huge discrepancy between online availability and availability seen by agents?!?
 

I book awards almost on a daily basis and think this year's award for "most obnoxious" award booking experience goes to SQ.

I had pieced together a multi-city, multi-cabin award based on availability shown on the SQ website. Nothing overly complex, SQ metal only.

I spent an amazing four hours on the phone today talking to six different agents, and one was worse than the other.

"There's no availability."
"The availability shown on the website is not accurate."
"The availability shown on the website hasn't been updated."
"You must be looking at availability for paid tickets." (No, I'm not an idiot)

According to the website there are eight flights both with saver and standard award availability, and yet the agents insisted that there was no availability and all they could do is put me on the waitlist.

I was slightly luckier for the longhaul flight. After getting the same story, I asked the agent to please check with their supervisor and suddenly the story changed to "we can confirm the F award seat".

Is this just a matter of incompetent agents or does the SQ website really display such a huge amount of award availability that's actually not bookable?

Were you searching individual legs, or searching for the full trip with stopover?

​​​​​​(Probably former, with mixed cabin)

Could be an issue with married segments

This is almost certainly a married segment issue. What routing are you looking to do?

Thanks for the responses!

Shouldn't be a married segments issue since these were all standalone segments (with a >24h stopover inbetween) and the one F -> J connection is showing availability online for a J -> J connection as well as a standalone booking.

So unless SQ has implemented some "we'll only sell this segment as a standalone award or as part of an int'l J award, but not as part of an int'l F award" nonsense, married segments doesn't seem like the explanation.

Well, since all the agents were unable to confirm the seats I was seeing as available online, I ended up waitlisting those segments, and interestingly enough, SQ sent out an e-mail about 6h later that all waitlisted segments (incl. 2x F US-HKG) had cleared.

So not sure whether it was a systems issue or just a bunch of incompetent agents, but either way, can't say I'm particularly impressed, although I'm happy everything is no confirmed.

Both. You'll get used to it eventually if you're planning on using SQ on a long-term basis.

what is your status level? That fast of a clear bodes well.

No status. I requested to be put on the waitlist for the flights that showed available online, but supposedly weren't available acording to the agents. My suspicion is that these flights were available all along, which is why they all cleared within a few hours, but I obviously can't tell for sure.