Booking flights to Europe through CX Asia Miles or SQ KrisFlyer

[Matt_01]

@Ken1 what you are seeing with SQ is not dissimilar to what I have in the past when booking rewards, getting from AU to the UK/EU with SQ has pretty good connection times in SIN. Coming back is a different issue as SQ seem to release heaps of award seats (saver) out of the UK/EU on their morning flights back to SIN however this can result in long layovers in SIN when connecting back to AU. When I was booking back in Oct/Nov for Sep/Oct 22 FRA or LHR had the evening departure times that made for a more acceptable connection in SIN but only advantage fares. I had asked similar questions to yourself as I was was planning to be in EU and leaving from the LHR was the best option and from memory @Mattg had suggested adding in a *A carrier to the booking to get me from the EU-ADL via LHR and avoiding the London Tax. This will need to be done by calling SQ

As for your question about fees, at the moment SQ seems to be wavering most fees for changes. Our original flights where MEL-SIN-LHR, FRA-SIN-ADL and of our own decisions these where changed to MEL-SIN-JFK (via FRA), SEA-SIN-ADL and then changed again MEL-SIN-SEA, EWR-SIN-ADL and I have not been charged any change fees but could only be done via phone call and it takes a while to get through to SQ. It would have been much easier if SQ had waved the points redeposit fee and I could have then cancelled and rebooked without the need to call.

 

[Ken1]

Thanks @Matt_01. I'll look at going through LHR or FRA and adding the flight from ZRH to either of those after I've booked the long haul back to SYD. If we choose to fly from FRA we also have the option to travel there by train, which is a 4 hour trip from ZRH.

 

[lovetravellingoz]

Has anyone heard of what has happened in this situation in the past when other airlines have failed.

It will be a CX issued ticket. If CX is dead by then, the ticket will not be valid for travel irrespective of which carrier the ticket is for travel on.

I am not sure if that is accurate or not?

I had Ansett issued tickets redeemed on SQ when Ansett went under to fly from MEL to. CAI in Egypt return for my family of 5 leaving in Dec and retuning 10 weeks later. Luckily I had redeemed the 5 return tickets two weeks before Ansett collapsed and so only lost a very small amount of Ansett FF Points.

It may of been an individual airline decision by SQ but all flights there and back were honoured by SQ. They originally, when I contacted them just after Ansett went under, stated that all flights would be honoured as the tickets had been issued, but that no changes could be made. However part way through our travels they allowed us to alter the return dates from Cairo to be earlier and for us to turn SIN into a 2 week stopover which allowed us to go island hopping in Thailand.

SQ also confirmed that Star Alliance would maintain the Star Gold benefits including lounge access that my Diamond Ansett Status qualified for till 31 Jan. All our flights over at the MEL and the two transit airports honoured this.

Luckily on flying out of Cairo their systems were antiquated and so we still gained the benefits there. But all airport lounges after that were computerise and so flashing my Diamond Card did not gain entry.

 

[madrooster]

I had Ansett issued tickets redeemed on SQ when Ansett went under to fly from MEL to. CAI in Egypt return for my family of 5 leaving in Dec and retuning 10 weeks later. Luckily I had redeemed the 5 return tickets two weeks before Ansett collapsed and so only lost a very small amount of Ansett FF Points.

It may of been an individual airline decision by SQ but all flights there and back were honoured by SQ. They originally, when I contacted them just after Ansett went under, stated that all flights would be honoured as the tickets had been issued, but that no changes could be made. However part way through our travels they allowed us to alter the return dates from Cairo to be earlier and for us to turn SIN into a 2 week stopover which allowed us to go island hopping in Thailand.

Ansett was 20 years ago when the environment was very different to what it is today.

Yes, an airline can choose to still accept you as a passenger however they most certainly wouldn't get paid when they go to bill the other carrier. A carrier like SQ, back then, would've accepted the passenger to not kick up a fuss etc.

O6, 9W and AB are recent examples of carriers where their ticket stock wasn't always accepted once bankrupt.

