Sarah
When I first read about Singapore Airlines Suites Class I knew I wanted to experience this one day. While it is technically “only” Singapore Airlines First Class on certain airplanes, it certainly feel like something even superior.
And when we were making plans for our honeymoon, it was clear: this needed to be part of our trip around the world! And thanks to a mileage trick, we really managed to fly the famous Singapore Airlines Suites Class!
In this article we will share with you both the experience as well as the trick that enabled us to book this Singapore Airlines first class flight for just a bit over 700€ per Person!
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What makes the Singapore Airlines Suites Class so special?
Singapore Airlines Suites Class is the most luxurious first class product currently available. (Or at least, as long as you don’t count Etihad’s “The Residence” as a first class product but as…something else…)
Singapore Airlines Suites Class is only available on certain flights operating on the A380 and the flights usually cost at least 5,000$ – one way! On other machines (Boeing) regular Singapore Airlines First Class will operate. And that’s a big difference as the suites almost form a room, including some sliding doors for privacy.
How we managed to fly the most luxurious first class - the Singapore Airlines suites class!
Unfortunately this price seemed “a bit” out of our travel budget for this nine month holiday. So we needed a plan to make this work without paying that much.
And if you now think that we were just invited by Singapore Airlines I have to disappoint you. At that moment my blog wasn’t even live yet and I had a little over 5,000 followers on Instagram. So we needed to find another way. And we did…!
But let’s start with the experience first. We took a normal Economy class flight from Sydney to Singapore as part of our Star Alliance round the world ticket. From Singapore to Shanghai we were booked on the Suite Class. Luckily, since the first flight from Sydney was with Singapore Airlines as well, we were able to check through our luggage to Shanghai directly.
Thanks to that we didn’t have to bother about picking up luggage and could directly go to the “holy grail of airport lounges” – The Private Room!
The Private Room - The "lounge within a lounge" at Singapore Airlines First Class Lounge at Changi
One of the perks that comes with a Singapore Airlines First Class or Suites Class ticket, is the access to “The Private Room”.
“The Private Room” is a special, ultra-luxury lounge only for Singapore Airlines First Class (Suites) Passengers. It is located at the rear end of the “normal” SilverKris Krisflyer First Class Lounge (which “normal” Star Alliance First Class passengers have to use). It’s often called a “lounge within a lounge” due to that.
And we did plan a lot of time to visit this most luxurious First Class lounge! In fact, we booked our flights this way that we would have a 14 hour stopover in Singapore! And guess what, we were not planning to leave the lounge during this time…!
In case you are going to Singapore, we also published an itinerary on what to do in 3 days in Singapore!
Upon arrival at the Singapore Airlines First Class Lounge we were greeted and personally escorted to The Private Room. It was almost completely empty the whole time – and there was A LOT of staff around (to guess your wishes before you are even aware of them).
The design is said to resemble an old English gentlemens’ club – and I guess the description isn’t that wrong! There is lots of leather chairs and dark wooden furniture. And a butler will discretely top up your champagne glass (they serve a Dom Perignon 2009) all the time without you even noticing him!
The Private Room comes with an included á la carte Restaurant that served us a delicious three course dinner too!
As The Private Room closes overnight, we went to the “normal” Singapore Airlines First Class lounge for a while to sleep on some chairs there. (Actually, there is an Airport hotel air-side in Changi Airport – but we simply didn’t want to miss a second of the first class luxury!)
In the morning, we returned to the Private Room for a shower and an amazing breakfast at the restaurant again. And then it was finally time to board the plane…!
On-board the Singapore Airlines First Class Suites
We were directly greeted by the incredibly friendly staff of Singapore Airlines and escorted to our Suite Class seats. We opted for the two middle seats (Singapore Airlines was using at 1-2-1 configuration at the time of our flight) because these can be turned into a Couple Suite for night with a full double bed. The only problem: our five hours flight was starting at 9 am!
The staff made sure that the champagne we were used to from The Private Room kept flowing the whole time – this time a Krug 2004.
The food on-board Singapore Suite Class
As you would expect it from the most luxurious first class airline product, there’s no “chicken or beef” when it comes to food on-board of Singapore Airlines First Class Suites.
We were given a menu to order our five course lunch instead. And the menu include every luxury food you can imagine – from Kaviar to Foie Gras and Beef Filet. I still don’t have any idea how they managed to get my steak exactly to medium UP IN THE AIR – a challenge that a lot of restaurants on ground still have to manage..!
