The Miles Game: 2021 edition

Having been in the miles game for a while, I have been fascinated by the various ways that I can earn miles to redeem for airline premium classes.

Compared to the United States, Singapore is relatively a small market for credit cards so the benefits are not as generous as the former. Nevertheless, there are ways to earn miles from our daily spending.

Currently, I use some Singapore-based credit cards that help me to earn miles:

1) HSBC revolution earns 4 miles per dollar on the following:

• Airline bookings
• Hotel bookings and staycations
• Online shopping at Amazon, Lazada, Shopee and Taobao
• Food delivery from Deliveroo, foodpanda and GrabFood
• Rides from taxis, Grab, gojek, RYDE
• Supermarket buys
• Dining and foodstores

2) UOB Krisflyer

• Public transport
• Book on the dedicated UOB-flyscoot website as it comes with some complimentary flight benefits:
  Convenience fee waiver for credit card payment (common for budget carriers)
  One-time flight date/time OR passenger name change
  Free standard seat selection
  Free priority check-in and boarding
• 3) DBS Altitude

• Expedia and Kaligo travel websites

Book on dedicated DBS expedia website

• Singapore Airline and Silkair tickets

Book on dedicated DBS travel marketplace website to earn 4 mpd

4) Amex Ascend krisflyer

• Local spend (entertainment and pharmacy outlets)
Sistic (entertainment), Watson, Unity 
Amex Ascend earn 3 mpd

Other than earning miles, there are certain travel benefits that come with the cards:

For Amex Ascend krisflyer, I get 4 complimentary plaza premium lounge access around the world each year. I also get a complimentary hilton hotel stay each year.

For DBS Altitude, I get complimentary priority pass membership with 2 complimentary lounge access around the world each year.

Both Amex Ascend and UOB krisflyer are SQ-branded cards, so the miles earned are directly placed into my krisflyer account.

DBS Altitude earn DBS points with no expiry. These can be converted into various airlines miles. A transaction fee is involved with each conversion.

With the pandemic relatively under control and vaccine roll-out, here's to hoping that borders will reopen soon. Right now, there are a few premium class flights that I wish to travel on. 

1) SQ A380 new suites class with miles. 

2) Emirates 777 first class with virtual windows. 

3) Frankfurt first class terminal. To access this, I would have to travel on Lufthansa first class from Frankfurt to where it flies in the world. The cheapest option is to fly to the Middle East with miles.

Finally, in terms of travel destinations, I have already fulfilled my bucket list pre-pandemic thankfully. Right now, there are just a handful of places that I would like to visit. 

1) South Africa Cape Town

I visited both Johannesburg and Cape Town back in 2019, albeit only for a short while. Hope to travel to Cape Town again and visit Table Mountain and Cape of Good Hope.

2) Latin America with Antarctica cruise. 

I have visited Chile and Easter Island back in 2017. But I hope to travel to Chile and Argentina. To visit Patagonia and Antarctica on a cruise.

3) Northern lights with Norway cruise.😀

I have taken the cruise once and saw the fascinating Northern lights. I hope to have the experience again!