In the case of O6, I know at least UA and TP didn't accept O6 ticket stock. In the case of AB, I know EY didn't accept AB ticket stock but offered a fare discount to those holding AB tickets. Some oneworld carriers still honoured AB stock, but that may have possibly been a oneworld directive. 9W was more of a hot mess in terms of who accepted or didn't accept their ticket stock.

In short there is no hard and fast rule that a partner carrier has to accept the ticket stock of a fallen carrier and my experience has been that it tends to lean more towards them not being accepted rather than accepted.

 

[Pele]

Gday

Here is another scenario for the brains trust: I was also planning on using asiamiles to book a (non Cathay) flight for later in the year. With the current Cathay situation I am not sure they will make it that far and the info from upthread about the flights on other airlines being irrelevant for honouring award tickets has spooked me.

If I were to book a ticket on my preferred flight using Asiamiles and also book the same flight using QFF would this be a problem? IE would having two tickets on the same flight in my name trigger any red flags and possibly auto cancel both bookings?

The logic is that if Cathay starts looking even shakier and i lose my nerve then I will cancel the asiamiles booking, refund the points and burn them on Qantas flights I need to take in the immediate few days whilst still having the QFF booking on my preferred flight. If later in the year things look brighter for Cathay then I will cancel the QFF booking to get my points back for another day and use the Asiamiles booking.

Thanks.
Pele.

 

[HappyFlyerFamily]

Gday

Here is another scenario for the brains trust: I was also planning on using asiamiles to book a (non Cathay) flight for later in the year. With the current Cathay situation I am not sure they will make it that far and the info from upthread about the flights on other airlines being irrelevant for honouring award tickets has spooked me.

If I were to book a ticket on my preferred flight using Asiamiles and also book the same flight using QFF would this be a problem? IE would having two tickets on the same flight in my name trigger any red flags and possibly auto cancel both bookings?

The logic is that if Cathay starts looking even shakier and i lose my nerve then I will cancel the asiamiles booking, refund the points and burn them on Qantas flights I need to take in the immediate few days whilst still having the QFF booking on my preferred flight. If later in the year things look brighter for Cathay then I will cancel the QFF booking to get my points back for another day and use the Asiamiles booking.

Thanks.
Pele.

I’m guessing you have Asia Miles points to get rid off. Otherwise why are you putting points into Asia Miles? Cheaper flight perhaps - Once you cancel, points go back into Asia Miles.

I don’t know the answer to your question but I would have thought book with Asia Miles on one flight and book same flight next day with QFF.

The other thing is to use Asia Milies ASAP and not wait until this flight.

 

[Ken1]

I've been watching release of J SQ seats each day and usually see Saver seats for SYD-ZRH with availability on flights with good connection times in SIN, and only connection times of 13 or 14 hours for ZRH-SYD, CDG-SYD as discussed earlier in the thread. As Matt_01 suggested, I've seen that the best options were to search for FRA-SYD or LHR-SYD and to book a * Alliance flight to connect to either of those. I had seen several times when searching FRA-SYD with 3 different flight combinations and only one of those with the 13+ hour connection so it looked like that would be a good option for returning back to SYD with shorter connection times in SIN.

However at 11:00 AEDT yesterday the only FRA-SYD Saver fare for Thu 12 Jan 2023 was for SQ25/SQ221 with a 13hr50 connection time with the other two options saying "Saver not available". I've looked at 11:00 today and for the date released today - Fri 13 Jan 2023, there are no Saver fares listed at all for the following routes, with only the Advantage column for 150K showing. Other times I would see Saver not available or Saver - waitlist but today nothing at all: ZRH-SYD, FRA-SYD, SYD-ZRH, Even LHR-SYD only shows 2 Advantage flights listed and both are waitlisted.

From your experiences of booking with KrisFlyer miles - does this happen often? Is there a pattern of SQ not releasing as much Saver availability at different times, possibly on certain days of the week? When I was using the BA site to check award availability when I thought I would book through CX with Asia Miles I could see that BA were releasing 4 x J seats for each long haul flight that I was searching for, although they would usually be gone within a few minutes. I'm still learning about SQ KrisFlyer award bookings so I appreciate the advice I have been given here.