warrenw

Okay thanks for the info. Do you know if they release the menu in advance?

bpk6h

On an upcoming booking 10A is blocked. Does anyone know if it is blocked on every SQ21/22 flight for crew rest or does it sometimes become available? It's the last extra legroom seat available and I put in a request for the seat.

rotatev2

It's blocked for the bassinet, IIRC. The seats should become available to you 24hrs before departure.

fast passenger

My wife thought I was nuts for flying home to New York from Shanghai via Singapore, but I really wanted to fly the longest flight in the world at least once—it was out of my price range when SQ was flying it with the A340. I flew PVG-SIN in Suites, and despite the comfort of that leg, I was feeling a little tired/off after a too-short 1 hour connection in SIN. So, I had some trepidation boarding SQ22.

My fears were unjustified. The A350 J seat is excellent (see my post in the "shockingly bad" thread) and the service on SQ is just that good.

They got the first meal started right away, and I got maybe 6 hours of sleep in before the second meal. I didn't think the timing was weird at all—it was the "correct" meal time for passengers on a SIN sleep schedule, and to me it felt like a natural time to eat. While the cabin lights were on during the service, they were not at full brightness, and plenty of people slept through it. The timing still left 6 or 7 hours of sleep time after the second meal for people who want to try and sleep again during the US Eastern time zone night. I got about 4 hours of sleep during that time. Call buttons were answered quickly, and the toilets were kept clean despite the fact there were only 4 of them for J passengers. I think my only complaint about the flight was the lack of a quick breakfast built into the schedule before landing. I requested and received some yogurt with fruit and granola plus coffee a little over an hour before landing, but if I had delayed that request much longer I think they may have declined.

kaffir76

Has anyone been able to redeem Biz Save awards for EWR recently (either direction)?
I've been trying for a while now & it's always showing Advantage availability, or Advantage Wait list - I've yet to see any Saver awards avail.
My friend said he got it once a couple months ago (1/2 year maybe) but nothing since then.
I have enough miles for a one way EWR - SIN (stopover) - BKK redemption but I don't know if it's worth spending 140,000 KF miles on that.
I've done the trip twice in revenue PEY & at 1/2 the cost in redemption (73,000 KF miles) .. I'm even considering buying a one way ticket on UA/NH EWR-NRT-SIN/BKK

warrenw

I had my positioning flight today to Sri Lanka, I fly SQ26 to JFK then SQ 21 to SIN on Thursday - the ticket is all the way through to CMB, but I don't have a ticket from CMB to somewhere else because... I plan to fly elsewhere from SIN.
Any advice on what I should do? Fake a ticket or just ask them to ticket me to SIN?

MisterBill

I have a somewhat on-topic question. I'm trying to decide between SQ21 (18 hour non-stop from EWR on A350) and SQ25 (21.5 hour with a stop but no change of aircraft on A380). I'm going to be booking premium economy and have never flown on such a long flight before. I'm thinking that the idea of having a 2 hour stop in the middle of the flight isn't such a bad thing (with no connection to worry about), and I have PP so I can go into the lounge for a bit in FRA. And 18 hours straight on a flight doesn't sound all that appealing, even in PE (perhaps in business it might be better). I think I like the idea of getting to SIN at 5:55pm instead of 6:50am, but as I said I am not a seasoned long flight traveler so maybe getting there early would be better. EWR and JFK are both about the same distance from me (EWR is cheaper toll-wise and usualy less traffic). The non-stop is around $25 cheaper, so not a deciding factor.

Any advice from seasoned travelers?

truncated

Have done SQ21 twice this year and SQ25 several times before that, all in PY/Y (and actually returning on SQ22 tonight) — so here's a few paragraphs laying out my thoughts on these options, and you can decide from there based on what's most important to you. I'm very bad at sleeping on flights and not really a fan of the IFE either so for me the 18 hours on SQ21 were pretty miserable. Also note that if you take the polar route in the summer you're chasing the sun for 18 hours, but after lunch the lights go off and basically stay off the whole flight (except for during dinner), which wasn't particularly pleasant either.

Also the meal service ex-EWR doesn't quite make sense — you get lunch after departure and dinner ~8 hours into the flight, with a very small cheese pizza before landing and that's it, plus the snacks usually run out halfway through the flight. Whereas on SQ25 you get dinner / continental breakfast on JFK-FRA and lunch / breakfast on FRA-SIN, which is plenty of food. That said the catering ex-EWR surprisingly good and considerably better than ex-JFK (and BTC ex-JFK is nothing much to write home about, plus you now can preselect meals from the inflight menu in PY as well, which helps you get your first choice — especially on SQ21 where they ran out of the Asian option by the time they got to the last few rows of Y for both meals).

IMO the stopover in FRA isn't too bad (since there's no need to go through security, and with *G there's both the AC MLL and LH SEN lounge which both have very decent breakfast spreads and good showers), and it helps break up the monotony of flying — but without lounge access am not sure if you'd enjoy wandering the terminal at 6am. The PP lounge in FRA T1 is also landside so I don't think you'll have time to go there and back.

