From The Straits Times    |

4 tips on how to save money when buying an air.jpg

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#1 SAVE IN ONE ACCOUNT
Fly within the same airline alliance and credit all your miles to one account. Say you are a regular Singapore Airlines passenger but need to fly Lufthansa. Both are Star Alliance members, so make sure you bank the miles into your Singapore Airlines account. This way, you accumulate the free miles in the account that you use most frequently.

#2 PAY FULL FARE
If you are flying economy and your company’s picking up the tab, book the ticket under the full fare directly from the airline if your company allows it. Some airlines allot as little as 10 per cent of the usual free miles for discounted tickets, usually booked through a third party such as a travel agent.

#3 DON’T UPGRADE
If you want to fly business class, redeem the ticket outright with your free miles. Upgrading is almost never worth it, because you need to pay a full economy fare first in order to be eligible. The miles needed to upgrade are usually about 70 to 80 per cent of an outright redemption.

#4 DO YOUR SUMS
For instance, is it worth redeeming 40,000 miles then paying $900 tax for an economy ticket to Beijing, when you could save up more miles, then redeem 60,000 miles and pay $1,000 tax for a business class ticket? Don’t forget that the tax and extras that must be paid for in cash don’t vary much between economy and business class.

Source: Siva Govindasamy, Editor of Aviation Journal Flightglobal

This story was first published in Her World Magazine November 2012.

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