SQ Tips, Trips and Tales

Despite the best of intentions, with a swag of Krisflyer points expiring as of 31.12.23 - last night at 9.40pm the redemption dance began. Ideal outcome would have been SYD CDG J return in mid Oct to early Nov.

Relying on memory is not as reliable as historically unfortunately. We needed more points than we had expiring for 2 x J returns. Found several date pairs that had both the lower cost award tickets available. So just needed a few more points to be transferred across.

Logged onto VFF at about 9.55pm and transferred the minimum number of VFF points required (to the nearest thousand) and the obligatory confirmation message appeared after a 50 second seeming processing freeze (nothing being downloaded from internet/buffering). Blood pressure rose accordingly and then the confirmation message appeared - '... take between 24 to 48 hours to appear'.

The optimist in me thought lovingly of all the posts up thread about transfer happening within minutes, and ignorred the pessimist pointing out that there may well be a few thousand (or more) other people trying to do redemptions before 31.12.23 disappeared.

By 10.25 the points had arrived, and so seemingly had many more people trying to process point saving redemptions. 4 or 5 times the redemption process failed and came up with a 'site maintenance' message and 'contact your local office during business hours'. The SIA system was much slower than the pre-10pm experience.

Just after 11pm success, but with a bitter twist. A message appeared at the top of the screen reminding us that we could have one free stopover. Of course the boss said we should on the way across.

Next attempt, failure.

Next attempt, using a previous search link instead of inputting the data again & it worked. Added the stopover, got a better flight into CDG as a result and everything processed perfectly.

11.25pm email confirmation arrived.

All of a sudden 2024 is looking much better than it had been...


My wife and I had about 140K expiring on Dec 31.

With other trips of various types (some non-flying) already locked in for 2024 and other life events it meant that we could only redeem for Nov/Dec 2024.

So where to go? Looking online there were ample flights abd destination choices that far out.

The possibilities for us were:

South Africa. DIY game drives in Kruger National Park was tempting and Rest Camp Bookings were wide open, but being Malaria season we decided not to.

Istanbul was wide open, but we decided the cold and rain and particular was too limiting

Maldives we strongly thought about.


In the end we have booked for Thailand for 3 weeks. In and out of coughett as is monsoonal on the East Coast. We will do a liveaboard snorkelling trip and a couple of coastal accommodations.


Now next November we will have 810K KF Points expiring expiring. So it looks like we will have two overseas trips in 2025. ;)
 
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No such thing as a terrible Singapore F/ J seat - they're all good but some are better !
I wouldn’t describe the regional version as “good”.

Certainly not in comparison to J on MH, JL, AY or QF (those I’ve flown in the last 6mths).

But better than BA’s reverse facing seat.
I'd rather be in Y than the A350 medium haul J seat
I didn’t look down the back on my SQ flight last week.

Even though I really don’t see what the fuss is about with SQ J, I'm confident my seat was better than whatever was back there.
 
A question I probably should know the answer to.

Is the lounge available to us travelling SQ J still the same if I put my VA number in as a Platinum?
 
A question I probably should know the answer to.

Is the lounge available to us travelling SQ J still the same if I put my VA number in as a Platinum?
Yes, being in business gives you access to the SQ or *A business lounge irrespective of status.

Last month I went SQ business from MEL and was able to check out the AirNZ lounge.
 
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Thanks for the info @Peasant. I'll be flying out of there mid-March so I certainly hope it's open by then!
 
That's just an attention-grabbing statement that is clearly not true!

No there is only one attention grabbing poster in this thread and it's not me.

Regional J MEL to SIN is simply a bad way to fly for me 4 times and always a poor to average experience from poor crew to the narrow seat.

I'd happily sit in Y for the 6ish hours

Luckily the Regional A350s are longer flying to MEL and hopefully never return, so the above won't need to happen hopefully.
 
No there is only one attention grabbing poster in this thread and it's not me.

Regional J MEL to SIN is simply a bad way to fly for me 4 times and always a poor to average experience from poor crew to the narrow seat.

I'd happily sit in Y for the 6ish hours

Luckily the Regional A350s are longer flying to MEL and hopefully never return, so the above won't need to happen hopefully.

Agree about the 350 Reg seats, they are bad. However there were other options for MEL pax like booking on 777 or connecting via SYD. As someone who’s based in BNE I have to connect often to fly F or to secure the correct J config and can honestly say it’s very easy but I guess for some pax it’s easier to book the wrong config and complain about it later rather than trying to find other alternatives.
 
Agree about the 350 Reg seats, they are bad. However there were other options for MEL pax like booking on 777 or connecting via SYD. As someone who’s based in BNE I have to connect often to fly F or to secure the correct J config and can honestly say it’s very easy but I guess for some pax it’s easier to book the wrong config and complain about it later rather than trying to find other alternatives.

We had 2 x 350 Regionals into MEL for quite a while :( and our preferred flight is the 10:30am flight, when travelling with kids, reasonable start time from home and into SIN at a good time.

Not wasting time/effort/stress/risk connecting to SYD especially with 2 x young kids in tow.

Now I wonder when SQ will send the 777X to MEL ........... :D
 
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Hi All,
I am wondering if anyone can help me,
I currently have 2 Business class points flights from JNB to SIN on the 9th April and the same from SIN to BNE on the 1st May. The JNB to SIN leg is fine but I want to change the SIN to BNE to SIN to SYD to the 14th April of which there are redemption flights available on 3 different flights that day. Upon ringing SIA today to make changes i am told it is not possible to change my itinerary as their system does not allow it. The customer service lady was very helpful and I was on the phone for an hour, can anyone give me some ideas on how I can change my flights please.
 

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