Singapore Airlines used to restrict their ‘best’ premium cabin flights, not allowing saver level award redemption even by their own members. For instance, if you wanted to book first class awards on their Boeing 77W aircraft you would have to pay double miles.
That changed at the end of February.
Other than for a brief period at the beginning of July, it’s still been near-impossible to get saver seats for Singapore Airlines premium long haul flights using partner airline miles like those of United or US Airways.
But it’s been quite doable to get seats using Singapore’s own miles. And of course Singapore Airlines Krisflyer is a transfer partner of American Express Membership Rewards and Starwood Preferred Guest. So the points are quite easy to get for many — making it quite possible to get one of the best products in the sky.
However, even after the change to availability earlier in the year, you still couldn’t get “Suites Class” on Singapore’s Airbus A380 flights, even with their own miles, except for at exorbitant prices like three quarters of a million miles or more roundtrip between Singapore and the U.S.
Redemption bookings for Saver Award flights in the Singapore Airlines Suites on board the Airbus A380 are now available.
With the launch of this latest initiative, PPS Club and KrisFlyer members will have the choice and flexibility to redeem all award types in all cabin classes across the Singapore Airlines network. We will be revising our award charts to include the Singapore Airlines Suites, which will be categorised together with First Class award levels for ease of reference.
Despite this change there will not be an increase in the current Saver Award levels for First Class.
They’ve increased the prices of awards that aren’t booked at the saver level, the double miles and last seat availability awards, for both first class and suites. But indeed saver pricing remains the same. And I’m seeing some flights with at least one first class award seat available for A380 suites.
Singapore Airlines Krisflyer miles just got incrementally more valuable.
(HT: SQTalk)
Great News but I wonder why they relented on this? Goodness of their heart?
Good news indeed. Singapore are a very good although expensive airline. I much prefer them than any American carrier. The service and quality on Singapore is exceptional.
@MileageUpdate probably to generate some marketing buzz?
Does this mean they are now available using partner miles?
I just flew SIN-HKG on Singapore in First. I was the only one in the whole First Class Cabin! Only three of us across the Pacific. Maybe they are getting tired of empty First Class seats.
SQ is great, but there are quite a few other Star partners with First class seats that are actually attainable and not far in quality – LH, OZ, NH, TG etc (plus the barely acceptable ones on UA and CA)
Between redeeming 70K UA miles for NYC-SIN (one-way) on any of the above carriers (mix and match), versus 110K SQ miles (at the saver level that rarely has inventory), the allure and mystique of SQ F has just dropped quite a bit.
I think MarkJ hit the nail on the head.. Those seats are always 3/4 empty at least. Get some value out of filling some of them with decent mile redemptions for the airline.
Without a brand experience mileage or revenue how do you sell seats on any airline with great frequency?
Someone has to like and experience your product
Having little or no seats available IMHO is suicide for any carrier
And it hurts Star alliance as a desirable choice
It’s all about the options
One world looks better in comparison as you can book BA easily in first
Even if there is a fuel surcharge
The Singapore availability problem explains why I have never seen either first or business class redemption ever on United.com
They take it to the stingiest of extremes
When is the seats available? I just searched SFO-HKG on their 380 but no dates are available.
Don’t forget 15% discount on awards. So 110K is really 93,500.
hi AK, where do u get the 15% discount on awards?
Gary,
As you indicate, the saver suite awards seems limited to 1 per flight. Have you heard any success stories about people booking a second saver ticket in business and clearing the “waitlist” for a saver suite award? Many thanks!