Thunderroad

And my solid advice was based on gpeso8's solid advice, which gpeso8 has supplemented with yet more solid advice.

The only thing I'd add is to keep trying. Based on my limited experience, it seems that otherwise very competent SQ CSRs have trouble with this kind of walking and chewing gum at the same time - i.e., combining J and F legs while booking with the 15 percent discount. I have no idea why you have to wait until next week for management approval, except maybe the relevant managers are off over the weekend...??? In my experience, I was put on hold for extended periods or the CSRs called back in an hour or two, but I did not have to wait nearly as long as you seem to.

I'd try yet another CSR (again, in SIN, during office hours there) to see whether s/he can simply do this now or might be able to get a supervisor to approve it while you're on the phone...or, at worst, by calling you back fairly quickly rather than you're needing to wait until next week.

I know how frustrating this is - it certainly was for me - but based on my own experience I remain cautiously confident that it will work out in the end.

WLG Base

It is very frustrating. I had no choice in the end for a recent flight and ended up with two redemption bookings. I found that the CSR's (I had talked with three over a couple of days as I tried to argue my point) had put notes on file to say I had been told that I couldn't have a mixed booking. With a previous booking I had no issues at all.

I have now escalated by email seeking a re credit for the additional points I had to pay.

andysiz

Congrats Thunderroad. As always thanks for keeping FT in the loop with your saga. And best of luck to those slogging through the same issue now.

Thunderroad

This is lousy. It would certainly seem that you could and should get the additional points back, since the SQ award chart presumably includes F awards for countries where it only flies in J, necessitating mixed bookings. But given the experiences that you, I and others have had, I'm not absolutely confident.

Thanks very much, andy...but what a silly saga it was!

ATL_Terp05

I'm happy to now report that a CSR called me back today (about 2 business days after my last call with them) to report that after management review they are able to confirm my mixed first/business class ticket for the expected discounted mile awared amount of 91k instead of the 108k miles(91k + 17K) they initially wanted to charge me. They were very nice during the entire process, however I don't think I should have had to spend this much time dealing with this type of problem. My buddy who is traveling with me ran into the same problem - hopefully that is resolved shortly as well.

Thunderroad

Great to hear, ATL. Like you, I found them pretty nice to deal with through the whole process. But yeah, what a hassle.

SingaporeDon

This sometimes works to your advantage too. They log most conversations. So if one CSR has agreed to give you a 15% online discount for a manual booking/upgrade, you can tell the next agent who refuses to honor the discount that you have been told otherwise by a previous agent, and he will be able to see it in the notes. To be on the safe side, I always take down the name of the CSR who has agreed to give the 15% discount etc.

rooivalk

On the phone right now and the agent is telling me they are unable to honour the 15% discount for me... Guess I'll try again during SIN office hours...

Thunderroad

Good luck. As evinced by the varying experiences in this thread, there does not seem to be any magic formula to get SQ to give the discount. The things I'd suggest are asking the agent to do a manual booking, check with a supervisor, refer to the award chart with includes F awards even from countries where SQ does not fly in F, etc. Above all, perhaps get the agent to hold the reservation for you while you consider your options and/or deposit more miles in your account. Then try another agent later...and another later...etc.

Hope it works out!

demue

SQ needs to fix this pronto. This back and forth is ridiculous. Either get that cr*pshot of a website ready to handle mix-class online redemptions or give clear guidelines to their CSRs how to manually combine the tickets and grant the 15% online discount. Maybe sent it to a specific queue for management approval, but sort it out.

rooivalk

Guys,

Just wanted to give you an update. The CSR called me back today saying that management had given approval for her to give me the 15% off for a mixed class redemption booking. She took awhile to figure out how to actually apply the 15% off manually. I also found out that I didn't have to ticket my reservation until early August (my flight is in late August) and that it is confirmed. Wow! Basically I can confirm my award tickets until 3 weeks before my flight without ticketing it. But she also warned me that if I tried to ticket it the next time that the agent might not be able to apply the 15% discount... I don't understand why she could do it but the next agent might not. She did tell me that she would leave a note in my account saying that the 15% off should be applied.

Hope this helps everyone else!

Thunderroad

Nice to hear, rooivalk. I'm a bit unclear on the arrangement with booking but not ticketing an award ticket, but trust it's clearer to you.

Still too bad that this process is such a PITA, but glad you persevered.

gpeso8

Yesterday, I was able to book a mixed F/J award (SUB-SIN-HKG-SFO) with only a slight hassle.

The agent at first wanted to break this into two separate awards, SUB-SIN (J) and SIN-HKG-SFO (F). I told him to reference the award chart and specifically the language in the footnote.

He placed me on hold and came back in less than 10 minutes saying that his supervisor had approved the mixed redemption. He applied the 15% discount before I could even bring it up. My phone call was placed at around 11 AM Singapore time.

Thunderroad

Ah, I'd never noticed the footnotes. I assume you mean the line about booking into the highest class of service. That would seem to give an unclear agent some fairly clear guidance. Good to know!

WLG Base

I have just received an email from SQ advising the re credit of the additional miles.