Originally Posted by are8
Hello all, I have just gotten off the phone trying to book a first class ticket from SFO-SIN in July. I tried a range of several days for both ways and there was nothing available. I asked the lady if there was a possibility of anything opening up in the future, or, if I would have a better chance booking in a few months. She said no, that once the inventory is gone, thats it. Is this true? I thought I have heard of several FT'ers being told for weeks that nothing is available, and then suddenly they get a spot, am I misunderstanding something?
P.S. Is there any other routing I could be looking at? I am actually doing the trip SFO-PNH (cambodia) then HCM-SFO (I am doing an open jaw trip) for the return, but want singapore for the SFO-SIN segments. Any other possible routing I could do?? Is SFO-LAX-SIN legal? I have not tried looking for LAX-SIN inventory yet. My dates are roughly July 14 with July 30.
I can't tell if you want to route through SIN because you want to visit there or if you are trying to snag transpacific flights on SQ because it is the most appealing Star Alliance carrier to you.
If it's the latter, you could try to route through HKG on SQ #1 (three class service, SFO-HKG). Or you could try to connect to SQ #19 (Raffles only) in LAX (LAX-SIN), killing two birds with one stone.
For all your Star Alliance routing options, try the
Star Alliance Timetable Quick Search. And be creative. There are many Star Alliance routes and carriers in Asia, including SQ, UA, NH, TG, OZ, and AC. You usually have a lot of flexibility in terms of routing when redeeming an international award so long as you don't backtrack. And on occasion, backtracking is even permitted (i.e. LAX-SYD-AKL-SYD-LAX to hit both New Zealand and Australia).
For what it's worth, I find redeeming a Star Alliance award to Asia to be a breeze compared to finding space to Australia. For example, I just was able to book SAT-DEN-SFO-HKG-SIN-NRT-LAX-SAT (including 12 hours in Hong Kong, 27 hours in Singapore, and three days in Tokyo) in business for 90,000 miles with the two transpacific and two Asian segments all on SQ only one day removed from the days that were my first choice.