KrisFlyer Star Alliance Round-the-World Award Planning

[Igreen]

Hi All,

I am a longtime lurker, and have done a lot of reading and not a lot of posting (due to my inexperience when it comes to traveling utilising FF miles.

However, I did want to walk you through my experience with attempting to book SQ RTW *A. I have read through all the tips of the forum here and also point hacks as well prior to calling.

The first time (few months ago) I called into SQ contact centre, the agent had no idea what the RTW *A ticket was. I hung up. I called up again and got another agent who just sent me the PDF document, which I can only add 6 flights.

I called up two days ago, and spoke with an agent who had no idea and directed me to book the ticket online and use the Star Alliance Planning Tool, which I advised that I wasn't aware that you could book it online and the above mentioned tool, was not for points redemption. She eventually started taking the flight details for my itinerary; however advised that there was an issue with 2 of my flights:

1. Lisbon to London via Frankfurt
2. London to Stockholm via Frankfurt

She advised that I was not able to backtrack and had to go either east bound or westbound. I might be misinterpreting things wrong on the Start Alliance RTW T&C states that:

3.1 Start and End
- 'Within the zones mentioned above the direction can be changed.' - does this mean you can backtrack within the traffic conferences? As per below:

o TC1: North America, Central America, South America, Greenland, Caribbean, Hawaiian Islands
o TC2: Europe (West of the Urals), Azores, Iceland, Middle East, Africa, Seychelles Islands
o TC3: Asia (East of the Urals), Oceania, (Australia, New Zealand and South Pacific Islands)

3.2 Stopovers and Transfers
-'Transfers, which are defined as a stay of less than 24 hours, are allowed in any city, however not more than 3 in any one city.' - I interpreted this, as you could transit through the same city more than once, and the only way you can transfer through the same city more than once, is if you backtrack? Please let me know if I am way off.

After hanging up feeling delated and defeated. I tried again last night arming myself with a top to ask for the supervisor, not hang up and advise that you were happy to wait. I was allocated a supervisor (Jager) who was very helpful in comparison to everyone I had spoken to previously.

He took town all the flights required, and I didn't have to repeat myself and he read them back to me exactly the way I had presented it to him.

MEL to SIN (SQ)
SIN to CPH (SQ)
LIS to EWR (TAP)
LAX to NRT (SQ)
NRT to SIN (SQ)
SIN to MEL (SQ)

All of the above flights but one were available at the time, and the one that was not available was SIN to CPH via SQ. This was showing on Expert Flyer and SQ to be available under Saver Award. After refreshing both sites and the Supervisor checking and checking. It was not available. Does this happen often?

I tried to quickly change the SIN to CPH (SQ) leg to SIN to BKK to ARN via SQ and TG; however the direct flight from BKK to ARN was not available, although United and Expert Flyer showing availability.

The other issue that came up was that I wanted to fly back from NRT to MEL via SIN. The Supervisor advised me this was backtracking. I had read online via this forum and others, that people have booked flights out of AUS and back via SIN and along with this condition - 'Transfers, which are defined as a stay of less than 24 hours, are allowed in any city, however not more than 3 in any one city.', I believed it was possible?

Special mention though, Supervisor advised he would call back after confirming further information and he did call back, even though it was 12:30am (AEST).

Alas, I am forced to go back to the drawing board for my RTW trip with a chunk of my points expiring with Kris Flyer end of July.

Are there people in this community who have flown out of AUS via SIN (stopover) and come back to AUS via SIN (transit)?

Any suggestions about how I can make the above trip work?

Thank you all the individuals who I have learnt from on this forum and thanks in advance for any future guidance.

Try SIN to Frankfurt on Singapore or
* Alliance i.e. SIN to Istanbul using turkish
SIN to Munich (lesser availability)
✈ FlightConnections - All flights worldwide on a flight map! (See all places Singapore Airline flies or their partner from Singapore).
I have been told in the past these were not available by the agent. However, they were showing on Singapore website. Just try a one way award ticket i.e. SIN to CPH ...if it shows available then it is. I had this many times and challenged the staff and they found it later.
Best of luck

 

[ThePointyEnd]

Hi All,

I am a longtime lurker, and have done a lot of reading and not a lot of posting (due to my inexperience when it comes to traveling utilising FF miles.

However, I did want to walk you through my experience with attempting to book SQ RTW *A. I have read through all the tips of the forum here and also point hacks as well prior to calling.

