Flying Economy with Krisflyer Gold

 

I am a beginner when it comes to the miles game. I only have a small amount of work-related travel and the miles I earn are not enough to qualify for anything. However, after reaching FI, I have started to take business class flights so that I can get better sleep on the plane (allows for better quality workouts on landing, versus needing to get over jetlag before you exercise). My business class miles + work trip miles finally got me to Krisflyer Gold.

After taking my first economy class flight on Krisflyer Gold, I think there are advantages where the departing airport is not Changi. Changi is so efficient I don't even bother to do business class check-in - its faster to just self-service check-in and bag drop.

However, for flight from Kansai which is full of tourists and long queues. Krisflyer Gold turned out to be useful.  First of all, I could get past the extremely long economy check-in queue, and thereafter to get into the priority security queue and avoid yet another long queue. The JAL Sakura lounge was crowded (all the Star Alliance Gold members will go there) but not too bad. Boarding was nice as I could board early (after the PPS members) and get my stuff into the overhead luggage. The one area I did not take advantage of was the 40kg economy luggage allowance. I don't go overseas for shopping and I think my check-in luggage was under 10kg. On the other hand I can see that many Singaporeans love going to Japan to shop....

I should try to fly more SQ economy while I still have Krisflyer Gold, rather than try to requalify by flying business. After it expires, then maybe I will consider flying more business to quality again. I am looking forward to the SQ "Time to Fly" sale to book a few more short regional holidays.

Dividends Collected: Sep 2024

 

On target for 200k.

REITS: Capitaland Int Comm Trust Rights issue

 

Capitaland Integrated Commercial Trust held a rights offering of 56 units for every 1000 held. I applied for my allocation and for excess rights that was about 3x my allocation, thinking that was pretty optimistic. 

Surprisingly, the valid acceptances of the rights offering was pretty low at 82.0%. This is despite the strength of the Capitaland brand name and the quality of their portfolio. This meant that I got all the excess that I subscribed for.

As a result, my CICT position is large enough to qualify as a 'medium-sized' holding though I will only update my portfolio page at the end of the year.

REIT rally?

The 5-year chart of CLR ETF is informative. It shows just how far REITs have fallen and the recent rally is only a small recovery. If further FED rates cuts are not forthcoming (i.e. slower or smaller than market anticipates), there will still be some volatility. 

On the other hand, a value investor is more concerned with the fundamentals and whether people want to rent units in the buildings the REITs own, and whether customers (for retail/hospitality), went to visit those premises.