How easy are upgrades on SQ using Miles?

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Kael O

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Hi all.

Just wondering if anybody can offer me any advice. I'm currently a UA MP Premier Member, but have recently used up most of my miles in upgrades. I've always found UA to be good with upgrades (for me its Y to J) but thought I'd think about moving over to SQ. So...

How easy is it to upgrade to J from Y on SQ using points/miles? Does anybody have much expirence with this? Does it work the same as Qantas where you have to request the upgrade but don't actually find out of you got it until you check in or do they confirm the upgrade for you? I'm NOT asking about free upgrades, I'm want to know about spending my miles.

From what I can see on their website, the requirments for an upgrade are considerably higher than UA. I've got a RTW trip in J class booked for June and I want to decide before then weather to send the points to UA or SQ.

Thanks guys.
Kael
 
To upgrade on SQ you can use miles from SQ Kris Flyer, LH Miles and More (dont bother far too expensive), NH and on some routes DL. SQ is already participating in *A-wide mileage upgrade program, however not all the other *A FFPs are yet (eg UA Mileage Plus).

For a trip in June you want to upgrade, I wouldnt count on UA joining the upgrade program by then (of course it could happen also!). I expect SQ and UA (when it joins) to provide the cheapest upgrades on SQ.

Unlike QF, SQ mileage upgrades are confirmable in advance subject to availability. IIRC the *A-wide program, however, is not confirmable in advance (although if you are also PPS perhaps SQ might confirm it early). The other question (to which I dont know the answer) is which fares are upgradeable. With LH Miles and More only full fares are upgradeable at standard upgrade cost, other fares cost even more to upgrade (but this is slightly better than UA which doesnt allow Z class to upgrade for example).

The tricky bit will be finding availability. SQ sells a lot of first and business class so wont make a lot of upgrades available, and first priority will be to its own FFP members (especially PPS).
 
Thanks Kiwi...

thanks for the response. So if I'm a KrisFlyer member with the necessary miles, getting the upgrade shouldn't be too hard? My biggest concerns are getting it confirmed in advance. If required, I can purchase the economy ticket on a date I KNOW there will be availability for an upgrade. This shouldn't be a problem should it? I would just have to ring SQ and check that they could upgrade me on that date, then book the economy ticket righ?

Does anybody else have expirence with requesting upgrades from SQ as a Krisflyer member?

Cheers,
Kael
 
Kael O said:
Thanks Kiwi...

thanks for the response. So if I'm a KrisFlyer member with the necessary miles, getting the upgrade shouldn't be too hard? My biggest concerns are getting it confirmed in advance. If required, I can purchase the economy ticket on a date I KNOW there will be availability for an upgrade. This shouldn't be a problem should it? I would just have to ring SQ and check that they could upgrade me on that date, then book the economy ticket righ?

Does anybody else have expirence with requesting upgrades from SQ as a Krisflyer member?

Cheers,
Kael

Not that simple (or available) in practice. SQ (or any airline for that matter) likely wont confirm whether there is upgrade availability until after you've purchased your ticket, and AFAIK no publicly available tool shows SQ upgrade availability.

If you are wanting decent odds on getting upgrade you really need to use an american-based airline and have status with them.
 
Kiwi Flyer said:
Not that simple (or available) in practice. SQ (or any airline for that matter) likely wont confirm whether there is upgrade availability until after you've purchased your ticket, and AFAIK no publicly available tool shows SQ upgrade availability.

I is the class for upgrade/award seats to Biz and O is for first class, it does not always show but for instance Expertflyer is indicating 4 seats available on the 12.45 flight today form Sydney for I and no flights are showing O class out of the three available.
 
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Thanks Markis.

I assume your talking about flights for today? I would have thought that if you do it all at least 2-3 weeks in advance, you'd generally find availability. Even with SQ. The more and more I look into SQ, the more and more I think I'm probably better of sticking with UA. UA just make it so easy and that much cheaper. The only problem with them is that its a much longer (and more expensive) trip to London, which is where most of my travel is taking me now.

Thanks guys.
Kael
 
Kael O said:
Thanks Markis.

I assume your talking about flights for today? I would have thought that if you do it all at least 2-3 weeks in advance, you'd generally find availability. Even with SQ. The more and more I look into SQ, the more and more I think I'm probably better of sticking with UA. UA just make it so easy and that much cheaper. The only problem with them is that its a much longer (and more expensive) trip to London, which is where most of my travel is taking me now.

Thanks guys.
Kael

I did a quick check further out, 1 month, 5 months etc and there where no upgrade buckets showing on any flight, so possibly they only appear as a last minute thing!
 
I see a reference above to SQ being part of the Star Alliance upgrade program. I looked yesterday at the Star Alliance upgrade listings on the UA site and SQ was not listed. Any suggestions on how I can confirm this as I would like to use UA miles to upgrade on SQ over the next few months.
 
sadlier said:
I see a reference above to SQ being part of the Star Alliance upgrade program. I looked yesterday at the Star Alliance upgrade listings on the UA site and SQ was not listed. Any suggestions on how I can confirm this as I would like to use UA miles to upgrade on SQ over the next few months.

SQ is part of *A upgrade program, as is UA. However at this point UA hasn't allowed Mileage Plus members to use miles to upgrade on SQ. You would need SQ, DL, NH, TG, TP, LH/OS/LO/LX/OU/JP, OZ miles.
 
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