The first time (few months ago) I called into SQ contact centre, the agent had no idea what the RTW *A ticket was. I hung up. I called up again and got another agent who just sent me the PDF document, which I can only add 6 flights.

I called up two days ago, and spoke with an agent who had no idea and directed me to book the ticket online and use the Star Alliance Planning Tool, which I advised that I wasn't aware that you could book it online and the above mentioned tool, was not for points redemption. She eventually started taking the flight details for my itinerary; however advised that there was an issue with 2 of my flights:

1. Lisbon to London via Frankfurt
2. London to Stockholm via Frankfurt

She advised that I was not able to backtrack and had to go either east bound or westbound. I might be misinterpreting things wrong on the Start Alliance RTW T&C states that:

3.1 Start and End
- 'Within the zones mentioned above the direction can be changed.' - does this mean you can backtrack within the traffic conferences? As per below:

o TC1: North America, Central America, South America, Greenland, Caribbean, Hawaiian Islands
o TC2: Europe (West of the Urals), Azores, Iceland, Middle East, Africa, Seychelles Islands
o TC3: Asia (East of the Urals), Oceania, (Australia, New Zealand and South Pacific Islands)

3.2 Stopovers and Transfers
-'Transfers, which are defined as a stay of less than 24 hours, are allowed in any city, however not more than 3 in any one city.' - I interpreted this, as you could transit through the same city more than once, and the only way you can transfer through the same city more than once, is if you backtrack? Please let me know if I am way off.

After hanging up feeling delated and defeated. I tried again last night arming myself with a top to ask for the supervisor, not hang up and advise that you were happy to wait. I was allocated a supervisor (Jager) who was very helpful in comparison to everyone I had spoken to previously.

He took town all the flights required, and I didn't have to repeat myself and he read them back to me exactly the way I had presented it to him.

MEL to SIN (SQ)
SIN to CPH (SQ)
LIS to EWR (TAP)
LAX to NRT (SQ)
NRT to SIN (SQ)
SIN to MEL (SQ)

All of the above flights but one were available at the time, and the one that was not available was SIN to CPH via SQ. This was showing on Expert Flyer and SQ to be available under Saver Award. After refreshing both sites and the Supervisor checking and checking. It was not available. Does this happen often?

I tried to quickly change the SIN to CPH (SQ) leg to SIN to BKK to ARN via SQ and TG; however the direct flight from BKK to ARN was not available, although United and Expert Flyer showing availability.

The other issue that came up was that I wanted to fly back from NRT to MEL via SIN. The Supervisor advised me this was backtracking. I had read online via this forum and others, that people have booked flights out of AUS and back via SIN and along with this condition - 'Transfers, which are defined as a stay of less than 24 hours, are allowed in any city, however not more than 3 in any one city.', I believed it was possible?

Special mention though, Supervisor advised he would call back after confirming further information and he did call back, even though it was 12:30am (AEST).

Alas, I am forced to go back to the drawing board for my RTW trip with a chunk of my points expiring with Kris Flyer end of July.

Are there people in this community who have flown out of AUS via SIN (stopover) and come back to AUS via SIN (transit)?

Any suggestions about how I can make the above trip work?

Thank you all the individuals who I have learnt from on this forum and thanks in advance for any future guidance.

Thank you, good to read such detail. Hope you can get it to work.

 

[WGM]

Basically SQ is doing everything possible to kill Award RTW:

1. You can't do it online
2. You have to pay $250 as a "surcharge" for the non-optional phone service
3. They no longer train staff to even know what an Award RTW is
4. The staff now say you can't us a SA Planning tool itinerary number to speed up the process, meaning you have to spend an hour on the phone spelling out airports, dates,times etc
5. The staff then invent the rules as they go along (eg the above problem with a transit in the same airport, which is permitted) and then you just have to abandon the call and start again another day.
6. If you are prepared to spend hours on the phone spelling and pointing them to the rules, they will eventually say that there is no availability. I had a validated SA Planning tool itinerary (checked against the slightly different SQ RTW rules) and I had spent a full day checking that the flights had award seat availability (via United and other sites) but SQ said there was no availability on a single flight - except SYD - SIN which they couldn't deny since it was on their site. They then added that if I booked that flight and later found other flights that I could not convert it to a RTW (even paying the refund fee) because the flight would be released into the pool and might be snapped up by someone else. That is completely untrue as I had previously done that several times, indeed they used to hold award booking for you for a week or two while points were transferred and other flights lined up, without even charging the refund fee.

