Seat bookings on a VA-coded flight on Singapore Air?

[Caversham04]

I am trying to book an open-jaw flight for my wife on Singapore Airlines, travelling ADL-SIN-HAN then DAD-SIN-ADL to get back home. She is keen to be able to pre-book her seats so that she's not assigned a middle seat or the row by the toilets when she checks in.

I have been looking to book this on a VA code so that the SC's count towards the "200 SC's on VA flights" requirement for my wife's requalification for Gold. However:

1. VA-coded open-jaw flights on Singapore Airlines don't seem to be bookable on the Virgin Australia site. Multi-city bookings are only available for domestic travel, so I can't book directly with Virgin.

2. The flights can be booked via a 3rd party e.g. Expedia. I did it this way and I can get both the Virgin booking reference and the (different) SQ booking reference, but the Virgin and Singapore Air websites will not allow me to pre-book seats (only express a Window / Aisle preference). We've cancelled the booking via Expedia once we realised that seat bookings seemed to be impossible.....

So the question for the brains trust is: am I missing something, whereby these these flights CAN be booked on a VA code AND seat selection is available on the SQ website once I have the SQ booking reference? If it's not doable returning from DAD, one option is to book the return from HAN rather than DAD, so that it's a simple return flight that I could book via Virgin Australia, but will I be able to book seats via the SQ website once Virgin give me the SQ booking reference?

 

[bcworld]

It is possible to coerce the VA website into doing stuff...although not sure if its a good idea or if it will address your seat selection issue.

 

[n7of9]

On my recent VA coded SQ flight redemption, the booking references for both airlines were available to me, and I was able to select my seat on SQ website.

 

[PERLHR]

The seat issue with SQ via VA is just rubbish. It just does not seem to work..redemption excluded. ..... If I'm crediting SQ flights to VA in any class I just book through SQ and feel it's just easier even if reduced points or credits. Yet another pain frankly with VA.