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If Singapore KrisFlyer has waitlisted you even though there's Advantage award space available, you're not alone. Recently I spent frustrating time on the phone with Singapore KrisFlyer customer service trying to resolve this glitch on behalf of a client. Let me explain.
Since nonstop business class awards between the U.S. and Australia/New Zealand are so difficult to come by, we'd found award space for a TravelSort Client from Australia to Singapore, where the client wanted to have a stopover of a few nights before flying Singapore to New York JFK on SQ24. We found Business Class Advantage award space on both flights, which came to a total of 190,000 KrisFlyer miles with the stopover.
Unfortunately, when we attempted to book it, only the first leg, Australia to Singapore, was confirmed; the second leg, Singapore to New York JFK, was waitlisted. Not good. We called, and were told by two different customer service reps that “Oh, the space is no longer there. Award space is different for stopover flights than if booking it as a solo segment.”
Except that was completely false in our case, because if we selected a different Australia-Singapore outbound date that still had Advantage award space, the Advantage award space for Singapore-JFK still showed as bookable! So was this phantom space? Even if it was, it seemed to us that Singapore KrisFlyer should honor it. So we kept calling back and even provided screenshots showing that the award space we wanted on SQ24 was available as part of a stopover itinerary, so it should be confirmed for our clients, instead of being waitlisted.
If you haven't booked a Singapore KrisFlyer award you might wonder: why not simply book these as separate flights? Well, because the award with a stopover costs fewer KrisFlyer miles: 190,000 miles per person, instead of 90,000 miles per person for Australia to Singapore and 143,500 miles per person for Singapore to JFK. That's 43,500 miles per person (87,000 miles for a couple) more expensive than booking with the stopover.
Ultimately, a Supervisor agreed with us and confirmed our clients. But it's disappointing that this glitch persists: we found this Flyertalk thread from November 2024, nearly a year ago, where the poster had the exact same issue, yet nothing has been fixed.
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