Part 2 of my infuriating experience using Singapore miles to book on Alaska metal

I was hoping to make a simple update on yesterday’s post, but it got even more frustrating today making this booking.

I woke up this morning to an email at 1:40AM saying they tried to call me, but it went to voicemail. I replied to them in the morning saying it was 1AM and I was sleeping. I asked them to call me again or if they can just book it without having to call me. Their response:

Okay understandable. I wrote back at 9:30AM and told them to call me back anytime in the next 12 hours. By 5PM, they hadn’t called me back yet. I eventually found this FT thread on how other people have had problems doing the same thing. Since they had success over chat, that’s what I initiated. The wait to get an agent was about 15 minutes (this was 9AM on Friday in Singapore.) Eventually I got a rep who once again, told me to book it online as Star Alliance. I then reminded her that Alaska wasn’t Star Alliance and that they were a direct partner. She then asked me what error I was getting on the web site. At this point, I’m irate for dealing with this over the past 2 days, so I’m using all caps when I type, “I CAN’T BOOK AN ALASKA AIR AWARD TICKET ONLINE, SO STOP ASKING ME ABOUT ONLINE.” Yeah I get it that this isn’t the best approach, but sometimes you have to be assertive (can you be a Karen if you are right?)

Eventually the chat rep comes to the same conclusion that there is no availability. I then paste the email from August saying that there is availablity and there is no way it could be gone in 24 hours, since there are 7 seats available. She then asks for a screenshot to be sent to kf_contact@singaporeair.com.sg which immediately made me smirk since that’s the email I had been emailing with. So I send her the BA screenshot showing availability. Eventually she gets the email and says it’s no longer available. I then tell her to ask her manager how to book an Alaska award. Of course she says she’s booked it before. Now things are getting heated between the two of us. I then go, “I won’t believe there is no availability until August tells me there is none.” She then proceeds to tell me that she’s seen the entire email string and that she will notate that she talked to me and that there was no availability (like she was branding me with a Scarlet A.) Eventually she tells me to ask for August to call me, which I then shot back with, “Great since she’s the only one who seems to know how to book this.” Haha I told you things were getting chippy. She eventually tells me to wait for someone to call and I come back with, “FINE, I will.” We end the chat, but I couldn’t leave feedback about the chat. I then went out to Singapore’s website and left feedback on her getting chippy with me instead of trying to actually find the solution.

Within 5 minutes, I get a phone call from Singapore from this rep named Simon. I immediately assume he’s going to tell me the same thing – no availability. After I told him my itinerary, he was able to find and book it just fine. I asked him how he was able to book this when 5 other reps had no idea how to do this. He alluded that it should have been bookable by everyone but that perhaps the other reps were maybe new or just didn’t know how. I pressed him again if there was a special system he was using to book it, but he said it wasn’t anything special. It took us 30 minutes mainly because taking the payment involved them emailing me a link (which never arrived) and me having to create an SQ number for my wife.

At the end of the call, he apologized that I had to jump through so many hoops to get this taken care of. I thanked him for KNOWING how to book the award. I then suggested to him that maybe the customer service team needs to be re-trained on how to book these awards because it shouldn’t take this many calls/emails to find a rep who knew how to do this. The most frustrating part of the whole experience was that no rep thought to ask their manager or a more experienced coworker on how to do it; they all were adamant that there was no availability. Like I know they must have an internal chat program that they could have just asked each other or their manager. Anyway, I’m going to leave him and August positive feedback on the SQ site. The lesson learned from all this is – don’t try to redeem SQ miles on Alaska metal. Just use Avios. It’s not worth the time/headache.