Possible to extend miles through flight booking?

[Bronica]

I have several parcels of points expiring in Sep, Nov and Dec this year and want to ideally book a Europe return trip on business in mid-year 2025.

As I can only only book about a year in advance, is there a way to achieve this timeframe without having to pay for the points extension each time? Would I be able to book these flights in 2024 then reschedule them?

 

[anat0l]

I read around some other forums and I think my understanding is this. (And I wish I could possibly take advantage because I have some significant upcoming expiring miles as well)

When you book a flight with miles, the oldest miles are used first. When they are redeposited for whatever reason, the expiry that they had still persists. This means that if you were to use miles now and then cancel later after September, the amount of miles that would have expired in September would expire immediately.

If you change your ticket, a redeposit doesn't happen, but some changes will cause a new ticket to be issued and thus a redeposit. These can include a change in the routing (e.g. if you change from SIN-FRA to SIN-LHR). Remember also that all tickets are valid for 12 months from date of booking; when you change a ticket, this validity doesn't change or extend.

Long story short, I think your idea may not work if you want to book in 2025.

 

[drron]

Yes I doubt you will be able to pull it off for 2025. I did get away with it last year because I argued that if I hadn't made a booking the points would have been automatically extended for 6 months as well as which SQ had cancelled the flight. Those conditions no longer apply.

And good to see you here @anat0l . have missed having you around.

 

[Mr H]

I have several parcels of points expiring in Sep, Nov and Dec this year and want to ideally book a Europe return trip on business in mid-year 2025.

As I can only only book about a year in advance, is there a way to achieve this timeframe without having to pay for the points extension each time? Would I be able to book these flights in 2024 then reschedule them?

Some people have been able to do that but the terms and conditions suggest this should not be possible (the wording is not very clear) and the penalty if it doesn't go your way is to forfeit the points.

 

[MathNerd]

all tickets are valid for 12 months from date of booking

OP @Bronica, this is what makes it basically impossible to extend miles expiring this year in order to use for 2025 flights - this requires the booking to be made in 2024.

If you made a booking, say today, the ticket has validity only until 17 July 2024. That is, any date changes (or other changes for that matter) can make the new itinerary "finish" at the latest on 17 July 2024 (even though the latest flight date that can be booked at this moment is 6 July 2024).

The miles will have to be extended another way (6 months max via paying, or 12 months with status (KFES should do it?).

 

[Bronica]

OP @Bronica, this is what makes it basically impossible to extend miles expiring this year in order to use for 2025 flights - this requires the booking to be made in 2024.

If you made a booking, say today, the ticket has validity only until 17 July 2024. That is, any date changes (or other changes for that matter) can make the new itinerary "finish" at the latest on 17 July 2024 (even though the latest flight date that can be booked at this moment is 6 July 2024).

The miles will have to be extended another way (6 months max via paying, or 12 months with status (KFES should do it?).

Understand - thank you.

 

[SOPOOR]

OP @Bronica, this is what makes it basically impossible to extend miles expiring this year in order to use for 2025 flights - this requires the booking to be made in 2024.

If you made a booking, say today, the ticket has validity only until 17 July 2024. That is, any date changes (or other changes for that matter) can make the new itinerary "finish" at the latest on 17 July 2024 (even though the latest flight date that can be booked at this moment is 6 July 2024).

The miles will have to be extended another way (6 months max via paying, or 12 months with status (KFES should do it?).

Sorry can you clarify the whole "new itinerary finish"
On another thread i got told that i could extend it, but it was very grey

So today is 17 july 2023, if i book for 17 july 2024 (for arguments sake), changing the date to say 1st july 2025 (on 1st july 2024) subject to availability +difference in miles

Is not possible? In your opinion

 

[anat0l]

Sorry can you clarify the whole "new itinerary finish"
On another thread i got told that i could extend it, but it was very grey

So today is 17 july 2023, if i book for 17 july 2024 (for arguments sake), changing the date to say 1st july 2025 (on 1st july 2024) subject to availability +difference in miles

Is not possible? In your opinion

OK, this will be long winded...

Say you book a ticket on 17 July 2023. The ticket is issued and the validity of the ticket is for 12 months, i.e. it will no longer be valid after 17 July 2024. (This is not quite true, but let's go close enough).

If you could make changes to this ticket, the validity does not change. So say you make any sort of changes to your ticket on 17 September 2023. The ticket is changed (it will still have the same e-ticket number when you originally booked it), but the maximum validity is still 17 July 2024.

The actual dates of your flights on the ticket are separate to that of the validity of the ticket, but clearly it makes no sense to have a flight booked on a ticket that is later than the last day of its validity.

Hence, you can't (or it makes no sense to) change the ticket so you have a flight beyond 17 July 2024 (viz. a flight in 2025), because the ticket would be invalid by the time you want to take your flights (and hence the change wouldn't be allowed in the first place).

The only way to get a longer validity is to issue a new ticket (i.e. new e-ticket number). But as mentioned previously that triggers a mile redeposit as part of the process; once the "expired" miles are redeposited, they are gone.


