Dearth of Business Saver awards from June onwards

[epsc]

Ever hopeful, having cancelled my planned award trip to Europe in April-May because of the dreaded C, I'm now looking for seats in September-October, but for the life of me I can't find any Business Saver seats back to Sydney from pretty well anywhere after beginning June. Plenty before then. Do they let them go late?

 

[epsc]

Not a pps Solitaire thread, BTW. Quite the opposite.

 

[kpc]

For non PPS+ status members, I suspect Advantage is the new normal for most flights. Been trying to get Cph-Sin-Syd J x2 in late Sept for months now...could only WL for Advantage awards and 5 options are now available to confirm.

 

[Peasant]

Not a pps Solitaire thread, BTW. Quite the opposite.

I thought we’d been trying to help you identify the flights with the best chance of opening up at a later date?!

 

[Ken1]

For non PPS+ status members, I suspect Advantage is the new normal for most flights. Been trying to get Cph-Sin-Syd J x2 in late Sept for months now...could only WL for Advantage awards and 5 options are now available to confirm.

Matt_01 posted earlier in this thread in post #4 about seeing no availability from Europe to SYD but availability being available to MEL and BNE.

@Ken1 when I have booked with rewards with SQ I have noticed that they tend to have particular days and flights that are available as saver and others that are only advantage. From memory xZRH was one of the more difficult locations to find seats as the saver was normally wait listed. Connection times back from the EU to AU can be problematic at time as most of the SQ departures are around mid day getting into SIN between 5-7am FRA and LHR seemed to be the exception as there are evening flights however when I was searching in Oct/Nov Saver was only released xFRA on the morning service which resulted in a horrendous layover to connect to ADL. xLHR had better connection times however I was trying to avoid the London tax. Out of curiosity I did a search from a couple of EU cities to SYD in Jan 23 and could only see Advantage, searching EU to MEL/BNE there is plenty of availability. When searching SIN-SYD it seems like SQ have only released Advantage fares which would be why you are only seeing Advantage fares, who knows if this will change in the future. I always book what is available and if that means having to change plans by a day or 2, the departure/ arrival location I can normally live with that. It does not matter which carrier I am using I just book something that is workable as soon as it become available and then change it if something better is released.

I will want to book flights back to Sydney for April 2023 when seats are released. As I posted in post #3 here, the last time I saw any Saver seats released for LHR-SYD, FRA-SYD, ZRH-SYD or CDG-SYD was on Sunday 23 January when seats were released for Thu 12 Jan 2023. I have not seen any Saver seats released for any of these routes since then.

I've been searching every day to see if any Saver seats are being released for various cities in Europe to SYD and still only Advantage awards are available to SYD. However seats seem to still be readily available to MEL or BNE each day. Here is what I've searched for today for the flights released today for Thu 02 Feb 2023:
ZRH-SYD Advantage only ZRH-MEL 3 x Saver flight options ZRH-BNE 1 x Saver option
FRA-SYD Advantage only FRA-MEL 3 x Saver options FRA-BNE 2 x Saver options
MUC-SYD Advantage only MUC-MEL 2 x Saver options MUC-BNE 2 x Saver options
CDG-SYD CDG-MEL CDG-BNE all only showing Advantage options
LHR-SYD Advantage only LHR-MEL & LHR-BNE both have multiple Saver options
Searching SIN-SYD Advantage only SIN-MEL & SIN-BNE multiple Saver options

 

[kpc]

Matt_01 posted earlier in this thread in post #4 about seeing no availability from Europe to SYD but availability being available to MEL and BNE.

You are right! I can get 2 saver awrds in J Cph-Sin-Mel the day after my preferred flights, Cph-Sin-Syd. To save 34000 KrisFlyer miles x2, I need to spend 1 extra night in Cph, pay for 1 night hotel stay in Mel as the flight gets in too late to connect to Sydney, and the cost of the flight from Mel to Syd x2, not to mention the hassle factor. So I will probably stick to the Advantage awards I can confirm on my preferred date. I wonder why Sq are blocking Saver awards in J to Syd?!

 

[Ken1]

I will want to book flights back to Sydney for April 2023 when seats are released. As I posted in post #3 here, the last time I saw any Saver seats released for LHR-SYD, FRA-SYD, ZRH-SYD or CDG-SYD was on Sunday 23 January when seats were released for Thu 12 Jan 2023. I have not seen any Saver seats released for any of these routes since then.

I've been searching every day to see if any Saver seats are being released for various cities in Europe to SYD and still only Advantage awards are available to SYD. However seats seem to still be readily available to MEL or BNE each day. Here is what I've searched for today for the flights released today for Thu 02 Feb 2023:
ZRH-SYD Advantage only ZRH-MEL 3 x Saver flight options ZRH-BNE 1 x Saver option
FRA-SYD Advantage only FRA-MEL 3 x Saver options FRA-BNE 2 x Saver options
MUC-SYD Advantage only MUC-MEL 2 x Saver options MUC-BNE 2 x Saver options
CDG-SYD CDG-MEL CDG-BNE all only showing Advantage options
LHR-SYD Advantage only LHR-MEL & LHR-BNE both have multiple Saver options
Searching SIN-SYD Advantage only SIN-MEL & SIN-BNE multiple Saver options

Up until today I have still not seen any Saver awards for flights from Europe back to SYD when I check each day at 11am AEDT time for 2 passengers when flights are released.

