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I’m just about to trigger my first Companion voucher (just before the spend goes up to £15,000).
Our plan is to visit Perth WA in mid-January 2026 as soon as the off peak season kicks in. I know that BA only flies to Sydney and that those flights are extremely hard to secure and I’m not interested in flying across Australia twice so I’m looking at Singapore and then on to Perth on my own steam.
My questions are:Are flights to Singapore hard to grab? I’ll be retiring then so my travel dates are extremely flexible. Would it be necessary to use the 355 day thing or would I perhaps have some leeway? Not having any previous experience I would prefer to book both legs at once, but I’m not sure if that would be advisable.
Are there any viable alternatives to Singapore? I know BA fly to Hong Kong but it’s a fair bit longer to Perth. I don’t think BA fly to Kuala Lumpur and I can’t think of anywhere else apart from the Middle East.
Singapore is likely the best idea, but you could also route via Doha or Dubai without your companion voucher. You could snap up some very reasonable business class flights direct to Singapore via ex-EU destinations (eg look at Frankfurt, Oslo, Amsterdam, Dublin) and save your companion voucher for another time.
A reminder you can also use Avios via Qantas from Singapore to Perth (but Scoot / Scoot Plus is perhaps the best value option).
In my experience flights to & from Singapore in January last year were relatively easy to secure, especially as we didn’t have specific dates to choose.
I think you will be fine in January for Singapore. The T-355 seats go quickly but the 241 opens up extra seats which are generally the ones at les popular times i.e. Tuesdays/Wednesdays in January. Typically available several months before but can be longer.
Now if you were flying from the provinces rather than London I think you’d be near guaranteed getting these seats but BA now seem to offload the cheap seats from the provinces whilst keeping London pricing higher. This is reflected through I class availability being better from places like sunny Edinburgh than London.
For what it’s worth, I think BA to Singapore with the companion voucher is a good shout. Singapore to Perth is not far compared to the Middle East to Singapore (less than half the distance). So one big sleep to Singapore in business class followed by a manageable shorter flight (even I could tolerate SIN-PER in economy) is a pretty good way of doing it.
BA flies to KUL and I’m using this route to get to Perth next year, but SIN is also a good option as well as BKK from LGW. The benefits of the voucher have been explained and I think you should be ok with availability, but I’d secure the outbound when it becomes available.
We did this late last year, voucher to Singapore return in Biz, we were flexible on dates so was happy to spend a couple of days in Singapore.
Then we flew scoot to Perth (Singapore airlines low cost), their PE seat is lovely and service is good, was a 787 and seats are 2-3-2 in that cabin with loads of leg room.
It was only 5 hours down to Perth from Singapore.Living in Belfast I’ve flown a number of times with Qatar from Dublin as well as from Belfast via Heathrow or Manchester, but these have all been in Economy. Doha to Perth is a struggle! I doubt if I could afford Business class without the CV so I’m seeking to cover the maximum distance I can in Business.
Some good tips here, many thanks people. Starting to think now I should just go for an Avios reward flight fro Dublin to Perth with Avios and use my CV for a real in Athens! I’m living in hope that Qatar sign up like Aer Lingus and Iberia or that BA start flying to Perth.
If you’re in Belfast, I’d be shocked if you don’t find availability to Singapore pretty easily. Once you get your companion voucher, you can compare what you can see with and without it and I think that should leave you feeling pretty relaxed about making it to Singapore in Business class with BA.
You should also be able to book the return journey in a oner and won’t need to muck about with midnight calls.
I would be seriously tempted to try to do this with QR, ideally DUB-DOH-PER. Whole route booked as a single transaction, more direct route, probably better hard and soft product. Can you increase your Avios balance via boost ? I’ve bought a couple of hundred k avios that way this year leveraging both SUBs and credit card spend, at about 0.92p each.
I doubt QR redemptions will stay at anything like current pricing if they ever allow use of 2-4-1 vouchers so I wouldn’t hold off waiting for that !
For QR, and for BA seats except additional ones opened up by a 2-4-1, you might want to use an aadvantage account to hold seats for 4/5 days while you search around for return seats and/or put the rest of your plans together (then cancel the aadvantage hold at same time as logged into BA account with relevant search ready to go in another tab, the seats should reappear within a few seconds….)? Have found this useful in the past, as I was an aadvantage junkie before switching to avios.
Learn from my experience….
We flew LHR to SIN using a companion voucher, and had a separate ticket from SIN to Perth on Qantas – scheduled for four hours after we landed in SIN.
Our flight from LHR was delayed – and instead of a leisurely stop in SIN, we had a rush. (We were able to use the excellent SIN baggage transfer desk – as BA would not book our luggage beyond SIN).
Next time I would overnight in SIN, then travel down the next day.
Should add – We love Perth and Margaret River. Both are wonderful in January through March. Rottnest is a “must”, and we loved coastal walks throughout WA.Can’t work out how to reply directly on this site! Anyway, to 1958, I hear what you’re saying. The BA flight arrives about 4pm Singapore time (which is also Perth time). So the plan is to overnight it and pick one of the numerous flights on to Perth next day. On the return leg the BA flight to London leaves Singapore around midnight so I would be getting an early flight from Perth and then enjoying the Changi experience.
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