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SOUND THE ALARM! Today is (almost definitely) your last ever chance to purchase discounted SPG Starpoints.

I’ve been sharing a few of my favourite Starpoints redemptions to illustrate why you might wish to take advantage of cheap Starpoints while you still can (articles listed below) and will be posting about a few more today – starting with how you can bag 15 hours in one of the world’s best Business Class products for about £370.

• Cathay Pacific Business Class to/from Hong Kong from ~£610
• 25,000 Miles for Business Class to the Middle East
• Best value miles redemption in the world (maybe)

The (probably) last ever Starpoint sale ends today, and when you purchase 5,000 or more and you will save 35% compared to the normal price.

Starpoints can be transferred to a large of airline partners at a generous 1:1 rate – with an additional 5,000 Miles bonus when you transfer in blocks of 20,000. For example, if you bought 20,000 Starpoints for ~£340, you could transfer them over to Alaska Mileage Plan and receive 25,000 Alaska Miles. In other words, your cost per Alaska Mile would be ~1.35p per Mile.

1.35p may be expensive for some types of miles, but is a good price other airline currencies like Alaska Mileage Plan Miles.

Business Class doesn’t have to be expensive…

Alaska Mileage Plan has a fair few quirks compared to most other major airline mileage programmes – some good, some bad.

One of the best quirks is that you can (usually) include a free stopover at a hub (or ‘gateway’) city, even on one way awards. This means you can fly somewhere, stay for as long as you like (days, weeks, months), then continue to your actual destination – all for the same number of Miles. Most other programmes would charge you for two separate awards if you tried to do that.

Another unique thing about Alaska Mileage Plan is its range of partners – which includes airlines in all of the big three alliances. One of those partners is the excellent Japanese airline JAL, and it’s JAL we are going to be looking at in detail here.

A one way Business Class redemption on JAL for travel within Asia (including India!) requires just 25,000 Alaska Miles + ~£30 in tax. To search, just head to the Alaska website here and make sure you tick the “Use Miles” box. Given that we are looking at redeeming on JAL, your flight will be routing via Tokyo and if you want to build in a stopover there, just click the “Multi-City” box and add your flight details as below:

As an example, I’m using an old itinerary from Delhi to Singapore, with a stopover in Tokyo for a week:

Both flights are over 7 hours long so you’re looking at about 15 hours of JAL Business Class for 25,000 Miles + £30. Remember, you can currently purchase 25,000 Miles via SPG for ~£340, making the total cost £370!

Obviously, not everyone is going to want to fly specifically between India and Singapore, but the exact same principle works for all sorts of other Asian origins and destinations. In fact, you can even do some pretty crazy backtracks, like Singapore – Tokyo (free stopover) – Kuala Lumpur:

Spending ~15 hours on planes (even in one of the best Business Class cabins in the world) to travel the 185 Miles between Singapore and Kuala Lumpur may seem a trifle eccentric at first glance, but it can actually be a great idea!

Say, for example, you book  cheap flights from the UK to Singapore, but would love to visit Japan too – now you can do it in style for ~£360. Kuala Lumpur is well worth a look in its own right of course, but it has the added advantage of offering lots of cheap flight options (£10-£30) back to Singapore, so you can easily connect to get your flight back to the UK.

On many of these longer Asian routes, JAL flies its exceptional SKY SUITE III Business Class seat (on the 787-9 and 777-200ER aircraft). You can check out a great review here – the food alone almost looks worth the Miles!

JAL’s other Business Class products are generally excellent too – and the food/service etc isn’t dependent on the aircraft type (though shorter flights will presumably have something less elaborate, and red-eyes have reduced service to maximise sleeping).

Bottom line

15 hours in one of the best Business Class cabins in the sky, plus the chance to have a proper look at Tokyo/Japan while on your travels in Asia for ~£360… Not bad. ?

Remember that the 35% Starpoint discount ends today, so if you want to take advantage of deals like this, now is the time to do it!

Get 11,000 Starpoints with the SPG American Express Card

If you prefer to earn your Miles through credit card sign-up bonuses rather than buying them, sign up to the SPG American Express credit card here and you’ll get a bonus of 11,000 Starpoints rather than the standard 10,000.

You need to spend £1,000 within 3 months to trigger the bonus once you get the card, but will earn an extra 1,000 Starpoints for that too, because the standard earning rate is 1 Starpoint per £1.

There’s an annual fee of £75 to bear in mind too, although you do get a pro rata refund if you cancel before the end of the year.