I’m typing this while I’m on the phone with Singapore air, asking for a supervisor because I’m not getting anywhere. The backstory here is that I have 26K stranded SQ miles from prob 7+ years ago from an MR transfer or whatnot. They expire in March and so I wanted to use them up asap. I have a trip to Los Angeles in March and I was able to see award availability on both AA and the BA site as shown:
So I called up Singapore Air 2 days ago wanting to book the flight. The rep told me I could check availability and book the Alaska flight online, which I knew was a bad sign because this is impossible. Anyway, he checked his system and told me there was no availability and that there was a United flight. I figured it was a HUCA situation so I tried again a few hours later. Same thing – no availability but there was a United flight. The rep then told me to fill out this form https://www.singaporeair.com/saar5/pdf/ppsclub_krisflyer/forms/PartnerAL-ResRequest.pdf
So I filled out that form and emailed it in and got this as the response.
Clearly a bad sign since I wasn’t asking for missing miles. I then replied back telling them I wanted to took an award redemption. To their credit, a half hour later, they replied saying “Sorry no flight availibility”
I replied back saying that there should be 7 award seats and I sent them the BA screenshot. An hour later, I get this email:
Once again, no availability and that I can check Star Alliance availability online. At this point, I felt like they were checking the wrong systems, so I told them that Alaska isn’t Star Alliance; they are a direct partner. An hour later, once again, no availablity. Frustrated, I asked them, “Can you check if there is any Alaska award availability from LAX-SEA for ANY DATE in March?”
It wasn’t until 5pm PT the next day that they replied back:
I’m not sure whose phone number that is, but I replied back with my correct phone number. I figure, “Oh let me get ahead of this and call in to book this.” Sure enough, 30 frustrating minutes later, the same thing “No award availability. There is a United flight..blah blah.” The odd thing is that I can pay cash for the Alaska tickets via Singapore, but they can’t seem to figure out how to book this Alaska award ticket.
I’m sure someone out there is going to know the secret words I should have said for them to check the right systems to book this ticket, but so far, it seems I have to wait for August’s phone call to make this happen since they’re the only person at Singapore that knows how to book this. So frustrating this whole ordeal.
Out of curiosity, why didn’t you take the United Flight if your goal was just to use up the KF miles? I can think of countless reasons (connection required, not good timing, no elite status with United, etc. etc.) but you didn’t mention any in the blog, so got curious.
Didn’t want to connect
I recently had a similarly frustrating situation with SQ, in which I was seeing availability online to redeem SQ miles for SQ flights. They had availability (both saver and advantage) according to their website. I tried 5 different times (and with a supervisor) and via email, and continued to be told that the availability they see can be different than what we can see online. And that I should book it myself if I could see the space. Unfortunately it involved a stopover and a change of airports in Tokyo (NRT to HND) so it wasn’t bookable online. The reps confirmed it was a legal stopover, but just couldn’t book it. Incredibly frustrating.
Are you sure that’s not a married segment issue?
I frequently book Singapore flights but do so on AS website using AS miles. Haven’t done it vice versa. I got the following info off Award Wallet.
“One of the downsides to the Singapore website is that it doesn’t allow you to search flexible dates via the award search, which can make finding availability at the pointy end of the plane a labor-intensive process. If there is no award space available you can opt to waitlist the flight.”
“Waitlisting a flight doesn’t put you under any obligation to take the award if it clears, it simply puts you on the waitlist in case Singapore does clear the waitlist and open up more award space. And the chance of your waitlist clearing? Don’t bank on the flight if you have to be somewhere on a particular date. Singapore also provides some good instructional videos over on its YouTube channel showing the booking process.”
Sorry not much help.
An aside – does your Krisflyer statement say the miles expire this March? If so, they’re extending them for 6 months one last time: “*KrisFlyer miles expiring between January and June 2023 will be automatically extended for a final six months, at the end of each month. No action is required from you.”
https://www.singaporeair.com/en_UK/sg/ppsclub-krisflyer/latestnews/2020renewal-kf/
Ah I didn’t see that. Yes, it shows March 2023, so I guess the new expiration is September. At least I have more in trying to use these stupid miles. Thx