Flights to Singapore for Singapore Bali Trip
Starting to look for Business Class tickets for our booked trip at the end of August in 2026. We live on the East Coast. Any previous travelers find reasonable fares (for business class, that is)?
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Starting to look for Business Class tickets for our booked trip at the end of August in 2026. We live on the East Coast. Any previous travelers find reasonable fares (for business class, that is)?
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We used Qatar. Re Mimi below. We live in Philly and Emirates don’t fly from here, but not sure about other east coast airports.
We are going in July and just booked Emirates from FL.
West Coaster. Did non-stop Seattle-Singapore on Singapore Air.
Just got back in October. Highly recommend Singapore Air if you can made it work.
Turkish Air. We had used them in the past and loved them. Last year there was some bad press about bedbugs on the planes. We just used them for a non-Tauck trip to Turkey in September and they were great. Obviously no bed bugs ( I was looking..) We are using them for Jordan/Egypt and a non-Tauck Thailand / Qatar trip next year. We will also use them for Singapore/Bali in 2027. While in Turkey in September, we heard that sometime in 2027 they were expanding their routes to include Australia. We want to go back to Australia, so if they do we will use them. Refuse to pay 8+K on current carriers to go business class to Australia. (The last time we went we flew economy.... that is a non-starter now.) You can get decent rates from the east coast, but you have to book early.
Just flew United business SFO-SIN for this trip in September. I prefer the United 787-9 aircraft but the service was lackluster.
Thank you, everyone. Previous to my positing the question, we had looked at Singapore Air and Qatar, both of which I'd prefer, but Turkish Air was so much cheaper. Good to hear MotherOfPoodles' recommendation.
We did Turkish Air r/t ORD-IST last month. No problems. Average service for Business Class. Good price!
jtelli - I hear you on the price. We flew Turkish Air to/from our recent Rome, Amalfi, Sicily, Malta tour - great price and no Euro-business class seats on any of the legs.
Personally, I think the business class experience on Turkish Air is better than the business class experience on American, British Airways or United. Heck, the business class experience on Ethiopian Air is better than the business class experience on United , British AIrways or American. Cannot comment on Qatar or Emirates. Prices are much better on TA.
One more thing.... on our flight from IAD to Istanbul last year ( we were doing the Black Sea/ Danube river boat cruise; changed planes for Bucharest in Istanbul) we ran into people with Tauck duffel bags and immediately struck up a conversation. They were using Turkish Air to do the Singapore/ Bali tour. I think they had a several hour layover in Istanbul. The lounge area in Istanbul is very large and is really nice. There are lots of well placed food stations and different kinds of seating arrangements. Just my opinion, and once again, I have not taken Qatar or Emirates. They seem to be significantly more expensive than TA, so it is a no - brainer for us.
Thank you again, MotherOfPoodles!
Jteiii, it appears that Turkish flies from JFK and Washington DC on the east coast.
Turkish also flies from Boston to Istanbul.
British, we had already checked that out. Thanks!
I am going on the 8/15 trip and flying Qatar from Miami. I did a lot of research, and if I recall, Turkish business is very dependent on which plane you get. As in, great in remodeled interiors, zero privacy in older interiors. So I would see which plane you would have and read the reviews, watch the you-tubes. I flew Qatar to Cairo, very inexpensive, in February and loved it. The pajamas are super comfy, you have a door to your QSuite. Food was great. Doha airport is unbelievably nice, and the lounges are nice. I had a fantastic meal at the first class lounge (my Doha to Cairo ticket was First because they didn't have business.
Just a few shots of their older planes: 777-300 ER. What you give up in privacy, you get in space.
Personally, I love these planes! Feels like a flying living room.
Thanks for these pictures. Very helpful. We DID use Qatar when we went two years ago to the Vietnam trip, but at that time, we got a very good deal. We are still looking!
You do get the space on the 777-300 ER. For me they are great planes for any flight that is totally during the day. The only comment about the space is that you almost need binoculars to see the TV screen. Envision sitting 6 feet away from your computer monitor, that's what it is.
The 777-300 ER is typically configured in a 2-3-2 configuration, whereas the newer planes (and configurations) are 1-2-1. The 2-3-2 configuration is a disaster when all of the seats are placed into the lie flat configuration for an overnight flight. Three of the 7 people in each row have to climb over someone to go to the restroom. If the person sitting next to you is a stranger this can be very interesting.
On a recent Turkish Air flight my overnight flight plane was changed to a 777-300 ER and its 2-3-2 configuration vs the 1-2-1 configuration of the 787 planes that I had flown in the past and was expecting again. After our trip Turkish sent out an email requesting comments on their service. I expressed my concerns about the two configurations and my disappointment in the plane change. They sent me a $300 voucher, with a 3 month expiration date. So the voucher was a nice consideration on their part, but basically worthless to me. I only fly Turkish when going on the long international flights to tours, and even then I don't fly Turkish exclusively.
I have flown Turkish, Qatar, Singapore Air, JAL, KLM, Qantas, British Air, and American for the long over the pond flights. I have flights on Emirates booked for an upcoming tour. These flights have spanned 30 years so I'm sure the service and quality has likely evolved a lot over that time.
Being from Tucson, where flight options are much fewer than from a major hub, I do a lot of flight shopping.
Domestically for where I typically fly (Dallas, Seattle, and Las Vegas) the typical options are American/Alaska (partners) or Southwest. Delta and United have a presence but are more a player to places that I don't fly (although Delta has added Seattle as an option).
Internationally, for flights across an ocean, it's really a shopping experience. Flights and routing can vary by thousands of dollars per person and by 10 or more hours each way. Often times to save the thousands of dollars it requires booking two reservations per person. One reservation for the domestic legs to get to a major hub where a 'reasonably' priced across the pond flight can be obtained. I have used Los Angeles, Seattle, Vancouver, Toronto, Dallas, NY, Philadelphia, and Washington as my international departure city. Doing this is definitely extra work, but to save sometimes close to $2000 per person I do it. I typically use frequent flyer miles to get to/from these departure cities.
It's near impossible to figure out the airlines pricing schemes. For our next tour we fly from Seattle, but return to Los Angeles, using Emirates. Doing the different endpoint cities saved close to $1000 per person. Since we use miles to get to/from these cities it was a no brainer. For the tour after that I booked the fare straight from Tucson, round trip to Paris, on American. I would prefer to do this for all trips if the prices were at all comparable. They usually aren't.
Airfare shopping and air travel in general isn't one of the better parts of touring. 😁