Booking Singapore Award Flight
After accumulating SPG Starpoints for about a year, I finally obtained enough Starpoints to book a Singapore Award Flight, which is a one way trip from Beijing to New York City via Singapore and Frankfurt. Flying in the Suite Class in Singapore’s Airbus 380-800 is something on many people’s bucket list. It has been on the top of the list ever since I started the miles and points game. Due to the high demand, I can only waitlist myself to the flight from Singapore to New York, but my first leg from Beijing to Singapore was confirmed.
singapore_airline_A380_suite_class
Clear the waitlist: the Quota system
Regarding how to get your waitlist cleared, it has been one of the greatest myths. Some say you can keep calling the agents to make them push your space for you; Or try to make your multi-passenger reservation into separate bookings, to increase the chances. I can not comment on if those methods would work, but I have learned something from One Mile at a Time.
It seems that you can waitlist multiple flights on various dates as long as the miles balance in your account is enough for the most expensive redemption flight you have waitlisted, which means if your travel dates are not too constrained, you can make multiple bookings with multiple waitlist request. I think this is the best and efficient way to increase your chances to get you cleared for the flight.
One thing I have learned today after spending 90 minutes with a lovely SQ agent over the phone, Singapore Airline has a weird or UNPRESIDENTED inventory features for its award flights. In short, each SQ operation centre has different accesses or “quota” for the award tickets. At first, it is confusing as hell.
As many of you know, usually an airline would have a universal award flight inventory for its frequent flyers and partner airline frequent flyers. Many carriers now have two separate inventories for its loyal program members and alliance carrier or partner airline members. However, in my scenario, I am redeeming Singapore’s Krisflyer program miles for these flights. I would think that when I call an SQ agent, the agent would have access to all the award seats for Krisflyer members. However, according to the agent, I spoke with, she cannot confirm one of my booking date requests, because she does not have the corresponding “quota” to the flights originating from this particular city, in this case, Beijing.
The only thing she was able to do is to put me on the waitlist for this Beijing to Singapore flight, despite the fact the flight is bookable on Singapore airline’s website. The reason why I did not book on the website is that I need to add a stopover in Singapore, which is only bookable through the phone. Seems an infinite loop eh:
She cannot book me, because she does not have the quota from Singapore, and I cannot book myself because the website does not allow me to book the way I wanted and needed to call. What a lovely world! The agent did appreciate my patience because it seems that a lot of people cannot understand this REDICULOUS feature of Singapore Airlines.
Bottomline
I have successfully made two waitlist bookings for SQ’s suite class flights, and hopefully, it will get cleared, so I do not need to find a plan b or c.