comfortable. These seats feature an odd forward facing, but angled, design. Ultimately you end up sleeping in an odd position with your feet crammed in a little cubby hole. Obviously this isn’t a huge issue, but I don’t love the idea of not getting a good night’s rest on an overnight flight.
The major benefit of choosing this option is flexibility. There are plenty of business class flights available on either day we are looking to fly. This means that we could save about 100,000 miles AND stay a night in Hong Kong. That’s not a bad deal.
The downside of this option is that it is not in Singapore Airlines Suites which I desperately would like to fly again.
Cathay Pacific Premium Economy From Hong Kong To Sydney
Another interesting option would be to fly in Premium Economy (perhaps Business) with Cathay Pacific nonstop to Sydney. Flying non-stop would greatly reduce our travel time as we would not have to stop in Singapore along the way. Another benefit of flying with Cathay is that we could use the OneWorld Emerald lounges in Hong Kong International which are incredible. I would love the opportunity to once again visit Cathay Pacific’s The Wing lounge as it’s among my favorite in the world.
The downsides to this option are that I don’t really want to fly Cathay Pacific Premium Economy as I’ve flown it a few times already and that I wouldn’t want to burn miles for a cabin I’ve already flown. I like to use miles to pay for flights I wouldn’t otherwise pay for with cash. Flying Premium Economy on Cathay is the opposite of that goal.
While I’ve listed this as an option I would be especially disappointed if we ended up doing this. Sure it would be nice to visit the Cathay Lounges in Hong Kong again, but I have a feeling we will be going back to Hong Kong in early 2019 and we could visit those lounges then.
Qantas Economy Class To Sydney
Boo!!!! Yeah, this option would be if we just decided not to use any points for this trip. The flight from Hong Kong to Sydney is just $400 in Economy so it’s not a terrible option. For that price we’d have unlimited flexibility and could fly to Sydney whenever we wanted. We’d also have access to all OneWorld Emerald lounges in Hong Kong which as I mentioned above would be fun.
However, do I really want to spend 9+ hours in economy on a Qantas Airbus A330… Nope!
Final Thoughts
If you’ve ever read this blog before there is a good chance that you know what we’re going to end up doing. Yep, you guessed it, I desperately want to fly Singapore Suites for 150,000 KrisFlyer miles. I want this trip to be special and I can’t think of a more special way to get to Sydney than flying in double beds the whole way.
However, I can’t stop thinking about the economics of this choice. 150,000 KrisFlyer miles is a ton. For that we could fly Singapore Airlines Business class nearly 3 times over. Likewise, we could fly Suites from New York to Frankfurt twice; each! I’m just not sure spending 150,000 miles makes sense.
The final option is to fly Singapore Airlines First Class on the 777-300ER. That option costs just 80,000 miles and comes with outstanding Singapore Airlines First Class service/catering, but without the insane enclosed suites found on the A380.
Overall, neither option is terrible so this is a great dilemma to have and I guess only time will tell which option we end up taking.
Ps. This is my 500th post, I was going to write some sappy Thank You and go over the history of how I got here, but I’ve decided to write this post instead. I hope you enjoyed it.
