littlegreenman

I should've known that this was going to end in tears:

Saturday 06/02/2016. My beloved wife wants to go back to Singapore for Christmas. Fair enough, it has been a while since we were there on non-business. Since I'm tight I'll just book two BNE-SIN return redemptions in Y using miles. Great, there is actually inventory (it has been a long while there has been inventory around peak dates). So we'll be flying out on the 23rd. I am at the booking review site and about to go to the payments page when the site times out on me. Awesome, now I get an error message. It takes about ten minutes and the site is back up. Okay, let's do this again. Oh hey, where did my flight go? Nowhere to be seen. The inventory has disappeared. In fact the whole flight has disappeared, not just the economy reward. Okay, time to call virigin (with the thought: "as if that is going to work"). The friendly chap on the other end tells me no inventory, he can't see the flight either. No inventory. I told him about the booking timing out and the result was: tough luck.

Sunday: The inventory never came back, After a long back and forth I agree to give the annual Christmas Charity Golf tournament a miss and we'll fly out on the 22nd on the red eye instead. For some reason this gave me stomach pains. I'm 6'7 so I don't fit in a normal Y seat. Fortunately SQ let's you book emergency exit seats for a bargain USD40 on that leg. So I pull up KVS tool. Great, available. The stomach pains persist. I call up SQ and get told all four seats are available. Stomach pains continue. Oh well, don't be such a baby I thought. 8 hours in Y won't kill you. I proceed to book, arrive at the payments page this time and as already mentioned I am tight, so I pay for the taxes rather than using miles. Suprise! $30 surcharge per ticket for paying. This is regardless of which card or whether it is a debit card/credit card. No free payment method. *Grumbles* So much for drip pricing. I wonder what the ACCC would say. A $30 surcharge for paying taxes of $82.53 is really unreasonable. At no point was it mentioned throughout the booking process. "Don't be so tight littlegreenman, just get it over and done with. You've already wasted enough time on this."

08/02/2016: Booking is ticketed. Nice, here is the SQ PNR. Time to get those emergency exit seats. SQ website: Your ticket was issued by our partner airline. To manage your booking, get in touch with the relevant airline or return to the source of your booking. The stomach pains are back. This won't end well. Surely enough the virgin website doesn't allow me to do anything on the booking as per usual, time to call the contact centre. "Good morning littlegreenman, how can I help you today?.... Oh sorry, I can't help you at all, please contact Singapore Airlines on this issue." Those stomach pains are increasing. So I call Singapore Airlines, I dread the call already, I know this will get ugly not being a Kris Flyer, travelling in Y. "Good morning Sir, how may I help you today"... I explain the whole thing, the back and fourth... "Oh sorry we can't help you since you booked the ticket through Virgin Australia. Furthermore this is a redemption booking, so you will really need to talk to them." I repeated that I was pingponged around "You see sir, the system doesn't allow me to assign you a seat, I'm sorry." I repeatedly highlighted that I understood it wasn't her personal fault and that I wasn't angry but that I didn't feel I was provided a solution to the problem or someone taking ownership. Well, she says "You can try asking for an emergency exit seat on the day at the airport." I roll me eyes at this point in time and tell her there are only four emergency exit seats on that aircarft and they'd be taken during peak season. I highlight to her again that I am 6ft7 with freakishly long legs and I really don't fit into an economy seat, I am happy to pay for the emergency exit seat which is available... I remained friendly throughout the call, not her fault. When I asked for this to be escalated to a manger I was put on hold and after ten minutes on hold I was told by the same staff member that the manager couldn't help.

See, I am trying to be constructive and said that in my business, I'd take ownership, escalate this issue to IT and worst case find a manual workaround/tactial solution until a strategic solution can be found for the system. Not in this case. I called VA and they apologised but didn't offer me any options or solution other than changing my flight dates (pointless).

I gave EY the boot half a year ago because I was really tired of AUH for transfers. It was just too much of a zoo.
Flying SQ as a VA FF is starting to get pointless as well. Everytime they see VA status on the boarding pass I feel like I'm that embarrassing cousin who came from the country with the ute that has a mud flap saying "Real blokes drive utes."
That leaves VA domestic which doesn't give me many miles or SCs since I don't do much domestic travel any more.

I fell in love with VA four years ago. I fell out of love with VA in the last year with the lack of redemption inventory and being shunned due to my VA status on SQ and EY. The fact that the whole alliance with SQ and EY isn't really an alliance and the product just isn't as uniform as OW is a problem. Time to go back to the divorcee and ask QF whether they'll take me back (sorry, just wanted to be dramatic, of course they'll take my money).

