With Cathay Pacific Locked Down, Singapore Airlines Doubles Down On NYC; Miles And Status Extended And Star Alliance Gold Status For Transferred Miles Now Valid For 2 Years

Never Miss Another Deal - Follow DansDeals on Facebook

Update: DEAD! Don’t miss it if this becomes alive again. Sign up for deal notification alerts here!

Once upon a time, Cathay Pacific had 5 daily flights from NYC. Currently there are none.

Hong Kong was once one of the world’s great transit hubs and business centers, but between China’s suspension of democracy in the territory and China’s zero COVID strategy the city remains cut off from the world. Cathay Pacific’s traffic numbers were down 97% before Omicron, which is now being used by China as a reason to shut down transit via Hong Kong. The lack of transit passengers will mean those abysmal numbers will plummet even further. The airline has a bleak future as a standalone carrier and it seems likely that it will be taken over by a Chinese state run airline, which seems likely by design at this point.

Singapore is well positioned to take over Hong Kong’s role as a giant travel hub and business center. Singapore Airlines smells blood in the water with Cathay Pacific’s struggles and will go all in on NYC flights.

Effective on March 28th, Singapore will fly nonstop daily on an Airbus A350-900ULR from both Newark to Singapore (9,534 miles and 18 hours and 45 minutes) and JFK to Singapore (9,537 miles and 18 hours and 50 minutes). JFK to Singapore nonstop is the longest commercial flight in the world and if you’re going to be on the longest flight in the world, Singapore is an excellent airline to fly on. Singapore’s A350-900ULR has 67 business class seats and 94 premium economy seats.

Singapore also flies from JFK to Frankfurt and from there to Singapore. As of March 28th that will be operated by their retrofitted A380-800 with new first class suites and couples suites. Singapore’s retrofitted A380-800 has 6 first class suites, 82 business class seats, 44 premium economy seats, and 343 economy seats.

Business class saver award availability from NYC to Singapore is wide open for 99K Singapore miles each way with no fuel surcharges.

A first class suite from NYC to Frankfurt is 86K Singapore miles each way with no fuel surcharges.

Singapore will also extend all miles expiring in 2022 by 6 months, including multiple 6 month extensions if needed so that no miles will expire this year.

The airline is also extending elite status for a 3rd year in a row. Status that was set to expire between March 2022-February 2023 will be extended for another year.

You can currently earn Star Alliance Gold status when you transfer 250K points to Singapore. Normally that status would expire in a year, but thanks to this extension you’ll get 2 years of Gold status.

Star Alliance Gold status allows you and a guest access to Star Alliance lounges worldwide when flying on any Star Alliance carrier. Incredibly, non-United Star Alliance Gold status also works to get access to United Clubs even when flying on domestic itineraries. United doesn’t even allow their own 1K Star Alliance Gold elites to access United Clubs on domestic first class tickets unless they have a paid United Club membership!

Star Alliance Gold status comes with an extra free checked bag, but it doesn’t stack on top of the free bag that United credit cards come with.

You can read more details about the offer in the original post here. The promotion ends 2/28/22.