The inability to book Award RTW online at SQ is not backward technology. It's means of killing off Award RTW.

Indeed even with non-RTW awards, except for expensive airlines like Turkish, you can't even redeem a point to point award flight online, and they will tell you there is no availability when you call up - even when it is sitting there on the airlines own website. They just say "It's not available on my screen".

Unfortunately, they now have the reputation, so they no longer need to provide the service. Ironically, its now much easier to book RTW with notoriously bad Qantas! At least its possible to get a booking (even if Qantas will likely stuff up the inevitable re-ticketing).

 

[ThePointyEnd]

Basically SQ is doing everything possible to kill Award RTW:

1. You can't do it online
2. You have to pay $250 as a "surcharge" for the non-optional phone service
3. They no longer train staff to even know what an Award RTW is
4. The staff now say you can't us a SA Planning tool itinerary number to speed up the process, meaning you have to spend an hour on the phone spelling out airports, dates,times etc
5. The staff then invent the rules as they go along (eg the above problem with a transit in the same airport, which is permitted) and then you just have to abandon the call and start again another day.
6. If you are prepared to spend hours on the phone spelling and pointing them to the rules, they will eventually say that there is no availability. I had a validated SA Planning tool itinerary (checked against the slightly different SQ RTW rules) and I had spent a full day checking that the flights had award seat availability (via United and other sites) but SQ said there was no availability on a single flight - except SYD - SIN which they couldn't deny since it was on their site. They then added that if I booked that flight and later found other flights that I could not convert it to a RTW (even paying the refund fee) because the flight would be released into the pool and might be snapped up by someone else. That is completely untrue as I had previously done that several times, indeed they used to hold award booking for you for a week or two while points were transferred and other flights lined up, without even charging the refund fee.

The inability to book Award RTW online at SQ is not backward technology. It's means of killing off Award RTW.

Indeed even with non-RTW awards, except for expensive airlines like Turkish, you can't even redeem a point to point award flight online, and they will tell you there is no availability when you call up - even when it is sitting there on the airlines own website. They just say "It's not available on my screen".

Unfortunately, they now have the reputation, so they no longer need to provide the service. Ironically, its now much easier to book RTW with notoriously bad Qantas! At least its possible to get a booking (even if Qantas will likely stuff up the inevitable re-ticketing).

It is the only conclusion one can draw.

 

[Coops1]

Are there people in this community who have flown out of AUS via SIN (stopover) and come back to AUS via SIN (transit)?

This is definitely doable, although I have not personally done it. Goodluck, it’s a hard slog. I failed in my attempt, and settled on a europe return Instead

 

[Igreen]

This is definitely doable, although I have not personally done it. Goodluck, it’s a hard slog. I failed in my attempt, and settled on a europe return Instead

They have made it difficult. Which is the same with QF unless u have a higher status (Platinum goes to Oz Tasmania) else your call goes overseas. This is the same with VA. The challenge is speaking to non Singapore support staff (mostly goes to Phillippines who either dont have authority/not trained/dont have access. It is a slog. The good staff (back office) dont pick up the call unless they know u r pissed and being given a run around. I thought the $250 was to get experienced staff to address this issue. They paid their staff 8 months bonus. Their service on the flight is the best but call center is terrible.

 

[dougielai]

Basically SQ is doing everything possible to kill Award RTW:

1. You can't do it online
2. You have to pay $250 as a "surcharge" for the non-optional phone service
3. They no longer train staff to even know what an Award RTW is
4. The staff now say you can't us a SA Planning tool itinerary number to speed up the process, meaning you have to spend an hour on the phone spelling out airports, dates,times etc
5. The staff then invent the rules as they go along (eg the above problem with a transit in the same airport, which is permitted) and then you just have to abandon the call and start again another day.
6. If you are prepared to spend hours on the phone spelling and pointing them to the rules, they will eventually say that there is no availability. I had a validated SA Planning tool itinerary (checked against the slightly different SQ RTW rules) and I had spent a full day checking that the flights had award seat availability (via United and other sites) but SQ said there was no availability on a single flight - except SYD - SIN which they couldn't deny since it was on their site. They then added that if I booked that flight and later found other flights that I could not convert it to a RTW (even paying the refund fee) because the flight would be released into the pool and might be snapped up by someone else. That is completely untrue as I had previously done that several times, indeed they used to hold award booking for you for a week or two while points were transferred and other flights lined up, without even charging the refund fee.

The inability to book Award RTW online at SQ is not backward technology. It's means of killing off Award RTW.