Today I was pleasantly surprised to see that there have been Saver awards released for Thu 09 Feb 2023:
ZRH-SYD with layover times of 1hr05, 4hr30, 14hr40 and 18hr45.
AMS-SYD with layover times of 1hr10, 4hr35, 14hr45 and 18hr50.
FRA-SYD with layover times of 3hr40, 13hr50. 3hr25 connection not available as Saver and Advantage is waitlist only. For Wed 08 Feb multiple options including 3hr25, 3hr40, 7hr30, 13hr50.
MUC-SYD with layover times of 3hr30 and 13hr40.
LHR-SYD with layover times of 1hr00, 1hr40, 2hr40, 3hr10, 4hr25 and more.

Looking back through to early January there is now a lot of Saver availability from these airports. Many are only available for flights departing Mon, Tue, Wed, Thu but not Fri, Sat, Sun although I see Saver LHR-SYD available most days back to early January (I didn't look any further back than January). Before Saver availability back to SYD stopped being released I was only seeing long layover times of 13 and 14 hours available from ZRH so it's pleasing to see shorter layover times available as Saver awards as well.

SIN-SYD now shows Saver availability on most days which will be why these Saver flights from Europe are now available so it's great that SQ have finally opened up Saver flights back to SYD again as well as to MEL and BNE.

CDG-SYD only shows Advantage fares available but I was only seeing Advantage fares when I searched before Saver award flights to SYD stopped being available.

 

[jbman]

Yes just noticed savers are showing for variours dates in December for weekdays with the exceptions of Friday,Saturday & Sunday. Previously I was seeing only random Tuesdays coming up.

 

[kpc]

For non PPS+ status members, I suspect Advantage is the new normal for most flights. Been trying to get Cph-Sin-Syd J x2 in late Sept for months now...could only WL for Advantage awards and 5 options are now available to confirm.

Yesterday 2x J saver awards became available to WL for my preferred date in Sept for Cph-Sin-Syd...so I WL and barely 24 hours later got an email saying they were ready for confirmation up til Mar 3....so a saving of 34K x2 = 68K KF miles compared to the Advantage award. I wonder whether being EG (status without flying promo) made any difference to the WL clearing so quickly...

 

[Ken1]

Today I've booked 2 x J Advantage SYD-LHR flights @ 150K miles each for 12 Feb 2023. I had been watching for weeks and most days there were Saver awards released but not over the past few days, unless we wanted an overnight transit in SIN between 00:20 and 09:00. I was going to wait and see what is released overnight but this was the date we wanted to fly and when I looked at SYD-SIN flights available for Sat 11 & Sun 12 Feb there has only been Saver availability on SQ242 that departs SYD at 19:10 and arrives at SIN at 00:20 and the other flights have only had Advantage availability.

Tomorrow seats will be released that will include SYD-SIN flights departing on 12 Feb connecting with SIN-LHR flights departing on 13 Feb but since SYD-SIN seats for 12 Feb have already been released it seems unlikely that I would be able to get Saver seats for the same date so we decided to book the Advantage seats top be sure we can travel on that date. We could have gone a day or two earlier if Saver seats were available but that was the latest we wanted to fly from SYD. There have been Saver seats released for SIN-LHR on 3 of 4 daily scheduled flights including SQ322 so the problem is with Saver seats released for SYD-SIN.

We decided to book the Advantage flights to be sure we can arrive at LHR on Monday 13 Feb and the same flights on the day before, Sat Feb 11 were already Waitlist. If in the future SQ release Saver seats for flights on the same date would it be a problem to cancel and re-book as Saver, onto other flight combinations that day, or even on the same SQ222/SQ322 that we have booked on? I realise that you can change a booking to change dates but since this is my first time using SQ to book award flights I'm not sure how I would go changing from Advantage to Saver on the same day, and get a refund of 2 x 34K miles.

 

[Matt_01]

We decided to book the Advantage flights to be sure we can arrive at LHR on Monday 13 Feb. If in the future SQ release Saver seats for flights on the same date would it be a problem to cancel and re-book as Saver, onto other flight combinations that day, or even on the same SQ222/SQ322 that we have booked on? I realise that you can change a booking to change dates but since this is my first time using SQ to book award flights I'm not sure how I would go changing from Advantage to Saver on the same day, and get a refund of 2 x 34K miles.

