ANA tool wrong? SQ *A Award Booking Issue + High Taxes

[haydensydney]

I posted this over at FT and aren't getting any bites... any AFFers seen this before?

So... I had finally called SQ re: Booking some *A award flights on Thai - I had seen availability on the ANA tool for flights for 2 x Adults + 1 x Child for Brisbane - Bangkok - Bali in economy. I'm also booking myself and a partner from Sydney - Bangkok - Bali in J/C.

Our J/C Sydney - Bali flights were booked - all OK. But when it came to booking the Brisbane - Bangkok leg for the economy passengers, the agent has said that the booking is "Pending" by Thai. It has been this way for 24 hours now. The agent then said that this often means that Thai will not allow the booking to proceed (even though the ANA tool shows availability!)

Has anyone ever had this experience previously, in that the ANA tool is incorrect with availability? Or is Thai just slow with "approving" award tickets today?

Oddly, our J tickets were instantly approved?

Further, one way taxes + fuel surcharges are $300 AU EACH even though when I do a dummy booking on the Thai website, the taxes are only $75 AU! Does this mean that SQ are collecting fuel surcharges and they are not passing on to Thai (a-la collecting extra revenue?)

Anyway after all this planing, it seems that this overseas trip may not go ahead *sad face*.... would be interested to see if anyone else has had this experience...?

 

[albatross710]

I have had experience with seeing *A availability on ANATool for SIN-ZRH using Swiss. The SQ agent simply couldn't see it and certainly couldn't book it.

For the $600 taxes you could almost get an economy tix to Bali and still have your points in the bank!

On a separate occassion, I did successfully get SQ to book me on TG.

I have a theory that they will resist booking on alternate carrier where they have availability on their own metal on the same route. That's my conspiracy theory.

 

[haydensydney]

Update:

Called Singapore Airlines last night and they made a special call to Thai, who (after some prodding by the helpful SQ consultant) released the fare. So all good, everything is booked and paid.

However, the fuel surcharge really does bother me (although there is little one can do about these compulsary taxes is there?).

For instance, my SYD-BKK flight had the following charges:

Tax: AU = 63.00 / WY = 34.00 / YQ 164.00
Total: $261.00 SGD

All up, we paid about $1700 SGD ($1288 AUD) for the following

2 x J SYD-BKK (+90,000 points)
2 x J BKK - DPS (+40,000 points)
3 x Y BNE - BKK (+105,000 points)
3 x Y BKK - DPS (+37,500 points)

...which seems outragous. Oh, and keep in mind that because we booked one way (we're flying Virgin back to Australia from Bali), we were not allowed a stopover in BKK, so we paid 45,000ea in J for SYD-BKK + 20,000ea in J for BKK-DPS. So instead of getting the nice 45,000 points for "South Asia 1", we were slugged the additional fee for the additional "South Asia 1 > South Asia 1" ticket.

Hardly seems worth it in the end, but after the hassle we went through to actually make the booking we just went with it...

 

[albatross710]

Update:

Called Singapore Airlines last night and they made a special call to Thai, who (after some prodding by the helpful SQ consultant) released the fare. So all good, everything is booked and paid.

However, the fuel surcharge really does bother me (although there is little one can do about these compulsary taxes is there?).

For instance, my SYD-BKK flight had the following charges:

Tax: AU = 63.00 / WY = 34.00 / YQ 164.00
Total: $261.00 SGD

All up, we paid about $1700 SGD ($1288 AUD) for the following

2 x J SYD-BKK (+90,000 points)
2 x J BKK - DPS (+40,000 points)
3 x Y BNE - BKK (+105,000 points)
3 x Y BKK - DPS (+37,500 points)

...which seems outragous. Oh, and keep in mind that because we booked one way (we're flying Virgin back to Australia from Bali), we were not allowed a stopover in BKK, so we paid 45,000ea in J for SYD-BKK + 20,000ea in J for BKK-DPS. So instead of getting the nice 45,000 points for "South Asia 1", we were slugged the additional fee for the additional "South Asia 1 > South Asia 1" ticket.

Hardly seems worth it in the end, but after the hassle we went through to actually make the booking we just went with it...

Would it have been possible to do it with SQ via the SIN hub?

 

[Alanslegal]

...which seems outragous. Oh, and keep in mind that because we booked one way (we're flying Virgin back to Australia from Bali), we were not allowed a stopover in BKK, so we paid 45,000ea in J for SYD-BKK + 20,000ea in J for BKK-DPS. So instead of getting the nice 45,000 points for "South Asia 1", we were slugged the additional fee for the additional "South Asia 1 > South Asia 1" ticket

I think SQ was right as you are not allowed to take a stopover on one way awards, thus charging you two segments.

 

[albatross710]

I think SQ was right as you are not allowed to take a stopover on one way awards, thus charging you two segments.

When I did a booking and required a stopover on a one way award booking, they charge +10,000 miles per stopover. It is possible to have stop overs on one way awards, it just costs 10K per stopover and is less miles than separate segments.

 

[haydensydney]

When I did a booking and required a stopover on a one way award booking, they charge +10,000 miles per stopover. It is possible to have stop overs on one way awards, it just costs 10K per stopover and is less miles than separate segments.

Well she was rather argumentitive in that I had to pay the two sectors. No mention was made of the 10k stopover fee - the website was vague on details, but did specifically mention no stopovers on one way redemptions.Regardless, got there in the end and I was probably happy to just get it over and done with, irrespective of the miles spent (husband not so happy lol)