Aeroplan is a great way to book Star Alliance awards, as it still maintains an award chart and is a 1:1 transfer partner of American Express Membership Rewards, meaning that you could get close to earning the amount of miles needed for this 12+ hour flight just by signing up for a card like The Platinum Card® from American Express, which is currently offering a welcome bonus of 100,000 Membership Rewards® Points after you spend $6,000 on purchases on the Card in your first 6 months of Card Membership.Īlthough Aeroplan typically charges more reasonable taxes and fees on Swiss award tickets (closer to $50), I'd be on the hook for the high UK Air Passenger Duty since my ticket was originating in London. We opted to book via Aeroplan, paying 75,000 miles and about $300 in taxes and fees. For this Star Alliance business-class award between Europe and South Asia, we had plenty of options to book, including the following programs: The cloud of United's recent switch to dynamic award pricing has one silver lining: It serves as a reminder that the real value tends to lie in partner programs based outside the US. So was Swiss worth it? Read on to find out. I find the carrier to be one of the more generous around when it comes to business-class award space on many routes, and sure enough there was a seat available on the exact flight I needed. Since I needed to travel on a fixed date, I looked for award space on Swiss's 777-300ER which I'd been wanting to fly for years. I decided to make Singapore a stop on my way home from London to Shanghai. There was only one problem: I was scheduled to be wrapping up a trip to Europe at that time.

Last spring, I was assigned to check out the opening of the new Jewel at Changi airport in Singapore. Hopefully, this will help you once we're all ready to start booking trips again. So, to help keep you entertained - and maybe inspire you - we are republishing a selection of our most popular reviews from 20, including the one below. We all love to travel and know you do too. While bringing our readers unbiased, detailed reviews of travel experiences is one of our core missions, now is not the time.

During the COVID-19 crisis, our team has temporarily ceased taking review trips and we are not publishing new flight or hotel reviews.

Swiss b777 seat map