How do seat upgrades work?

[prodaroda]

I'm thinking of redeeming a return business class flight from Sydney to Paris through Singapore Airlines.
I don't have the points for a full ticket, but have enough for an upgrade from economy to business.

I noticed that if I redeem a full ticket, there's a tax surcharge of $1010 (just a bit on the ridiculous side). But if I have already paid for an economy seat, which would have taxes and surcharges included, do I still have to pay another one when I upgrade?

And how do I know if my economy ticket is a Y B or E booking class?

Does the upgrade have to apply to the entire round trip? What if one of the flights, say from Singapore to Paris, don't have any upgrades, does that mean I can't upgrade any of the flights?

And am I stuck with the economy ticket if I can't upgrade on that specific intinerary?

Is there anything else I need to be aware of before going down the upgrade route?

 

[Mattg]

Good questions!

I'm thinking of redeeming a return business class flight from Sydney to Paris through Singapore Airlines.
I don't have the points for a full ticket, but have enough for an upgrade from economy to business.

I noticed that if I redeem a full ticket, there's a tax surcharge of $1010 (just a bit on the ridiculous side). But if I have already paid for an economy seat, which would have taxes and surcharges included, do I still have to pay another one when I upgrade?

No, you don't have to pay the taxes twice. If you upgrade with points, you'll only have to pay with points.

And how do I know if my economy ticket is a Y B or E booking class?

I'm not sure about Singapore Airlines, but some airlines display the booking class at the time of booking. Alternatively, you should be able to specify a particular fare class (e.g. E, the lowest upgradable class) if you book through a travel agent.

I'm not 100% sure, but I believe Y, B and E fare classes would be the most expensive "Economy Flexi" fares. In other words, Singapore Airlines makes you purchase their most expensive fares in order to have a shot at an upgrade.

Does the upgrade have to apply to the entire round trip? What if one of the flights, say from Singapore to Paris, don't have any upgrades, does that mean I can't upgrade any of the flights?

You may upgrade individual sectors.

And am I stuck with the economy ticket if I can't upgrade on that specific intinerary?

Essentially, yes. Singapore Airlines will let you waitlist for an upgrade if it's not immediately available. But if no upgrades become available then you'll be stuck in economy.

Is there anything else I need to be aware of before going down the upgrade route?

Singapore Airlines only allows one-class upgrades! This means that even if you've purchased an upgradable ticket (Y/B/E fare class), you'll only be able to get as far as Premium Economy if there is a PE cabin on your flight. So to get an upgrade to Business, you'd either need to (a) buy an upgradable premium economy ticket outright, or (b) choose a flight without a premium economy cabin.

To be completely honest, I would save up a few more points and book an outright business class award ticket if I were you! Buying an upgradable fare is expensive for a start, and you may only end up in premium economy (or stuck in economy) anyway.

How many more KrisFlyer miles do you need for a business reward? Can you transfer any points over from Velocity or a credit card?

 

[prodaroda]

Good questions!



No, you don't have to pay the taxes twice. If you upgrade with points, you'll only have to pay with points.



I'm not sure about Singapore Airlines, but some airlines display the booking class at the time of booking. Alternatively, you should be able to specify a particular fare class (e.g. E, the lowest upgradable class) if you book through a travel agent.

I'm not 100% sure, but I believe Y, B and E fare classes would be the most expensive "Economy Flexi" fares. In other words, Singapore Airlines makes you purchase their most expensive fares in order to have a shot at an upgrade.



You may upgrade individual sectors.



Essentially, yes. Singapore Airlines will let you waitlist for an upgrade if it's not immediately available. But if no upgrades become available then you'll be stuck in economy.



Singapore Airlines only allows one-class upgrades! This means that even if you've purchased an upgradable ticket (Y/B/E fare class), you'll only be able to get as far as Premium Economy if there is a PE cabin on your flight. So to get an upgrade to Business, you'd either need to (a) buy an upgradable premium economy ticket outright, or (b) choose a flight without a premium economy cabin.