Indeed even with non-RTW awards, except for expensive airlines like Turkish, you can't even redeem a point to point award flight online, and they will tell you there is no availability when you call up - even when it is sitting there on the airlines own website. They just say "It's not available on my screen".

Unfortunately, they now have the reputation, so they no longer need to provide the service. Ironically, its now much easier to book RTW with notoriously bad Qantas! At least its possible to get a booking (even if Qantas will likely stuff up the inevitable re-ticketing).

Thanks WGM and all for the replies and information, this all helps in my quest for the elusive RTW *A ticket. I am going to give it a crack again, my parents didn't raise a quitter, but I may end up walking away with my tail between my legs. lol

@WGW you spoke of 'slightly different SQ RTW rules', could you provide the link to these rules for reference? This will assist in my next call.

Further, I will continue to share my learnings and experiences for you all. Hopefully, I can share something useful.

Thanks again to all.

 

[westsurf]

Hi Dougie,

Thanks for your detailed post. We have just cracked the magic number for a RTW business class in points. I am hoping that it doesn't become the issue that it has for you. However, it seems that would be the case.

 

[Coops1]

Hi Dougie,

Thanks for your detailed post. We have just cracked the magic number for a RTW business class in points. I am hoping that it doesn't become the issue that it has for you. However, it seems that would be the case.

One of the significant issues now, is the lack of SQ Saver fare availability on all routes. I don't like your chances, but goodluck.

 

[westsurf]

One of the significant issues now, is the lack of SQ Saver fare availability on all routes. I don't like your chances, but goodluck.

Yea I am starting to feel this will be the case. I won't be giving up easily though as this was a dream of ours.

 

[MiLK_MaN]

So I finally just managed to get a locked down itinerary for next year with availability in J for 2...

BNE xSIN ICN
ICN xSIN MUC
MUC xFRA EDI
EDI BRU
BRU xWAW JFK
EWR SIN
SIN BNE

Couple of notes/tips:
- The call centre is absolutely useless. I can only say don't bother calling in at all and trying to go through this, I went through 10 or so reps and it was just time wasting over and over with things like can't route through the same place twice etc.
- What worked for me was finding a suitable itinerary using the normal Singapore Air/United/Expertflyer combination and then filling in their contact form online with the itinerary (https://www.singaporeair.com/get-help/PPSClub-KrisFlyer). I attached the Reservation Request Form with my details but just put the flight details in the contact form.
- After about 2 weeks, I suddenly had a phone call from Singapore Airlines that I missed, but I noticed a booking in my account with about half the flights I wanted. I tried calling into the call centre but found they again were unhelpful, but had correspondence via email that I replied to and that worked a lot better because the person I was emailing directly with was allowed to call outbound and understood how the RTW is booked
- There is literally zero J class availability on East-West flights with United, and same deal with Air Canada. The only way around this was to find something direct from New York to Singapore, which thankfully there was availability but they get snapped up pretty quickly.
- You can't avoid the $250USD per person booking fee which was introduced in March this year. Tried to talk them out of it but they were firm, and my miles expire in September so I just ran with it.

Overall, tough exercise, but glad that I've got a 7 week trip booked for March next year!

 

[westsurf]

Glad to hear someone had a win ...

Query though ... I note availabiity in J

Does that mean you didn't have to search / find for saver business class seats to book?

 

[MiLK_MaN]

Glad to hear someone had a win ...

Query though ... I note availabiity in J

Does that mean you didn't have to search / find for saver business class seats to book?

No, these were all J Saver fares on Singapore Airlines, "I" Class for anything else.

 

[westsurf]

Reservation Request Form

Was that the form you attached?

 

[MiLK_MaN]

Reservation Request Form

Was that the form you attached?

Yup, pretty much only filled out my member + passenger details and in the itinerary section just said refer to email.

 

[acinod]

Any one had luck redeeming for this route?

 

[Mattg]

Any one had luck redeeming for this route?
View attachment 332840

You should be able to book this (if there's availability on Turkish Airlines) over the phone. Many partner routes just can't be booked on the Singapore Airlines website.

Use the United website to check availability.

 

[dougielai]

So I finally just managed to get a locked down itinerary for next year with availability in J for 2...

