Which Star Alliance, Airpoints, Royal Orchid or KrisFlyer?
9 replies
Hi Guest, join in the discussion on Which Star Alliance, Airpoints, Royal Orchid or KrisFlyer?
Hi Guest, join in the discussion on Which Star Alliance, Airpoints, Royal Orchid or KrisFlyer?
Stormtraveller
Stormtraveller
Qantas - Qantas Frequent Flyer
Member since 04 Dec 2017
Total posts 7
My Amex credit card allows me to transfer points to either Airpoints, Royal Orchid or KrisFlyer when it comes to Star Alliance members.
freshthoughts
freshthoughts
Qantas - Qantas Frequent Flyer
Member since 08 Aug 2016
Total posts 112
in my experience, kris flyer is the easiest to use, especially given their favourable availability for Singapore flights, I can find J space for where i want to go. However, royal orchid does have some more favourable rates. Theres a good post by pointshack outline royal orchid as well
xtfer
xtfer
Virgin Australia - Velocity Rewards
Member since 14 Mar 2017
Total posts 159
Just don't choose Airpoints. It's redemptions are, IIRC, the most expensive of the lot.
henrus
henrus
Qantas - Qantas Frequent Flyer
Member since 23 Oct 2013
Total posts 766
They only reason why you'd pick airpoints (and I have) is it's quite easy to earn status on NZ operated flights after you do a couple of long-haul flights. Otherwise I agree that it's poor value in every other way and Krisflyer would be the best with the most redemption partners (you can use the points on VA which is a major benefit).
Chris C.
Chris C.
Member since 24 Apr 2012
Total posts 1,116
KrisFlyer has excellent availability, very good reward rates (one-way to Europe is 105,000 miles in business class, for example), and minimal fees and charges on those bookings (I recently booked one-way business class to Europe and the co-pay amount was $110). You can of course use KrisFlyer miles to book other Star Alliance flights too, although the rates can sometimes be a little higher, and the co-pays on those often include fuel/carrier surcharges which makes them more expensive.
Advantage also of KrisFlyer is that you can transfer points across from Velocity, or over to Velocity, depending on how you want to spend them, so if you're earning Velocity points at places you can't earn other miles (such as at BP, if you still have a Lumo Energy Velocity plan, etc.), then you can maximise your miles and get your free flight faster by piling them all together.
Thai ROP does have some marginally lower rates than KrisFlyer on some routes and some even more favourable rates on other routes, but you can't book everything online, so expect that you may need to call Thai to book (you can definitely book Thai Airways reward flights online, however). Also note that transfers from AMEX to Thai ROP can take up to a week to process, whereas transfers to KrisFlyer are quite quick (they say 3 business days or so but they're often processed overnight or the next day), so if you're holding your points in AMEX until you find a specific reward flight that you want to book, but don't want to transfer your points across until you know there's availability, there's a higher chance of getting 'stuck' with Thai and that flight disappearing before your miles have arrived to book it: but there are some mileage savings to be had if you're savvy about it. :)
dimi
dimi
Qantas - Qantas Frequent Flyer
Member since 13 Jul 2012
Total posts 154
Slightly off-topic: are Singapore business class redemptions available either on Thai or on Airpoints?
Singapore appears to restrict business class award availability for its Star partner airlines (while business is available to KrisFlier and Velocity members).
Stormtraveller
Stormtraveller
Qantas - Qantas Frequent Flyer
Member since 04 Dec 2017
Total posts 7
Thank you for all the advice, it looks like KrisFlyer is the winner here and it would be a better use of my points if I transferred them to a KrisFlyer account.
philelltt
philelltt
Member since 27 Oct 2017
Total posts 2
If you wanted a nice hotel room in Bangkok or elsewhere in Thailand, the Royal Orchid program has quite good rates for points bookings. Many of the hotels include breakfast . A night "costs"about 15,000 to 21,000 points with no extra charges. Their rates for hotels outside of Thailand aren't so good though.You download a voucher through the Royal Orchid website against you points. That voucher is used to make a booking with the hotel.
World traveler
World traveler
Star Alliance
Member since 26 Sep 2014
Total posts 2
Hi, Â I have been a Elite Airpoints traveler for a few years, as I fly J about 5 times a year to SFO. I felt the level of service product and price was excellent. Â However, the amount of credit they give you for segments with other Star Alliance carriers is poor. For instance, they do not give any credit for "P" class fares.
Rav
Rav
Member since 18 Aug 2017
Total posts 22
They only reason why you'd pick airpoints (and I have) is it's quite easy to earn status on NZ operated flights after you do a couple of long-haul flights. Otherwise I agree that it's poor value in every other way and Krisflyer would be the best with the most redemption partners (you can use the points on VA which is a major benefit).
You can use Airpoints to book on VA as well but must book through AirNZ