After our brief flirtation with Emirates Airways in 2013, because of scheduling constraints, this year we are back on our favourite airline, Singapore Air, flying from Melboune to Barcelona via Singapore. One of the things I particularly like about Singapore Air is their frequent flyer club, KrisFlyer. Unlike Qantas, with whom we had built up hundreds of thousands of frequent flyer points over many years, KrisFler allows you to use accumulated points to pay for future tickets that you would have bought for cash otherwise. So, for example, our flights this year were reduced in price by about $1000 as a result of frequent flyer points that we had built up over the past year - quite a good deal, especially compared to Qantas where you can only use your points to go somewhere you don’t want to go at a time of year that you don’t want to travel!  In past years, I have simply been using my Qantas points to buy things from their store that I otherwise would not have purchased, such as a Hero3 GoPro camera.

Another thing that we like about Singapore Air is the customer service they provide. Two years ago when coming back from Moissac to fly out of Zurich, I was caught behind a truck accident which blocked the motorway. I was delayed for 6 hours and was going to miss my flight. With less than 4 hours till departure time, I rang from a roadside rest area and they, without question, booked me onto a replacement flight on the following day. This year, with most of the steelband flying to France with Singapore Air, we had quite a lot of steelpan cases that we needed to carry. Singapore Air were more than helpful in arranging a group check-in, with all the steelpan cases getting special treatment as they were placed in a container for the special luggage services. We gave the system a good testing ourselves, with both of us carrying a steelpan case in addition to a smaller piece of baggage. All went very smoothly, including the plastic wrapping of the cases.