BNE xSIN ICN
ICN xSIN MUC
MUC xFRA EDI
EDI BRU
BRU xWAW JFK
EWR SIN
SIN BNE

Couple of notes/tips:
- The call centre is absolutely useless. I can only say don't bother calling in at all and trying to go through this, I went through 10 or so reps and it was just time wasting over and over with things like can't route through the same place twice etc.
- What worked for me was finding a suitable itinerary using the normal Singapore Air/United/Expertflyer combination and then filling in their contact form online with the itinerary (https://www.singaporeair.com/get-help/PPSClub-KrisFlyer). I attached the Reservation Request Form with my details but just put the flight details in the contact form.
- After about 2 weeks, I suddenly had a phone call from Singapore Airlines that I missed, but I noticed a booking in my account with about half the flights I wanted. I tried calling into the call centre but found they again were unhelpful, but had correspondence via email that I replied to and that worked a lot better because the person I was emailing directly with was allowed to call outbound and understood how the RTW is booked
- There is literally zero J class availability on East-West flights with United, and same deal with Air Canada. The only way around this was to find something direct from New York to Singapore, which thankfully there was availability but they get snapped up pretty quickly.
- You can't avoid the $250USD per person booking fee which was introduced in March this year. Tried to talk them out of it but they were firm, and my miles expire in September so I just ran with it.

Overall, tough exercise, but glad that I've got a 7 week trip booked for March next year!

Hi Milk-Man,

Congrats on the above mentioned booking, it seems your persistence has paid off.

I am looking at a similar route with yours and I have called up numerous amount of times without luck.

I will be trying your suggestions in the next few days, where I fill in the form and advise of my itinerary via email.

I have a few questions before I send through my email to Krisflyer.

- will you be enjoying a stopover in SIN or are SIN stops to be layovers?
- did you provide specific dates for the each flight and were they booked as requested? or did you have to spend time finding new dates for all flights?
- would you be able to share a template of the email you sent? obviously with all personal and sensitive information removed.

Thanks for sharing your experience in the previous post and any future guidance.

Don

 

[zbender]

These things are hard to do. Harder than the old "US Airways" partner redemptions.

Harder than getting a refund out of Qantas.

Harder than…you add your own comparison.

I used the seats dot aero (seats.aero) site to try to find routes and low-points availability, and then the Singapore Airlines mileage redemption "finder" (it has a lot of bugs) to validate that Saver was available.

I had each leg mapped out so I could feed it to the operator: ports, dates, flight number and I re-checked availability at "saver" right before I called.

I managed to get, leaving quite soon, at the 280,000 plus taxes rate for Business Class, as a KrisFlyer Gold:

SYD-HND on ANA
Take a 2-night stop in Tokyo.

HND-TSA on ANA
Half a day to hang out in Taipei, and to get to the other airport.

TPE-BKK-FRA on Thai.
Hang out in Europe for a while.

FRA-LHR on Lufthansa.
LHR-EWR on United "Polaris"
Take a 1-night stop in New York.

EWR-LAS-LAX-SFO on domestic United.
Yes, this was the only routing available, and it will take f o r e v e r to complete the trip.

SFO-SYD on United "Polaris"


Planning took a full day of research and furious scribblings on paper. First booking attempt worked, and it took 30 minutes on the phone.

But then, after two days, no ticketing and no "please pay your taxes" request.

I had called them each day. On the third day, they decided that my original itinerary had backtracking on the return journey -- "Sir, we calculate back-tracking on every segment, not on whether it was a connecting flight" -- so I had to rebuild my itinerary using seats.aero, their site, and my paper while I awaited call-backs, had hour-long discussions on the phone, etc.

Eventually, the last call lasted 2 hours whereby I had the above itinerary for the return journey validated, confirmed, booked, and the taxes paid.

They issued tickets on their stock.

…then called me back 5 minutes later. My heart jumped.
They had to reissue the tickets due to some glitch on their end. So, new ticket number(s) issued, itinerary the same, so far so good.

Regrets:

• First itinerary had nice legs on Lufthansa 747-8. That's a lovely thing to fly in :-(
• First itinerary had a nice little European ping-pong amongst small airports flying Swiss
• I wish I had asked them to check back-tracking, as it would have saved 2+ days of stress/worry
• I had wanted to go RTW in F but this was absolument impossible in any direction, any way, any how.
• I now have to miss an event I was trying to be in Europe for, and miss staying with my friends

Pluses:

• First itinerary had a 15+ hour leg that could only be confirmed in Economy. "Y", I ask, would I do this to myself‽
• By changing dates, I found a neat little way to bypass IAD, which seemed to be slammed with every seat taken in and out Domestically

 

[maz1]

After all that hard work, I hope you enjoy the trip