So let me quickly sum up what we had for lunch on-board:
- Foie Gras and Champagne (Krug 2004)
- Minestrone Soup
- Pastries with butter
- Salad
- Beef Filet with green asparagus and Shiraz
- Belgian Mousse au Chocolate with Raspberry Sorbet and Port Wine
- Cheese Selection
The seats in Singapore Airlines Suites turn into a full double bed in the sky
Remember when I said that sadly, our Singapore Airlines First Class flight was at the wrong time for a nap? Well, ask me again after a five course lunch with delicious alcoholic beverages!
We felt like we could definitely nap for a while and since we still had over 1.5 hours until landing, we asked the staff to convert our cabin into “night mode”. And I can tell you – I never slept that well in the sky!
And I have never been so sad about a flight ending!
How did we afford this luxury first class flight?
As mentioned, we are neither super rich nor were we invited on this flight. And we certainly did not pay 5,000€ each for our Singapore Airlines First Class flight.
Instead, we used a points “travel hack” to get this flight for around 700€ per person – which was well worth the experience in my opinion! There are a lot of luxury travel hacks that involve bonus programs or credit card to make these luxury experiences available to you as well!
Since we fly Singapore Airlines First Class Suites, some of the elements of the hack don’t work exactly like they did when we booked the flight. So I’ll first explain “the legacy method” and then I will give you an update (as of May 2019) about the topics that have changed!
The “legacy” method we used (as initially described in this article)
The seven steps to Singapore Airlines Suites Class Heaven:
- Sign up for Krisflyer (Singapore’s mileage program) and Starwoods Prefered Guest (short: SPG, Luxury Hotel Chain loyalty program, includes e.g. Westin, LeMeridien and Sheraton)
- Research, how much miles you need for your planned route (advice: you want a route with saver fare availability – generally flights leaving or going to Singapore are easier to get)
- Wait for an offer from SPG to buy points at a discounted rate (usually 30% off) because you can’t buy Krisflyer miles.
- Transfer those SPG points to Krisflyer miles (allow 4-5 business days for transfer to be completed)
- Check which day saver fare is actually available for your planned itinerary
- Call Singapore Airlines and book your miles flight (or try the online tool if you feel daunting)!
- Enjoy and don’t forget to be at the airport super early to enjoy the Private Room (if flying from Singapore)!!!
Current situation (as of May 2019)
A few things have changed since we booked this Singapore Airlines First Class flight end of 2017.
- Mariott has merged with SPG and thus you will now have to use Marriott Bonvoy Points instead of Starwood Preferred Guest.
- You can only buy up to 50k Marriott points in one year
- Singapore Krisflyer has issued a new award chart
- The flight from Singapore to Shanghai requires 53k KrisFlyer Miles for a Suites class saver fare (and you want a saver fare!)
- Mariott Bonvoy Points can be transferred 3:1 to Krisflyer Miles. For every 60k Bonvoy Points transferred, there is an additional bonus of 5k airline miles. Thus, 60k Bonvoy Points give you 25k Krisflyer Miles.
- Thus, you need to transfer 129k Marriott Bonvoy Points for one award flight (60k + 60k + 9k)
- Now we are getting a bit of a problem as you can’t buy that amount of miles (and even during a 25% promotion, 50k miles costed around 470$). If you could buy 129k miles that would be around 1,200$.
- While this is still far more reasonable than the price that Singapore Airlines will charge you, it is still more than 50% more expensive than what we payed for for our Singapore Airlines Suites flight
Long story short: You can still make this work if you absolutely want it. But it has become a lot more complicated and probably is only a good idea if you are collecting Marriott Bonvoy Points anyway. However, there is lots of tempting offers where to use the Marriott Bonvoy Points instead as a loyalty customer (like booking the Grosvenor House in Dubai)
Have you been flying any super luxury airline product?
Tell me about your experience with Singapore Airlines – or with another premium carrier!
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Ohhh that sounds amazing. I would love to try flying the first class suite on a plane at one point in my life. Im not a star alliance member. But I believe One World may have an airline that has something similar, Ill have to check.
So fun, great pics. Thanks for the inspiration… Also, I totally agree with points. They get you everything. Its how I book a lot of my plane fares nowadays. =)
Hi James! It was also kind of a “I want to do this at least once in my life” thing for me! You should definitely sign up for Star Alliance as well – after all, they are a pretty big alliance. The only other carriers that have a true suites class that I am aware of would be Etihad (but that like REALLY exclusive and expensive) and Emirates. And points are definitely everything – also for hotel bookings!