Partner award on SQ badly affected by schedule changes - chances of getting it fixed?

[GDale]

Had a beautiful set of flights booked for end of the year - MEL-DRW on VA, then DRW-SIN-MUC on SQ, CPH-SIN-PER on SQ, PER-MEL on VA.

SQ's revised winter schedule now sees:

• DRW-SIN flight moved forward by a day, and is now before my MEL-DRW flight
• SIN-MUC flight remaining as is, creating a 2 day stopover in Singapore as opposed to a leisurely 5 hr transit stop
• CPH-SIN brought forward by a day, creating a problem for my prebooked accommodation (why oh why did I get so confident and book non-refundable there...)
• SIN-PER pushed back by half a day, creating another 2 day stopover in Singapore as opposed to a 5 hr transit stop

The VA legs are easy enough to fix I think, thanks to good availability and the fact that it's on a VA redemption ticket. The SQ ones however - has anyone had luck getting SQ to open up inventory on alternate flights to the ones they've proposed? VA was of no help - the agent just said that I can either take the flights proposed by SQ or get a refund. I've tried contacting SQ but it's very hard to reach their redemptions team it seems.

 

[MJHoops]

I have no experience. You could try calling virgin again and emphasising this is an involuntary schedule change, and it doesn’t matter whether SQ has proposed certain flights as they cause you the difficulties you’ve outlined

And then keep hanging up and calling until you get someone willing to try. My gut says it will be difficult but as I say, I have no experience with VA or SQ on this issue

I had to deal with QF as a bronze

 

[GDale]

Success! After several tries, I managed to get VA and SQ to co-ordinate and change their respective flights. Feeling very very lucky, as both VA and SQ had to convert revenue inventory to get the new itinerary to work. For anyone caught in a similar situation, the age old recommendations from here continue to hold true:

• be concise - tell them exactly what you want. Have the flight numbers, departure dates, etc all prepared and ready to go for each call. Give a very clear impression that you've done your homework and know what you're talking about.
  
  
• be reasonable - if the change is already a complex one for them to co-ordinate, keep the solution as doable for them as possible. Whilst I'm sure changing routings as well as dates is entirely possible, every extra bit of complexity (1) makes it harder for you to explain everything, and (2) requires more approvals on their end.
  
  
• be super friendly to the people helping you (whilst still being firm in what you want).
  
  
• be prepared to hang up and call again. Some agents are willing to go the extra mile whilst others aren't, so don't give up.
  
  
• be at least somewhat knowledgeable - having some awareness of terminology like "sectors", "seat reservation", "record locator", "validation", "ticketing", "positive space", etc. allows you to talk in a language they're more familiar with, which I think increases your chances of success.