SQ Tips, Trips and Tales

[daft009]

10pm last night flights were there.
10am this morning.. gone
was waiting to book both legs together for Sept 2022 for the actual dates we wanted.

-1 day and secured something in J saver for 3pax... phew!

 

[RAM]

Time to dust off the itinerary notebook.

First world problem - Now it'll have to be summer 2023.....

IIRC not all SIA A380s have been 'refurbed' with the new suites (aka halving availablilty per flight) - or is my memory deficient (again)?

 

[AustraliaPoochie]

For RAM, lets hope the KF miles life will be extended up to then.
Just had an email from KF, looks like most likely KF life has been extended once again, but I can't make head or tail out of the specifics.
For J class, SQ is asking Aud$4500/$4600 ADL - SIN - HND, vs QF asking (via) eastern states capital for $5900 for the same route.
If the SQ and VA partnership breaks up, will be hard to use KF miles, here in Aust, except for hotel stay redemption via Vrooms/buying knickknacks from the Krisshop.

 

[lovetravellingoz]

Just had an email from KF, looks like most likely KF life has been extended once again, but I can't make head or tail out of the specifics.

It is still the same as in the recent posts. ie in the email I received yesterday it states:

In view of the Covid-19 outbreak, KrisFlyer miles expiring between October 2021 and March 2022 will be extended. For more information, click here.​

​

Timely for me as I had almost a million points expiring in Dec 2021, and so these will now expire in June 2022. Longer would have been nice, but this is workable for myself.

 

[coyote25]

It is still the same as in the recent posts. ie in the email I received yesterday it states:

In view of the Covid-19 outbreak, KrisFlyer miles expiring between October 2021 and March 2022 will be extended. For more information, click here.​

​

Timely for me as I had almost a million points expiring in Dec 2021, and so these will now expire in June 2022. Longer would have been nice, but this is workable for myself.

I’m in the same situation, points expiring Dec 2021 not having a million points (I wish). I really need an extension to August or Sept 2022. Definitely would have used these points if travel hadn’t effectively been banned the last two years.

I wonder if there is any chance of another small extension if you originally had points expiring Dec 2021 (this is my first points extension)?

 

[MEL_Traveller]

I’m in the same situation, points expiring Dec 2021 not having a million points (I wish). I really need an extension to August or Sept 2022. Definitely would have used these points if travel hadn’t effectively been banned the last two years.

I wonder if there is any chance of another small extension if you originally had points expiring Dec 2021 (this is my first points extension)?

Dec 21 expiry has now moved automatically to June 2022. Just have to book by this date - so can be a up to a year after that before you need to take your flights.

 

[daft009]

I'll be asking for an extension to my 4mil come June 2022, that's when they 3yrs will be so I haven't had any extensions yet.

Will transfer more in Feb to get the free KF gold and see what favours I can squeeze out

 

[lilkid28]

I'll be asking for an extension to my 4mil come June 2022, that's when they 3yrs will be so I haven't had any extensions yet.

Will transfer more in Feb to get the free KF gold and see what flavours I can squeeze out

Ah almost forgotten about the free KF gold.. might set a reminder.

 

[AustraliaPoochie]

ScottMo has has said NSW will be open for international travel by Nov, but what if you don't live in NSW, how does home quarantine work?
Its all positive looking/sounding, but also something still being held back.
Does it mean if you live in WA/Qld, where both premiers won't open their borders, you have to do quarantine at an Airbnb in NSW for 7/14 days, if you can't go directly back to WA/Qld because your premiers won't open domestic borders by 01 Nov 2021.

 

[prozerran]

I am in a bit of a pickle also with my 318k points expiring in April 2022 transferred before last amex 50% devaluation. So no extension from my understanding.

I live in WA so there also border concerns at this stage. I do have roughly 200k amex ascent points (100k krisflyer) that I can transfer also.

There seems to be lots of people with points and not much saver fares available in F (how is it in J)?

I have been vaxed with AZ with my wife having pfizer. I have young kids that aren't approved for vaccination yet so I presume they won't be able to travel. Then there are quarantine requirements at the origin/transit and AUS/WA requirements whether it will be hotel or home for roughly 1 week to consider.

Any suggestions what to do or where to go? My understanding are awards are released 355 days in advance. If I book say 350 days out and say in 300days, can I change the dates to a further 350 days (t+650) from then if award space opens (for a fee)? A change of route or cancellation would mean loss of points I presume.

What a dilemma. Any worthwhile toasters or wine instead

 

[lovetravellingoz]

Will transfer more in Feb to get the free KF gold and see what favours I can squeeze out

Missed that one. (I must admit that for over a year I have not been following things anywhere near like I did in pre-Covid times).

What is the deal?

 

[lovetravellingoz]

I wonder if there is any chance of another small extension if you originally had points expiring Dec 2021 (this is my first points extension)?

SQ could have just let everyone's points expire when the 3 year expiration ticked in for each point. But instead they have extend points multiple times, and so they obviously value goodwill. So there is a chance that they may extend further yet. However they probably would not want to keep extending for much longer.

