Singapore Airlines' world tour with points will now cost 250$ more

The most difficult award ticket ever to book is a ticket to go around the world, i.e., a single PNR that contains all routes departing from an airport and returning to that airport after circumnavigating the earth.

We have devoted more than one article and one Detailed guide to explain how to book it with points, how to find places, and all the rules that an RTW has.

Krisflyer points are one of the most important currencies when it comes to booking this type of ticket. For Italian frequent flyers, the alternative to Krisflyer and the Star Alliance is definitely a ticket booked with Asia Miles points to fly with OneWorld carriers

The new Singapore rules

Singapore Airlines has decided to add a fee of US$250 for bookings of this type of ticket, a kind of fee to repay the work the call center has to do to complete all bookings. The cost is obviously per passenger.

If we consider that last summer SQ also had. increased the points required to redeem this ticket, is a new devaluation for points that also adds to other changes pejorative, such as devaluing points on routes, reducing seats, and eliminating the saver fare.

In addition, any subsequent changes made to new and existing RTW reservations, such as date and segment changes, will continue to incur a fee of 25$ per change. While cancellation of a Star Alliance RTW award itinerary prior to departure will continue to be charged at a fee of US$75.

Unfortunately, there is little use in having status, even Gold status, in the Krisflyer program. The only hope of not paying these surcharges is given only to PPS Club members and additional cardholders, but it affects only Singapore residents.

Booking an RTW award ticket is not an easy process and there are many rules and restrictions to consider, starting with the fact that this booking can ONLY be made by phone.

Briefly, the rules are:

• Must start and end in the same country (but not necessarily in the same city)
• You never change direction, you can travel east or west, but flights (except for technical stopovers) can only be in one direction
• Limit of 7 stopovers
• Limit of 2 stopovers per country
• Maximum distance of 35,000 miles
• Limited to Star Alliance award space and SIA Saver
• Once the journey has begun, no changes can be made

In conclusion

In the world of serial accumulators of points and miles this card is often called a unicorn, precisely because it requires not only points, but also a lot of luck to find all the free places to reserve.

I went around the world in 2022 and it was a real experience. If you manage to redeem points for such an itinerary, however, you will get one of the best possible conversions since an all-business class ticket costs "only" 280k KF points. Of course, 250$ extra is bad news, but it still remains a very economical solution compared to cash payment.

• round the world tour