Asia - Leaving luggage at baggage claim overnight?

I'll be arriving in SIN on the UA flight from NRT getting in close to midnight. The next afternoon I'm leaving on Thai to go to Bangkok. If possible I'd like to go straight to the transit hotel and spend the night, then pick up my luggage the next morning.

I don't think UA will check my bags through to Bangkok since the layover is fairly long, and I'm wondering if I'll have a problem retrieving my luggage and going through customs the morning after I arrive. Any help and information is appreciated.

In principle I don't see why you couldn't check your bags through if you don't need them overnight. If the transit is less than 24 hours and you can show the ticket for your SIN-BKK flight when you check in for the first flight then it shouldn't be a problem.

If you go to the Singapore Airport site (http://www.changiairport.com.sg) and look in the Airport Guide/Transfer & Transit section it seems to claim that they will automatically locate your luggage if it is not checked through but you are just in transit. To make this work I guess what you do is check in for the SIN-BKK flight at the transfer desk in the evening when you arrive. You show them the tag for your bags and they will enter it in the system, locate them (i.e. collect them off the belt) and retag them for the next day.

I have never tried that, but it is the sort of impressively efficient thing that can happen in Singapore.

Alternatively, why not go through immigration, get you bag and go to a hotel in the city if that is where you are planning to go the next day? Nowhere is that far from the airport (at that time you could get to the Traders hotel, for example in about 20 mins).

I may end up just taking a cab into town. It just seemed like a good idea to spend the night at the transit hotel and then take the subway in the next day. If I can find a hotel that will allow late check out I guess that would be the ideal solution.