Dumb redemption Q involving star alliance leg

[blingy90]

Hey guys,

Fairly straight forward question - was wanting to get a redemption quote on an itinerary that involves mostly SQ but one service on a star alliance partner.

When I search for the itinerary as a paying customer - I get the price

However when I search the same itinerary for a redemption it can't show the itinerary (I'm assuming due to it involving a star alliance flight?)

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Ps the itinerary is (MEL-SIN-FCO) (FLR-FRA-SIN-BNE)

 

[dajop]

You have to call Krisflyer to get any itineraries that involve star alliance partners.

Note there is no penalty for making one way bookings (other than requiring two cancellation fees if you need to cancel), so if available you could get the MEL-SIN-FCO booking online, and call for the FLR-BNE booking. You could also do both over the phone in the one booking if you want, probably the easiest now that there is no online booking discount ....

 

[blingy90]

Thanks Dajob for the quick & informative reply. I suspected this was the case but nice to have confirmed.
Is there an award chart on SQ for star alliance redemptions - so you have an idea of redemption cost prior to calling?

EDIT/FURTHER - Found the chart - just if someone can confirm for me, so in my case, a Y reward from FLR-FRA-SIN-BNE would be 50k KF miles + applicable taxes

 

[robtemt]

Admitedly, I'm a total rookie when it comes to *A bookings. I tried to make a *A award booking, to fly F SYD-DEN (didn't care via what cities, as long as we could do LAX-NRT-SIN-SYD on the return in SQ F). Where we got frustrated was with the partner availability. United (as much as I hate them, they are *A....) has poor "premium" cabin reward availability for the domestic segment in the USA, and ANA I think doesn't open up until a lot closer to travel dates (1-3 months out vs. 355 days....).

I'm going to try to see what I can do to amend it as the date is closer, and hopefully have some luck (as it means I'll get some points back by it being off the *A chart instead).

 

[Mattg]

Yes, you do need to call up to book if even one flight on the itinerary is with a *A partner. The upshot of this is that it will price the entire award as per the *A chart, which generally works out cheaper for some reason.

 

[cgichard]

Yes, you do need to call up to book if even one flight on the itinerary is with a *A partner. The upshot of this is that it will price the entire award as per the *A chart, which generally works out cheaper for some reason.

I do think SQ let themselves down in not showing any *A flights even for multi-city paid bookings, whereas Lufthansa, for example, will show many options. With the current waiting time to get through to the KF phone line to find the full price for a an SQ flight with a simple add-on, such as MEL-SIN-ZRH-ATH return, it's tempting just to start elsewhere, such as on LH, who will readily show prices for the whole MEL-ATH return and even offer options for a return by a different route. To use the SQ multi-city tool even for all-SQ bookings one has to know in advance what alternative routes might be worth searching for.

But I certainly wasn't aware of the second point you make nor how that might apply to a paid (non-award) booking.

 

[vantage03]

I do think SQ let themselves down in not showing any *A flights even for multi-city paid bookings, whereas Lufthansa, for example, will show many options. With the current waiting time to get through to the KF phone line to find the full price for a an SQ flight with a simple add-on, such as MEL-SIN-ZRH-ATH return, it's tempting just to start elsewhere, such as on LH, who will readily show prices for the whole MEL-ATH return and even offer options for a return by a different route. To use the SQ multi-city tool even for all-SQ bookings one has to know in advance what alternative routes might be worth searching for.

Totally agree SQ should show this but LH (Miles & More) literally until a few weeks ago (19 Oct) only showed LH Group flights, and just for the first time added in ANA, Air Canada, Air China, Eva Air and Aegean.

Whilst this is a great step in the right direction, you still can't see SQ, TG or UA which are arguably the most useful partners for Australians (and Americans). I'm admittedly an LH fanboy, but this isn't one of their strong points!!

If you want to search *A my advice is to use UA and NH, then call SQ to request.

 

[MEL_Traveller]

EDIT/FURTHER - Found the chart - just if someone can confirm for me, so in my case, a Y reward from FLR-FRA-SIN-BNE would be 50k KF miles + applicable taxes

Coming to this a bit late.

How did you go with the booking? My initial concern would be the FLR-FRA leg which might be considered back-tracking by SQ and not allowed.

 

[cgichard]

Thanks, Vantage03. I hadn't realized that the extensive LH range was so recent.

And as my routes never include USA or Japan, I certainly wouldn't have thought of using UA or NH. So, just as an experiment, I tried my itinerary on each. At UA I couldn't set my return further ahead than precisely 11 months ahead of today, and it didn't show Premium Economy as an option.

At NH/ANA the dates were fine, but the itinerary had to be entered as a multi-city booking where "Singapore" whether entered in full or selected from the drop-down list wasn't accepted, and mixed classes were not an option.

So I come back to finding the LH search the only one really useful to me. It's the only one that offers alternative routings in a single search - very useful if one isn't familiar with the route and/or which flights have PE or only Y or J.

Edited to add: the LH search does now have SQ and CX as well as those you listed.

 

[vantage03]

Edited to add: the LH search does now have SQ and CX as well as those you listed.

This would be great news, but I'm trying to recreate and I can't find any SQ or CX flights showing up online on the M&M website. Can you pls provide sample dates? Fingers crossed!

 

[cgichard]

This would be great news, but I'm trying to recreate and I can't find any SQ or CX flights showing up online on the M&M website. Can you pls provide sample dates? Fingers crossed!

The system is not letting me save the page except as https://book.lufthansa.com/lh/dyn/air-lh/revenue/viewFlights, which will now just take you to a "Generic error" page, but I was searching for MEL-ATH outward 12/10/18, return 23/10/18. To get PE prices I had to modify the search at a later stage.

 

[vantage03]

The system is not letting me save the page except as https://book.lufthansa.com/lh/dyn/air-lh/revenue/viewFlights, which will now just take you to a "Generic error" page, but I was searching for MEL-ATH outward 12/10/18, return 23/10/18. To get PE prices I had to modify the search at a later stage.

That's for paid flights though right, not for redemption?

 

[cgichard]

Yes, sorry I should have been clear about that.

My main point was that one can't get anywhere as many options with pricing using the SQ mutli-city online search for that itinerary.