Singapore - Advice Please - nite before on AirAsia, morning DL SIN-NRT-LAX

Does AirAsia "hold" your luggage overnight in order to avoid having to leave Transit amenities - since it sounds Delta personnel aren't around to check-in till early morning of the flight? (AirAsia gets into Terminal 1, I believe & we'd like to overnight at Term1 transit hotel - but will likely have checked bags).

How much in advance can you actually get the Delta boarding pass anyway?
Would it be possible to get it 24hrs before if we came to Singapore a day early for sightseeing?

Otherwise, unless I'm mistaken, there's no alternative but to have to leave transit area to claim baggage & then be UNABLE to get back through to Transit area until Delta shows up in early a.m. to do the manual boarding pass process necessary for Security.

E-Ticket Online Check-in and Boarding Pass, Business class don't provide any better options?

Any recent experience & advice would be greatly appreciated.:

In my experience, which is not with these airlines, (1) you won't be able to get your boarding pass until the day of your flight, and (2) the airline will hold your bag in their baggage office if it's not picked up from the carousel. You can leave the bag, spend the night at the transit hotel, "enter" Singapore in the morning, claim your bag (you'll have to fill out a simple form), get your boarding pass, and "leave." Don't worry: you'll be far from the first person to have gone through this process. It's quite normal.

I don't know when you're traveling, but the transit hotels can fill up. If that's your plan, reserve your room quickly. Otherwise, you might find yourself in another terminal or sleeping in a lounge - if you have lounge access, and the lounge is open 24 hours.

That said, if you've never been to Singapore before, a day of sightseeing isn't a bad idea.

You might be able to get your BP through online checkin, and print it out or send it to your pda, within 24 hours of departure. To my surprise, I recently got mine for DL ATL-NRT-BKK (in Business, using SWU's) without any difficulty, the only difference from domestic OLCI being that I had to input my passport details. I don't know if that's available from SIN. If you can do that, you'd be able to clear immigration, collect your bags, and go back airside. But the real problem is that you won't be able to check your bags in for the DL flights.

So the only solution that presents itself is staying airside (perhaps using your DL BP to get into the DL contract lounge in T1) until the checkin desk for DL opens, around 2 or 2.5 hours before departure. Then go downstairs, clear immigration, hope Air Asia held your baggage in the baggage office, collect your bags, go back upstairs, checkin with DL, and go airside again back to the lounge.

Changi is pretty well deserted, eerily so, landside in the wee hours of the night. Having experienced it twice this year, once from SQ to DL, the other time from DL to SQ, it's amazing how different landside is from airside between 2am and 5am. Landside is like a ghosttown.

I did this in Jun 09, flew Air Asia in from BKK arriving about 10pm, had a morning flight out on UA the next morning. I stayed over in the transit hotel, and then a couple of hours prior to my flight I went to collect the bag, which was in a "left luggage" area after clearing immigration. I think there was a person manning the area. It worked out fine, but had the bag not made it to SIN or if there was no one to collect it from it would have been a bit nerveracking.

Another option if you don't mind spending the night "on the town" would be to pick up the luggage, leave it at the left luggage office in T1 or T2, head out to town to eat at a 24hr hawker centre, shop at Mustafa or check out the IRs, then head back to the airport in the morning to check into your DL flight

I had a similar situation last month.

I arrived on AirAsia at about 9pm, with a flight on NH the next morning at 8am. We didn't want to be holed up airside the entire time, so we booked a room at the Crowne Plaza Changi, which is connected to the airport, and took the MRT into town.

From my perspective you have 3 options:
1. Stay airside at transit hotel, retrieve luggage in the morning.
2. Stay at the Crowne Plaza Changi, go into town for a bit, come back, sleep and walk directly from hotel into airport in the morning.
3. Do not stay at a hotel, check your bags somewhere for the night, go into town, and come back in the morning.

If you can find a deal, I'd definitely recommend getting a room at the Crowne Plaza. If not, then the suggestion about going into town to explore the hawker marts, etc is also a good idea if you don't mind waiting to sleep on the airplane.

Also keep in mind that after around 12am or so the MRT stops running, so you'd have to take a cab. Cab fares in Singapore are quite inexpensive, though.