If you cancel and rebook they will slug you redeposit fees, I think USD50 for the Advantage, and USD75 for Saver. From the T's&C's section I:

11. An award ticket may be reissued, but only for travel by the same person and provided no part of the award ticket has been used. Additional KrisFlyer miles may be applicable. If the new journey requires fewer KrisFlyer miles, the excess cannot be refunded. The award ticket at the point of reissue must still be valid. There will be a reissue fee for each ticket. The reissued ticket must have the same expiry date as the original ticket and it must be for the same airline. However, if the date of the first flight on the reissued ticket is earlier than that of the original ticket, then the expiry date of the reissued ticket will be readjusted to the earlier date accordingly.

12. Passengers travelling on award tickets with a confirmed reservation who fail to show up for the flight will be considered a no-show. A no-show fee may be charged.

13. KrisFlyer miles of completely unused award tickets may be redeposited for a fee provided the KrisFlyer miles and the ticket are valid at the time of redepositing. Any taxes will be refunded. KrisFlyer miles cannot be refunded for partially used award tickets and upgrades.

 

[lovetravellingoz]

Today I've booked 2 x J Advantage SYD-LHR flights @ 150K miles each for 12 Feb 2023. I had been watching for weeks and most days there were Saver awards released but not over the past few days, unless we wanted an overnight transit in SIN between 00:20 and 09:00. I was going to wait and see what is released overnight but this was the date we wanted to fly and when I looked at SYD-SIN flights available for Sat 11 & Sun 12 Feb there has only been Saver availability on SQ242 that departs SYD at 19:10 and arrives at SIN at 00:20 and the other flights have only had Advantage availability.

Tomorrow seats will be released that will include SYD-SIN flights departing on 12 Feb connecting with SIN-LHR flights departing on 13 Feb but since SYD-SIN seats for 12 Feb have already been released it seems unlikely that I would be able to get Saver seats for the same date so we decided to book the Advantage seats top be sure we can travel on that date. We could have gone a day or two earlier if Saver seats were available but that was the latest we wanted to fly from SYD. There have been Saver seats released for SIN-LHR on 3 of 4 daily scheduled flights including SQ322 so the problem is with Saver seats released for SYD-SIN.

We decided to book the Advantage flights to be sure we can arrive at LHR on Monday 13 Feb and the same flights on the day before, Sat Feb 11 were already Waitlist. If in the future SQ release Saver seats for flights on the same date would it be a problem to cancel and re-book as Saver, onto other flight combinations that day, or even on the same SQ222/SQ322 that we have booked on? I realise that you can change a booking to change dates but since this is my first time using SQ to book award flights I'm not sure how I would go changing from Advantage to Saver on the same day, and get a refund of 2 x 34K miles.

Generally Saver goes first, then Advantage.
After that it is waitlists.

Savers do not normally get added again later. Though we are not of course living in normal times.

 

[burmans]

Am hoping that with restrictions easing both in SIN and Australia, flights will increase and consequently reward flights will also increase.

 

[Peasant]

Am hoping that with restrictions easing both in SIN and Australia, flights will increase and consequently reward flights will also increase.

Me too. I'm hoping we'll see more of the regional 350s switched across to 777s for SYD and MEL as a first step. The major positive of that is it increases premium capacity from 40 J to 48 J and 4 F which should - theoretically - help with premium class availability.

 

[Ken1]

If you cancel and rebook they will slug you redeposit fees, I think USD50 for the Advantage, and USD75 for Saver. From the T's&C's section I:

11. An award ticket may be reissued, but only for travel by the same person and provided no part of the award ticket has been used. Additional KrisFlyer miles may be applicable. If the new journey requires fewer KrisFlyer miles, the excess cannot be refunded. The award ticket at the point of reissue must still be valid. There will be a reissue fee for each ticket. The reissued ticket must have the same expiry date as the original ticket and it must be for the same airline. However, if the date of the first flight on the reissued ticket is earlier than that of the original ticket, then the expiry date of the reissued ticket will be readjusted to the earlier date accordingly.

12. Passengers travelling on award tickets with a confirmed reservation who fail to show up for the flight will be considered a no-show. A no-show fee may be charged.

13. KrisFlyer miles of completely unused award tickets may be redeposited for a fee provided the KrisFlyer miles and the ticket are valid at the time of redepositing. Any taxes will be refunded. KrisFlyer miles cannot be refunded for partially used award tickets and upgrades.

Generally Saver goes first, then Advantage.
After that it is waitlists.

Savers do not normally get added again later. Though we are not of course living in normal times.

Thanks Matt_01 and lovetravellingoz. I am pleased that I decided to book the Advantage tickets for 12 February as the Advantage seats were now on Waitlist by this morning and Saver seats were never listed as available, even at 11:00 AEDT when seats were released. Even though I would have preferred Saver seats at 116K each, at least Advantage seats were there and 150K is still less than the 159K I would have needed to book BA flights with QFF and the taxes and surcharges would have been a lot more than the $125 each we paid to SQ.

 

[Peasant]

Congratulations - glad you managed to get the seats you wanted on the dates you were looking for. I always think it’s best to stump up a few more miles for the certainty, so now you can concentrate on planning the rest of the trip. And truth be told, between Australia and Europe the differential between Saver and Advantage is quite reasonable, unlike some other routes in the chart.