Xiongflyer

I'm looking to upgrade (SFO-HKG/ICN) for a flight in the fall, but I was wondering if there is a way to see which upgrade tiers (Saver, Standard, Full) are available on a given day before purchasing a Y ticket. I have a limited number of KF miles, and I don't want to book an economy ticket only to discover that I have an insufficient number of miles to upgrade.

Thanks in advance!

SingaporeDon

You can try a full redemption for the same flights, and see if saver awards show up as available, although this is not 100% fool proof, as SQ tends to have different quotas for upgrades and full redemption

natbam

I posed the exact same question to SQ's agent on the hotline and he indicated that I could try to see if I could redeem an award outright as the redemption awards and upgrades came from the same fare bucket, the I class. When I saw that there was a wait list for the saver award for the flight I wanted, I happily bought the ticket, thinking I could put myself on the wait list for the upgrade as well. Alas, to my horror, when I tried to redeem a saver/standard upgrade, the website indicated that the upgrades were not available despite the wait list option available for redemption. I was not even granted the wait list option for the upgrade! So I had to call the SQ hotline once again and they indicated that they could put me on the wait list for the upgrade but I would not be granted the 15% online discount. After some time arguing with them, they relented and put me on the wait list with the online discount honored.

I'm quite lucky that my wait list for the standard upgrade cleared in less than a week though still on the wait list for the saver.