I should make it clear here again that this is my understanding of how KrisFlyer works from what I have read. I really don't know if anyone before has done differently, i.e. requested a change that requires a reticket, but the miles they used to pay for the booking would have expired at the time of the change request, but got the change anyway. I assume this is rather unrealistic as people would go to town on this idea to preserve KF miles if it were the case.......

 

[Mr H]

My reading of the condition is slightly different:

The condition is:

a Ticket is valid for carriage for one year from the date of commencement of travel or if no portion of the Ticket is used, from the date of issue thereof, except as otherwise provided in the Ticket, these Conditions and/or Carrier’s Regulations​

I read this as meaning that provided the first sector is within one year of the ticket being issued, further sectors could be any time in the year after the first sector is flown - so some sectors could be almost two years after the ticket was issued. This means there could be flights p[ut on the ticket that post-date the ticket's validity because the validity is extended the moment the first sector is flown.

However, I cannot see any way to defer the first sector later than a year after the ticket was issued and extend the validity of the ticket in the process.

Having said that, some people have been able to persuade agents to do things that are not within the terms and conditions, especially during Covid and especially if they have high status. But the price for rolling the dice and getting snake eyes is pretty high...

 

[theblank]

I read this as meaning that provided the first sector is within one year of the ticket being issued,

i vaguely recall extending a ticket 3 times (a few years ago before there was a fee for that) until eventually i ran of time. I am sure the Customer service told me I couldnt extend beyond 12 months of original travel date. It definitely was not from the booking date.

 

[Mr H]

i vaguely recall extending a ticket 3 times (a few years ago before there was a fee for that) until eventually i ran of time. I am sure the Customer service told me I couldnt extend beyond 12 months of original travel date. It definitely was not from the booking date.

Sometimes there is a gap between what the T&Cs say and people's lived experience. But would I gamble my stash of Krisflyer points on it?

 

[theblank]

Sometimes there is a gap between what the T&Cs say and people's lived experience. But would I gamble my stash of Krisflyer points on it?

its a good point. If its going to be a gamble, book a ticket 12 months out, then a couple months later do a dummy run to see if can be extended for 2 months more. if it works woohoo. if it doesnt then you are probably not worse off than your original position.

i guess there is only so many Garmin watches a bloke can buy.

 

[SOPOOR]

My reading of the condition is slightly different:

The condition is:

a Ticket is valid for carriage for one year from the date of commencement of travel or if no portion of the Ticket is used, from the date of issue thereof, except as otherwise provided in the Ticket, these Conditions and/or Carrier’s Regulations​

I read this as meaning that provided the first sector is within one year of the ticket being issued, further sectors could be any time in the year after the first sector is flown - so some sectors could be almost two years after the ticket was issued. This means there could be flights p[ut on the ticket that post-date the ticket's validity because the validity is extended the moment the first sector is flown.

However, I cannot see any way to defer the first sector later than a year after the ticket was issued and extend the validity of the ticket in the process.

Having said that, some people have been able to persuade agents to do things that are not within the terms and conditions, especially during Covid and especially if they have high status. But the price for rolling the dice and getting snake eyes is pretty high...

i think you also posted on another thread that I posted my dilemma,
to recap, ive received in writing that I can simply extend my already booked flights by 1 year (subject to availaiblity)

but reading some of these comments, im not so sure anymore, and yes it seems a gamble

I have 200k expiring end of july, 700k expiring end of aug

really dont know what to do, I could book 3 flights worht 300k each for 12 months time and look to extend, or book 3 flights for 12 months time, with intention to actually use one and extend x 2 , or give 2 or 3 flights to relatives who will travel.........

really scratching my head on this one

 

[Mr H]

i think you also posted on another thread that I posted my dilemma,
to recap, ive received in writing that I can simply extend my already booked flights by 1 year (subject to availaiblity)

but reading some of these comments, im not so sure anymore, and yes it seems a gamble

I have 200k expiring end of july, 700k expiring end of aug

really dont know what to do, I could book 3 flights worht 300k each for 12 months time and look to extend, or book 3 flights for 12 months time, with intention to actually use one and extend x 2 , or give 2 or 3 flights to relatives who will travel.........

really scratching my head on this one

I thought you were PPS - don't PPS members' miles not expire?

 

[SOPOOR]

I thought you were PPS - don't PPS members' miles not expire?

definitely no form of status....... not a power employee that travels

 

[Mr H]

definitely no form of status....... not a power employee that travels

Sorry, I was confusing you with someone else.

 

[dajop]

My reading of the condition is slightly different:

The condition is:

a Ticket is valid for carriage for one year from the date of commencement of travel or if no portion of the Ticket is used, from the date of issue thereof, except as otherwise provided in the Ticket, these Conditions and/or Carrier’s Regulations​

I

Anecdotal evidence seems to in more recent times favour the above. What is confusing is the clause you quote, which is taken from SQ Conditions of Carriage, is different to the clause in SQ Krisflyer T&C which states:

19. All award tickets are valid for twelve months from the date of the first flight as ticketed, unless otherwise specified.