SQ stingy with Star Alliance upgrade
Dec 5, 2012, 6:23 am
#1
Original Poster
Join Date: Sep 2012
Posts: 3
SQ stingy with Star Alliance upgrade
Hello, I recently flew roundtrip from Europe to Singapore on SQ. I booked the ticket through my local SQ office, and at the time of my booking, I told the agent that I intended to use miles from a Star Alliance partner to apply for an upgrade from economy to business class. The SQ agent said there was no guarantee that the application would be honored. I naively assumed that meant there would be the chance of an upgrade. As it turns out, there was never a chance for an upgrade. There were several empty business class seats at the time of booking and at the time of the departure. To add insult to injury, from what I believe was the result of weather related travel issues, there were only 35 passengers on my 777 return flight (not in business class, on the entire plane), yet still no upgrade approval. Glad I spent that extra time and money to apply for an upgrade.
Dec 5, 2012, 7:56 am
#3
FlyerTalk Evangelist
Join Date: Sep 1999
Location: New York, NY, USA
Posts: 12,481
Star Alliance upgrade is a good marketing hype. It is rarely worthwhile for any airlines.
Dec 5, 2012, 9:57 am
#4
Join Date: Feb 2010
Programs: FSPP, Impresario, Prive, Virtuoso
Posts: 697
This is where others are complaining:
http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/singa...-book-f-j.html
Unless of course you were flying one of the routes which allows saver award availability like CPH, but it is very well known that Singapore Airlines doesn't allow their Business and First Class seats redemption for their partners unless the partner is M+M
http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/singa...-book-f-j.html
Unless of course you were flying one of the routes which allows saver award availability like CPH, but it is very well known that Singapore Airlines doesn't allow their Business and First Class seats redemption for their partners unless the partner is M+M
Dec 5, 2012, 8:50 pm
#7
Join Date: Feb 2012
Location: YYZ
Programs: AC
Posts: 368
Dec 5, 2012, 9:36 pm
#8
Join Date: Jan 2004
Location: Germany
Programs: LH FTL, EK Gold, AMEX Centurion, . HH Diamond, Ambassador Platinum,Sixt Diamond
Posts: 888
Well I agree nowadays they are back to their antics and there is never availability - recently I was flying again SIN-FRA ( on the B777-300ER) and was trying to upgrade from C to F - despite the fact that on the day of the flight there was not one passenger in First Class - there never has been an upgrade available... this is marketing. I have never seen in that respect such an arrogant airline like SQ...
on the other side - when this year they started also to allow saver awards on redemptions for upgrades etc... even for F-Class on the B777-300ER... at the beginning it was very easy to get upgrades for F-Class - I actually got twice on SIN-FRA once with MM upgrade vouchers, once with miles. At that time it turned out that on both flights the F-Class was both ways fully packed with 8 seats.
Maybe the association for Steward and Stewardesses has complained that now they have too much work....
on the other side - when this year they started also to allow saver awards on redemptions for upgrades etc... even for F-Class on the B777-300ER... at the beginning it was very easy to get upgrades for F-Class - I actually got twice on SIN-FRA once with MM upgrade vouchers, once with miles. At that time it turned out that on both flights the F-Class was both ways fully packed with 8 seats.
Maybe the association for Steward and Stewardesses has complained that now they have too much work....