Belgium to Fiji in 13 flights (26561 miles, 42746km)

Fiji Trip Report Index
Introduction: Belgium to Fiji in 13 flights (26561 miles, 42746km)
DoubleTree by Hilton Hotel Kuala Lumpur
Grand Suite at Grand Hyatt Kuala Lumpur
Singapore Airlines First Class: The Private Room @ Changi Airport
Singapore Airlines First Class: SQ211 Singapore to Sydney B777-300A
Opera King room at Park Hyatt Sydney
Beachfront View room at InterContinental Fiji Golf Resort & Spa
Singapore Airlines Business Class: SQ232 Sydney to Singapore
Thai Airways First Class: Royal Orchid Spa, TG920 Bangkok to Frankfurt A380

Pic: Brussels, Belgium to Suva, Fiji return: 13 flights, 26561 miles (Jan 2013) What a way to start 2013! Grand Suite at Grand Hyatt Kuala Lumpur, Singapore Airlines First Class to Sydney, Opera King room at Park Hyatt Sydney, Beachfront View room at InterContinental Fiji Golf Resort & Spa, Thai Airways A380 First Class from Bangkok to Frankfurt… just to name a few highlights.
You can expect extensive coverage of my January trip in the coming weeks.
Let’s start with the airfares, how did I pull this one off?  I used four separate tickets: a KLM revenue economy class ticket (€571) BRU-AMS-SIN-AMS-FRA (of which I only used the outbound part) and three tickets booked with United MileagePlus miles.  Back in July 2012, Singapore Airlines made a mistake while upgrading their booking engine.  They took it offline for a weekend long upgrade, but when their systems came back online, for a brief moment (24h), it was possible to book Singapore Airlines Business and First Class awards via frequent flyer programs of Star Alliance partners.  This was unintentional, as they normally release longhaul C and F award space exclusively to their own loyalty program, KrisFlyer.  I used this opportunity to book SIN-SYD-AKL-NAN for 45K United miles (with SIN-SYD in SQ F, SYD-AKL in NZ C, and AKL-NAN in NZ Y) and NAN-AKL-SYD-SIN for 25K United miles (with NAN-AKL in NZ Y, AKL-SYD in NZ C and SYD-SIN in SQ C)  My third award ticket SIN-BKK-FRA-BRU was a last minute booking, again using United MileagePlus miles. (with SIN-BKK in TG C, BKK-FRA in TG F and FRA-BRU in LH C)   48 hours before departure, Thai Airways had released First Class award space for their brand new Airbus A380 flight from Bangkok to Frankfurt on January 24.  Albeit being quite expensive at 80K United miles, an opportunity I couldn’t refuse.