Terrible SQ IRROPs over IST cancellations

[dajop]

Was scheduled to fly on Sunday morning CFU-ATH(A3)-IST(TK)-SIN(SQ) on SQ plated (061) ticket issued by travelgenio.


With calamities in IST SQ cancelled their IST flights on Saturday and Sunday. I received notification on Saturday afternoon by SMS when I was on beach on Corfu around 5pm (my flight out was at 6:40am) asking me to contact them regarding rebooking.

Tried getting through to SQ then and there but no luck so when I returned to hotel at 8pm I called them. To cut a very long story short SQ claimed they couldn't do anything as travelgenio had control of ticket (even though an SQ ticket). Travelgenio said couldn't see cancellation (which I verified via Expertflyer as it didn't show as cancelled until later) and also said they needed instruction from SQ do anything other than offer a refund on the TK sector (TK had advised free rebooking and refunds, but they had no advice from SQ. From here it took 8.5 hrs to resolve!


In long version ... I went back and forth between SQ and travelgenio and SQ continued to advise that I just take my flights to IST and get the airport to sort out for me, and only confirmed space involved 36 hr layover in IST, something I was not willing to do (especially after SQ told me the flight was cancelled due to security concerns). Said there was nothing else they could do as my first two (one hour) flights were not cancelled. I would have been OK with the delay if I'd been able to stay in Corfu for the extra nights by moving the A3 and TK flights as well, rather than spending it in IST. ,

This went on over the space of 5 calls to SQ and 2 to travelgenio. Each SQ agent promised to follow up and call me back and only one did try (the first, but came up as a missed call) the last actually hung up on me when I requested to stay on hold whilst she looked into it as no one ever called me back. No one was allowed to escalate.

Finally at 3:30 am Singapore was waking up and we did a DYKWIA when the Solitaire desk opened and my partner (who is Solitaire PPS - I'm a mere gold with partner Solitaire status) and after 30 mins the agent was able to transfer us to someone who had the authority to solve the issue.

So 6 calls to SQ, many hours of Skype time the saga which began at 8pm finally finished at 4:40am some 40 mins before I had to leave for airport - they routed me SIN-ATH-DME-SIN so I could avoid the IST mess., which was my original suggestion. This also meant SQ kept revenue from my work ticket to SGN this morning, which I would have had to cancel.

The Solitaire desk also said they would put request for upgrade to airport for service recovery as I'd had no sleep at all on Saturday night due to sorting this out (and flight was almost full in Y and pretty empty in J), but alas at DME the best they could do was an exit row. This I expected (ie unable to upgrade).

But all in all was terrible experience, befitting of a LCC and almost has put me off SQ altogether. Living in SIN I know I was up against the "cannot do" attitude.


Oh as for travel insurance, I self insure for non-medical (ie have none) but by 4am we had worked out options which would have left me only a $100-200 out of pocket or do a redemption if they had not come up with a solution and only offered a refund.

One thing I did learn is never to let them promise to call you back and just stay on hold of you can.... As the call backs just don't come.

 

[robtemt]

Sounds frustrating. Glad things eventually worked out.

I don't think I would expect immediate resolution in the event of a military coup! Combine that unusual circumstance, with an online travel agent based in Spain, and no travel insurance, you were in a bad position. If your travel was leisure (non time critical), at least you could have just stayed put, and let the TA sort everything out and claimed delays, changes, and fess on insurance (if you had it). Just curious about "self insuring", you don't use any credit cards that have insurance to pay for all of this travel?

I agree with the not letting them call you back. ESPECIALLY SQ! They tried that on me when I was trying to make changes to an award booking with very limited availability (Suites). I insisted (politely) to stay on hold. "If you don't mind, I'll just hold, it may be difficult reach me later and I'd hate to miss the call". QF premium desk said they would call back the other day in 30 minutes, it took her an hour, but she was apologetic explaining that she had "a nightmare of a call that took forever". Which of you FF's was on the phone with Jenny at QF last Friday?!?!

 

[dajop]

I don't think I would expect immediate resolution in the event of a military coup! Combine that unusual circumstance, with an online travel agent based in Spain, and no travel insurance, you were in a bad position. If your travel was leisure (non time critical), at least you could have just stayed put, and let the TA sort everything out and claimed delays, changes, and fess on insurance (if you had it). Just curious about "self insuring", you don't use any credit cards that have insurance to pay for all of this travel?

It was a good 24 hours after coup, and I had assumed given that I wasn't actually in IST, they could easily sort me out by re-routing me out of another SQ port, in fact I was even willing to delay a day or two (just not at IST) and make my own way to another SQ port (I could have flown to MXP, CDG or LHR on points or LCC) or even taken overnight ferry to Bari and fly out of FCO. And the resolution was relatively quick once we got onto someone with the authority to do something - they actually offered CFU-ATH-IST-BKK-SIN with 12 hour layover in IST but after I suggested routing via either ATH/DME, ATH/MUC or MUC/FRA they were able to secure the DME option (i'd suggested this to others earlier). The problem was that we just could't get past the "CANNOT" gatekeepers who were effectively useless. One agent at travelgenio was helpful (the other useless) but said she couldn't do anything other than offer refund or rerouting at my own cost - without the permission/advice of SQ and she struck the same rigidity from them as I did.

IJust curious about "self insuring", you don't use any credit cards that have insurance to pay for all of this travel?

I do have CC with insurance, but this only applies to return bookings. In this case outbound from SIN was on an award and inbound was paid one way fare, so not valid I think. I "self insure" (other than for medical) as with multiple trips a year, this could have been my first claim since 2002, so if I'd had to pay out $100-200 I would have still been well ahead. I could have decided to get refund (and almost did) and spent and extra $100-$200 to get back to SIN (or actually even saved $100 or so, if I'd flown Saudia out of FCO, but I wasn't keen on that ....). If I'd stayed in CFU, not out of pocket for accommodation either as my partner has more leave than me and is still there :evil: