Krisflyer Redemption - Waitlist J, Confirmed Y

[perthtraveller]

Hi all

A query for the KF experts out there.

I have currently waitlisted J-saver flights for my parents from PER-SIN-HND return with a stopover on the way back. PER-SIN-HND is on 23rd Dec, HND-SIN 3rd Jan and SIN-PER 8th Jan. I did this online and then called up to add an additional waitlist flight for each sector to improve my chances.

I don't want my parents to be stranded especially around the holiday period so I am keen to lock in economy seats just in case. There are Y-saver seats available on the same dates so I was given the option to add on the available Y-saver seats to my J-saver waitlist booking. When I did this, I went from having no ticketing deadline to a deadline in a week's time. This obviously doesn't work for me so I removed the confirmed economy seats off the itinerary. I am thinking of booking the Y-saver seats on a separate booking and keeping the J-saver waitlist as separate. If it comes through, cancel the Y booking.

My questions are:
1. Should I book the confirmed Y booking separately? Does this reduce my chances of the J-saver coming through (i.e. does SQ know that the same names are already confirmed on the flight)?
2. What is the likelihood of the waitlists coming through? Is there any way of checking this?
3. Can you only waitlist 2 flights per sector?
4. Can you check which flights are more likely to come through (e.g. SIN-PER has 4 flights a day and I wasn't sure which to waitlist)?
5. Should I have booked my parents on separate waitlists to increase chances?
6. Generally, what would you do?!

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Cheers

 

[albatross710]

[/QUOTE]

My questions are:
1. Should I book the confirmed Y booking separately? Does this reduce my chances of the J-saver coming through (i.e. does SQ know that the same names are already confirmed on the flight)?

Sounds like it was wise to keep the available Y seats out of that booking. Then again, speaking with another call centre person might have a different outcome. SQ seems to allow some latitude of decision making for the more senior call centre agents.
I'm not sure if the system is aware of multiple waitlists. I know that the call centre staff do look if you speak with them, but I'm not sure if it is 'system' logic that brings it to their attention.

2. What is the likelihood of the waitlists coming through? Is there any way of checking this?

No logic to looking for this and really no way of knowing.

3. Can you only waitlist 2 flights per sector?

When I've done online I was able to only add one waitlist. I think you might be able to do the second waitlist on a separate booking. You would have to try and find out. I know when I was juggling 4-5 waitlisted segments before Christmas last year I would consistently get a booking error when adding some particular segments. I never got to the bottom of that. If there is a limit, it looks like you might find it!

4. Can you check which flights are more likely to come through (e.g. SIN-PER has 4 flights a day and I wasn't sure which to waitlist)?

Once again, I'm not sure. If there was a flight that had Waitlist Saver, OK Standard and OK Full, I think that would have more chance of coming through than a sector that has Waitlist Saver, Waitlist Standard and Waitlist Full

5. Should I have booked my parents on separate waitlists to increase chances?

No idea. I know what did increase my chances was

a) If one person of the family had a confirmed ticket and I had to get another family member on the same flight. Expereinces of others have varied on this.
b) If I have a 4 sector booking and one sector is waitlisted, the agent will try harder to force ticket than if it is 4 waitlisted sectors.
c) When speaking to call centre let them know you are ready to ticket and pay now if it can be done. I think they get incentive to commit tickets.

6. Generally, what would you do?!

I tend to break it up into multiple 'achievable' bookings. I start with one way bookings (but that would not permit the SIN stopover). For instance for an October trip to Europe this year Mrs Albatross & I are holding one way savers to Europe and have two different waitlisted return options, FRA-BNE & ZRH-BNE. By monitoring the options each few days I hope to get a feel for what might be possible.

Good luck, please keep us updated on progress and learnings.

 

[perthtraveller]

Thanks albatross710 for your reply - much appreciated!

I called Krisflyer last night and this is what I can add:

1. The Y-saver confirmed flights should be booked on a separate itinerary. The confirmed flights have a much shorter ticketing deadline than waitlists. According to the CSR, doing this does not reduce the chances of the J-saver waitlists coming through. The system does not disallow a waitlist to come through if you're already confirmed on the flight on another itinerary.

2. Can't add anything to this. Got the same CSR standard response saying that they have no view from their end.

3. You can waitlist as many flights for a particular sector as you like over the phone. The previous CSR didn't know what she was talking about when she said there was a 2 flight waitlist max per sector.

4. Again, nothing to add here (just realised this is the same as question 2!).

5. The CSR wasn't too sure on this point. He seemed to suggest that once someone comes out of J due to cancellation or whatever, the system allocates to the first waitlist in line. Thus, it seems like I should have booked my parents on separate bookings? Anyone else have experience on this point?

6. Nothing to add here. Albatross - if I did all separate bookings, the mileage increases as does the taxes and surcharges I think.

Thanks again and would appreciate any other thoughts people may have out there.

Cheers

 

[Gogo65]

I'm in a similar situation. Confirmed on saver award Rome to Singapore but wait listed on two flights from Singapore to Sydney. Not sure whether I should change it to a mixed class(if I can do that) and book economy from Singapore to Sydney. Have been thinking about booking the flights separately but as you say, it increase the points and the taxes. The painful thing is singapore-Sydney is available in J as an award saver on its own.
I'm stressed!!

 

[perthtraveller]

I'm in a similar situation. Confirmed on saver award Rome to Singapore but wait listed on two flights from Singapore to Sydney. Not sure whether I should change it to a mixed class(if I can do that) and book economy from Singapore to Sydney. Have been thinking about booking the flights separately but as you say, it increase the points and the taxes. The painful thing is singapore-Sydney is available in J as an award saver on its own.
I'm stressed!!

Are you saying the SIN-SYD J saver is available on its own is one of your two waitlisted flights? If so, then I would have thought you could call them and tell them the seat is available. Thought the system would have automatically allocated the free seat to someone waitlisted though...

 

[Gogo65]

I have called them but they say it is from different inventory, hence they can't release it to us.

 

[albatross710]

6. Nothing to add here. Albatross - if I did all separate bookings, the mileage increases as does the taxes and surcharges I think.

Thanks for the update. The miles for one way redemptions are half of the return. When I have had the two one ways I have had the call centre make a single booking and then had the stop over option. I don't understand taxes.

 

[cssaus]

I'm facing a similar dilemma for an award booking for my wife flying LHR-SYD.

On the date she wants to fly back business class award seating is showing as waitlisted but there are economy award seats available for the same flights.

What I would like to know, if I make a waitlist business class booking are the miles immediately deducted from my account or do they only get deducted when the flights do become available. What I guess I'm really asking, do I need to have enough miles in my Krisflyer account to cover both the waitlist business class flight and the confirmed economy class award seat?

The other question I have can this be done online (thereby getting the discount on miles redeemed) or can it only be done via the call centre and having to pay the full amount of points?

 

[cssaus]

Is there a time-frame out from a flight's departure that you would learn if a WAITLIST booking became successful?

My wife has a confirmed business class award booking from SYD to LHR which presently involves an early morning flight from SYD and an overnight stay in SIN. There is a later flight out of SYD that only involves a 6 hour lay-over in SIN before departing on the flight to LHR but it's showing as being WAITLISTED.

I have now made a WAITLIST booking for this other flight I presume that if an award seat becomes available from now until departure time I will get an alert but I'm not sure what would be the latest time I would be informed.

On the question of clearing a WAITLIST, does a passenger's status come into play? My wife is a *A GOLD.

 

[Cruiser Elite]

There are no set time frames for clearing of waitlists - it is a very random thing and is controlled by the loadings management team on back end. Whilst KF call ctr staff can give you some indication as to likelihood of confirmation they certainly cannot actually trigger confirmation of waitlists themselves.

I have had Crystal in past shake the tree for me and actually get waitlists confirmed - but again cannot guarantee success.

I was intending to head to China today - I had Suite w/l out of MEL today with confirmed connection on Suites SIN-PEK for tomorrow - w/l ex MEL cleared on Friday but at about time it cleared I realised the China trip was just not going to work so cancelled.

So best advice I can give you is call KF call ctr and ask - worst case answer you will get is 'Sorry I cannot help you' at which point in time you will need to sweat on the w/l clearing. Status with SQ will put you up pecking order but I don't think status with another airline would ever help your chances - might be wrong and happy to be corrected.

 

[cssaus]

Presently I have a waitlist for a business class saver award, but didn't have enough miles to waitlist for a standard award.

A family member who has me as a redemption nominee said they're happy to make a waitlist booking for me for a standard booking for the same flights as I'm presently waitlisted for.

Is this allowable, having two different bookings for the same passenger for the same flight?

 

[Cruiser Elite]

cssaus how far out is your waitlist? No flexibility on dates / flts etc? Have you checked F availability on your desired flts? F would be a lot cheaper than J Std.

 

[cssaus]

cssaus how far out is your waitlist? No flexibility on dates / flts etc? Have you checked F availability on your desired flts? F would be a lot cheaper than J Std.

The waitlist is for flights in the 1st week of Nov. Am a bit flexible on dates looking at flights on the Mon, Tues & Wed. Currently have a confirmed Y award booking for the flights on the Wed. Looked at the F flights for the datys in question, they're all showing "waitlist" too.

 

[Cruiser Elite]

Nothing wrong with having 2 x waitlists for the same flt - plenty times I have had 1 x F Saver and 1 x J Saver on same flt - never 1 x J Std and 1 x J Saver though.
Have you checked availability ex MEL on your dates? Trsfr Dom to Int MEL so simple if that will work?

 

[cssaus]

Nothing wrong with having 2 x waitlists for the same flt - plenty times I have had 1 x F Saver and 1 x J Saver on same flt - never 1 x J Std and 1 x J Saver though.
Have you checked availability ex MEL on your dates? Trsfr Dom to Int MEL so simple if that will work?

Thanks for your suggestions, the itinerary is actually LHR-SYD via SIN. The J SAVER waitlist is thru my account and the J STD waitlist would be through family member's account. I suppose if waitlist was successful the STD award would come thru before the SAVER one.