🇧🇹 Bhutan Trip Report: I am now 600k Avios Richer

My wife and I recently got back from a 10 day trip to Bhutan (with a short 3 days in Singapore tacked on at the end). While the trip itself was absolutely amazing, our QSuites plans obviously did not happen due to current geopolitical events. I'd just finished booking our lodging in December when I wrote the prequel to this post, and just 3 months later I was suddenly dealing with attempting to salvage the trip with just a week's notice.

❗Check out my full trip report/travelogue/whatever-you-want-to-call-it here on my more personal blog – I'll try and keep this post mostly points related.

QSuites dreams quickly turned into American Airlines nightmares when reality set in that we'd more than likely be flying economy to Delhi from JFK. With Middle East airspace closed our options were limited and we HAD to be in Delhi the night before our 4:40AM flight to Paro. Despite my best efforts, there was just nothing out there that made sense to get us to Delhi at least the night before our flight to Bhutan.

Yes, the flight was bad and my knees felt like they were going to explode, but it was a relief to get to Delhi airport on time for our Drukair flight to Bhutan.

❗Again, full Bhutan trip info here!

While our Bhutan trip was untouched, we had to come up with a quick plan to get home after as well. I think so many people that go to/from India go via the Gulf region, so flights to just about anywhere were full, not to mention award space.

Thankfully the same day we were originally planning to head to Bahrain from Delhi, Singapore Suites space opened up to Singapore. I was thrilled. I had yet to fly this and while the DEL->SIN flight is fairly short at around 5.5 hours, it was still great to experience. Truly one-of-a-kind and I get the big deal. Would love to fly this on a real long-haul flight. Having access to the Private Room lounge at SIN upon arrival at 6AM was clutch as well for a shower and a good meal before heading to the Andaz for our 3 night stay. While we weren't able to get the saver pricing here on SQ Suites, Advantage was around 100k person and with everything going on it still felt worth the price.

I wouldn't just book the SQ Suites space though without a good way to actually get back to the states, though. Just before I looked for space on Singapore from Delhi, I saw that Delta had 2J seats available from TPE->SEA the same day we were planning on traveling home. I had close to 300k Delta miles from churning the Delta Business Gold cards, so I only had to transfer around 50k Amex MR points to top off my balance for 2 tickets. This was my first time flying Delta One and it was better than expected. Definitely the best experience I've had in long haul from a US carrier.

All that was left at this point was really piecing together the last interstitial flight between SIN and TPE, and I was able to do that with probably my favorite airline of the last few years, STARLUX (via Alaksa). I have flown STARLUX (I hate the all uppercase for their branding) probably 5 or 6 times at this point, with most of my flights being on the A350, but twice on the A321, all in business class. This SIN->TPE flight was my first time on the A330 and I think it's my least favorite of the 3 STARLUX business products. As weird as that sounds, for a 5-ish hour flight I just think the A321 is a bit more put together and comfy.

I digress, though. Needless to say, after all the stress of trying to save the trip to Bhutan and stitch together getting there and back, I think it all turned out pretty well thanks to points and seats.aero.

tldr; go to Bhutan.