Edit: My colleague was kind enough to share a partial workaround with me. While the SQ website will not accept the PNR and tells you to bugger off, the android/iOS apps allow you to pull up your booking and at least select a seat, not emergency exit seats though. So I wonder why I managed to achieve more regarding this booking than the call centre staff at SQ.

shuuy

Why not do the 1.35 to 1 transfer for KrisMiles and do it all with SQ?

littlegreenman

Multiple reasons:
-SCs/eligible sectors on VA with a VA codeshare number baby!
-No Krisflyer account and can't be bothered to open one if VA allows me to redeem the same flight without the hassle (okay fair enough, I clearly didn't get the same end product)
-It'd turn out way more expensive in terms of miles. My sister in law checked inventory and it was 45,000 SQ miles per segment per person as compared to 37,500 velocity miles via VA. That doesn't even consider the 1.25 conversion loss. As I said I'm tight and don't want to spend close as twice as many miles for the same thing (fair enough, they're not the same if you have a booking you can't manage).
-I was naive about the workings of SQ tickets issued by VA I was under the impression that I'd be the same as a HA ticket issued by VA or a EY ticket issued by VA. I can manage those bookings without issues.

edy4eva

Very annoying experience and understand your frustration.
Getting the emergency exit seats can only be done by calling SQ. If the same futile response persists then ask to speak to a supervisor and indicate you're more than happy to conference in a VA agent to prove that VA can't do jack (enjoy the show!).

If they still can't solve it then ask SQ to escalate this to their IT/technical desk. I'm not aware that partner redemptions on SQ are blocked from selecting/purchasing seats.

shuuy

Fair. I also think that I only would use VA/SQ miles for J or F bookings, which I don't think you can ever do from VA.

Osmo

Buts its a reward seat. There are no SCs/sector recs on reward seats.

littlegreenman

Technically yes, fortunately VA messes up and still gives them at times (at least for HA and the odd EY codeshare redemptions). Don't ask me why, they just showed up in my account. Happend twice in 2015 (August and October) and more frequently before.

vbroucek

Message from VA lurker on FT here, "Oops, we are now auditing your account and will adjust accordingly...."

littlegreenman

Yeah, good luck with that. The only way to identify me is that I am the frustrated frequent flyer who complained on his redemption booking. I still have another 50k miles left in my account they can have them.

@edy4eva, thanks for trying to help. I appreciate it. I called SQ back yesterday and got a manager who was kind enough to look into it for me. He was lightning fast in sending me an email three hours later stating the following:

Dr Mr. Littlegreenman,

Thank you for your call earlier today.

I would like to inform you that you are unable to purchase exit row seats as you are not holding Singapore Airlines ticket stock.

Thank you for choosing Singapore Airlines.

Yours Sincerely...

I love the way they provide solutions. My cheeky response was:

Dear XXX,

Thank you for your quick response. I appreciate your fast response and the way you provide solutions, especially since you agreed in our telephone conversation earlier today that there is no reference on the SQ website to non-SQ ticket stock not being eligible for the purchase of emergency exit seats.

I would like to take this opportunity to thank you for your effort and for showing me that my states with your airline partner and my spend in 2015 of $38,523 on premium fares on your airline is not of much concern to your airline. As a result I have already started taking my business to Qantas where I booked a premium fare of $6,391 for early March from Brisbane to London and back.

Thank you for the great customer service,
Littlegreenman

Okay, I am probably being extremely sarcastic here and I can't be bothered any more but this is pretty poor customer service.

vbroucek

TBH, SQ does not give a dime if one Australian stops flying with them. And your experience with SQ is nothing compared to my so far unsuccessful claim for EC261/2004 compensation for 12+ hour delay due to technical issue.

RTWFF

I don't bother calling - I send an email. Works most times

ozjuice

Joining Krisflyer takes a few minutes and is FREE!
Use your VFF number for bookings via SQ.
You earn points and SC's even when booking direct with SQ and you get to choose your seat at the same time. Easier than going via VA.

thadocta

Please try and keep up by reading the OP's post.

The OP wants to use VA points to make the booking. The OP eventually is able to make the booking on SQ using VA points. That is when the problem arises.

How can joining Krisflyer help solve the problem of not being able to purchase an exit row seat when using VA points to purchase the ticket?

As I said, do at least TRY and address the issue posed.

Dave

serfty

It can't, however ozjuice provide a solution for future bookings.I believe ozjuice did indeed try to address the issue ... for the future.

thadocta

For paid bookings yes, but then I would never dream of using (as an example) the VA website to make a paid booking on SQ, I would always use the actual carriers website.

Since the query was about VA reward travel, using VA points, on an SQ flight, my comment stands, there is absolutely no way that being a Krisflyer member can help.

Dave