To be completely honest, I would save up a few more points and book an outright business class award ticket if I were you! Buying an upgradable fare is expensive for a start, and you may only end up in premium economy (or stuck in economy) anyway.

How many more KrisFlyer miles do you need for a business reward? Can you transfer any points over from Velocity or a credit card?

Thanks Matt! I'm about 40k points short for a full ticket redeem. And since there are already many flights with wait lists for the period I want to fly (April 2017), I really want to lock down an available seat ASAP.

Here's another question:
Say I want to redeem a full return ticket. There's an available seat for outbound but a wait list seat for inbound. And I decide to take both for the 1 redeem price (190k). Later Singapore says there's no available seat for the wait listed flight, what then happens to my itinerary?

Will they refund the whole thing? Or half my points? Or downgrade me to next class for the inbound flight?

 

[ozbeachbabe]

Do you have any VA Velocity frequent flyer points? If so, you can transfer them across to SQ's Kris Flyer program.
Also some American Express cards will allow you to accrue aka warehouse the points then transfer them to your airline ff program of choice including Kris Flyer so you can also earn more points that way.

You could always do an SQ award ticket Aust/SIN/Aust then purchase a cheap J class fare return fare SIN/CDG/SIN via their hub of Colombo or fly UL SIN/xCMB/CDG one way then use SQ points CDG/SIN.

There might also be reasonable fares on QR, EY or EK ex SIN or BKK to CDG via their respective Middle Eastern hubs on DOH, AUH or DXB.

 

[Mattg]

Thanks Matt! I'm about 40k points short for a full ticket redeem. And since there are already many flights with wait lists for the period I want to fly (April 2017), I really want to lock down an available seat ASAP.

Here's another question:
Say I want to redeem a full return ticket. There's an available seat for outbound but a wait list seat for inbound. And I decide to take both for the 1 redeem price (190k). Later Singapore says there's no available seat for the wait listed flight, what then happens to my itinerary?

Will they refund the whole thing? Or half my points? Or downgrade me to next class for the inbound flight?

To be honest, I'm not really sure how it would work if you put in for a waitlist award seat and it didn't become available. Hopefully someone else will be able to answer that.

If possible, I still think that the best option is to book a business award seat (confirmed) outright. Have you taken the 15% discount for booking online into account in your calculations of the required KrisFlyer miles? Also, is starting in Perth an option? That would bring the price down by 20,000 miles for a return trip. Flying into Istanbul would also bring the price down considerably to 123,250 miles return in business if booked online. From Istanbul to Paris is only a ~3 hour flight that you would need to add on.

Ozbeachbabe's suggestion of redeeming miles to Bangkok or Colombo, then paying for J return to Europe from there is also very sensible. Paid business fares from these points are often quite reasonable (~$2.5K return).

 

[prodaroda]

Thanks guys! All very interesting ideas.
The main idea of flying in business for me is to get a nice rest on those long overnight flights. Especially sing/cdg and sing/Syd. So I'll need to see what kind of combination is best in my case.

 

[Cerca]

To follow on from this topic, is there a way to find out about upgrade availability before I commit to a certain ticket? For example, would hate to pay for an eligible economy seat only to find there's no more upgrades available on that particular flight. Thoughts?

 

[Mattg]

To follow on from this topic, is there a way to find out about upgrade availability before I commit to a certain ticket? For example, would hate to pay for an eligible economy seat only to find there's no more upgrades available on that particular flight. Thoughts?

I'm not 100% sure about this, but it's often the case that upgrade availability will be the same as regular award availability. So, you could check for award availability in the class of travel you wish to upgrade into to get an idea of whether or not the upgrade will be confirmed instantly or whether you'll be put on a waitlist. (If you're put on a waitlist, you could also use a service like Expert Flyer to find out the flight's loading and predict the likelihood of the upgrade coming through.)