SQ have a bit of a Catch 22 in that all the extensions, combined with the inability to redeem points must have created a real log-jam of points now waiting to be redeemed. But that as flights start to ramp up that there simply may not be the capacity for people to redeem for flights quickly enough to use them all up. If so all that goodwill could be undone.

So I suspect that they may have a little wiggle room yet. However (and/or) alternatively they may also go with making a higher number of redemptions available per flight than normal initially. That may work well for them as leisure travellers may be more reluctant to book paid flights, but happy enough to book redemptions as they don't need to tie up money on flights that may get cancelled.

 

[daft009]

Missed that one. (I must admit that for over a year I have not been following things anywhere near like I did in pre-Covid times).

What is the deal?

SQ offering status without flying

Just got the following email last night... Besides earning Elite miles on flights with Singapore Airlines and Scoot, you can now earn Elite miles on your everyday spend and activities. From now till 28 February 2022, accumulate Elite miles as you shop, spend and convert partner reward points...

www.australianfrequentflyer.com.au

 

[AustraliaPoochie]

Can't say for sure, but chance they will maybe put one more extension.
We have quite a lot of extensions so far.

 

[albyd]

There seems to be lots of people with points and not much saver fares available in F (how is it in J)?

Any suggestions what to do or where to go? My understanding are awards are released 355 days in advance. If I book say 350 days out and say in 300days, can I change the dates to a further 350 days (t+650) from then if award space opens (for a fee)? A change of route or cancellation would mean loss of points I presume.

What a dilemma. Any worthwhile toasters or wine instead

I made my first redemption in quite some time over the weekend. SYD-SIN-FCO return. I found J saver availability. I did book for travel in August 2022. I still have heaps of points from a stillborn pre-COVID trip which are at risk of expiring. While they've been extended, I'm not in a massive hurry to redeem but will have to come up with something unless SQ extend again. My reading is I have until August 2022 to redeem or lose them. I usually don't transfer more points to SQ than I know I will use due to the 3 year expiry. Good to see CX change their policy on expiry. Now need SQ to do the same. I understand the dilemma about so many points chasing so few FF seats. QF has the same problem - they've had to use status as a rationing tool. We all know a QF points millionaire though they can't use them except to buy toasters. Hope SQ won't have to go down the status route.

 

[daft009]

hmm is the SQ seach playing funny buggers for anyone else?

found a redemption at 3.40pm. few options to book and heaps more to waitlist
now at 4.30pm came to book.. no flights at all for the same exact dates, no waitlist either

 

[Jousams]

yes - all over the place. Nothing sin-syd available but was able to pick up a JFK-SYD Redemption via SIN departing 21st December in advantage. Had been checking a lot over the last few days and no two searches were the same.

Spent 45 mins on hold and had to insist the agent to make the reservation despite his insistence that they get a more experienced agent to call me back within 48 hours. All very odd.

Post automatically merged: Oct 16, 2021

hmm is the SQ seach playing funny buggers for anyone else?

found a redemption at 3.40pm. few options to book and heaps more to waitlist
now at 4.30pm came to book.. no flights at all for the same exact dates, no waitlist either

 

[lovetravellingoz]

hmm is the SQ seach playing funny buggers for anyone else?

found a redemption at 3.40pm. few options to book and heaps more to waitlist
now at 4.30pm came to book.. no flights at all for the same exact dates, no waitlist either

Yes, it kept changing during my period of looking for a booking too.


I starting looking for flights to Europe and back for Summer 2022 just over a month back. Mainly from MEL, but I also had a scan of flying out of other cities. So UK, France, Italy, Spain, Germany, Switzerland were all looked at.

I was being flexible and so was looking at anywhere in from May onwards. I was looking at 7-10 weeks in Europe. I was looking at both flying in and out of the one airport, as well as my preferred option to fly in at one airport and out of another.

Initially I could find many options to Europe to many different SQ Airports. But you could only book waitlist for return flights. If nothing opened up in the near future I was going to book flights there and just hope that flights would open up sooner or later for the return.

Late at night on round about the 25th Sept (may have been a night earlier or later as I just remember it was the weekend) all of a sudden bookable flights back to Australia were there. But only as return flights, and not one ways.

You beauty I thought. As it was late, I decided to discuss options with the wife the next morning and book then. We picked Paris, as while we could book London the return flight from there had the very hefty extra taxes. But on logging in it had reverted back to no bookable return flights to Australia.

I checked again the following weekend and while there were date gaps there was from MEL plenty of J flights to multiple cities in Europe, both one way and return.

So on 2nd Oct I booked one way J's MEL- LHR in June and CDG-MEL in August.

 

[daft009]

hmm so now after bit more digging.
if I search as two 1ways the same are available, but as a return they aren't any options for the return

EDIT: booked as two 1ways in the end

 

[lovetravellingoz]

hmm so now after bit more digging.
if I search as two 1ways the same are available, but as a return they aren't any options for the return

EDIT: booked as two 1ways in the end

I just had another look, and there are a lot less options than I last saw two weeks ago.