As for the jetlag question — I don't really have much of an issue with the 6am arrival in SIN with SQ25 — what I usually do is stay up on the JFK-FRA redeye which gets me sufficiently tired to grab a few hours of sleep on FRA-SIN, then a quick nap upon arrival in SIN lets me get through the rest of the day fine. But I also live in SIN — if you're checking into a hotel it might be a different question. And that said I have no problems with the 5pm arrival from EWR either, just that after 18 hours on a plane I do feel like a zombie when I get off.

However the most important factor in my opinion is if you can snag one of the solo seats at the rear of the A350ULR — you get a massive side storage bin / console and no one next to you, plus aisle access and control over the windows, which probably beats any of the PY seats on the A380. That usually pushes me to SQ21 over 25 since it's probably the most comfortable way to get to SIN from NYC.

warrenw

I just took both, albeit in business, but I would say the one stop via FRA is better especially in PY because you get a break in FRA and you get a lot more food. Plus the meal timings are better as mentioned earlier. I kind of felt the nonstop didn't have enough food but the one stop was too much - but I'd rather have too much than too little!

orionmiz

The good thing about SQ21 is that it landed in SIN in the late afternoon, and you can check in to your hotel and rest right after that.

Hmm the refreshment wise, I remembered the last time I took SQ21 in PY in March, there are still quite a lot of leftovers even towards almost the end of the flight. Maybe because the PY section is half filled when I took it that time.

MisterBill

That is certainly a valid point and with the other flight I get in around 7am and either have to pay for a hotel room for the previous night or hope I get lucky and they have a room for me when I arrive (happened last year in AMS, not likely to happen again). On the other hand, the one-stop flight leaves at night, so sleeping might be more natural as opposed to leaving in the AM on the non-stop and then hoping I get tired enough to sleep at some point.

Getting to JFK for an 8pm flight is also easier than getting to EWR for a 9:30am flight, although its doable.

And like I said, I've never done a long flight like this so the whole major jet lag thing will be new to me.

MisterBill

Thanks for the info. Given that I'll be traveling with my wife, having a seat by myself isn't important to me (and she probably wouldn't appreciate sitting by herself).

MisterBill

So, I decided to book SQ25 from JFK. Disappointed to hear that I won't be able to get to the PP lounge in FRA but it still seemed like a better flight for us. The price was holding pretty steady at $776 for PE but I didn't want to chance it going up on me (plus my CSR bill had just closed so I get an extra month to pay plus I had a few more points to use when buying them).

washeelers747

Carfield

I am not sure if this is the right thread to post, since it is about the "other" ULR flghts to LA, but just want to share my experience.
I took SQ 36 on Sunday. The flight departs SIN at 8:30am and arrives LAX at 9:15am.
Reading from previous trip reports, I know that they are going to do the mid-flight meal, but for this flight, it was not mid-flight, but rather middle of night LA time.

Here is the menu:
https://www.flyertalk.com/forum/31276904-post2207.html

Basically they serve breakfast after takeoff, and then dinner is eight hours into the flight... in reality it is a bit worse than that.

Breakfast was pretty normal, but at 7 hours mark, I saw some activities and the F/A taking beverage orders at 3:30pm Singapore time. I thought they were starting dinner service. But in reality, they actually rolled down a snack cart with fruits, yogurt parfait, sandwiches and light snacks listed in the menu. They should have done that maybe two hours ago during lunch time in Singapore.

They switched on the light at 5:15pm SIN time/2:15am LA time. Satays were served half an hour later. The F/As were running around taking orders.
Then there was no action for another hour. They finally started serving dinner at 3:45am LA time/6:45pm.
By the time dinner was completed, it was 5am. Then about 90 minutes prior to landing, the F/As basically are coming around with the leftover snacks items like fruit, chocolates and all those perishable items. There are not many takers because many of them just had dinner a few hours ago. This whole approach makes ZERO sense.

If you are trying to get used to LA time, you are totally screwed.

SQ really needs to change this meal schedule and also, do you want to serve the most elaborate meal at that time? It makes more sense to start serving lunch two hours after takeoff and then breakfast prior to arrival. I think SQ wants to show the world that they are not being cheap or skimming on dinner, but you have to ask yourself two questions: First, do you really want to wake everyone up in the middle of the night? Second, you need to help passengers adjusting to local time too! With the elaborate dinner in the middle of the flight, the F/As are more stressed and the service was slow because there were so many things to take care of, especially they have two kinds of starters now.

Unlike the midnight flights, all these daytime flights should have their elaborate meals served first. For SQ 36, they should start with a beverage and satays/canapes/mixed nuts run first. And then they serve lunch two hours into the flight. That will give plenty of time for the F/As to take meal orders and to prepare the galley. They are also just starting their shift so they are more alert. Then for the rest of the flight, you just do the on demand snack service. Ideally, there will be a social area but SQ decides to cramp more seats. Maybe they should set up snack stations at the galley area. About two and half hour prior to landing, they can serve breakfast, which is more straightforward, with less things to fuss around.

The return menu SQ 35 is also interesting. I posted the menu at that trip report's menu thread too. They serve lunch first, and then they serve the most elaborate meal - dinner - 8 hours into the flight.

I honestly feel that SQ can do better and frankly, am very disappointed. Not trying to fly these ULH flights with SQ anytime soon.

Carfield