Having experienced this in recent months, thought I’d share so others don’t repeat my mistake.

When redeeming KF on partner airlines (be it *A or others) and multiple persons are travelling together, do book each person individually on separate PNRs.

I made the mistake of redeeming for multiple persons on one PNR some months back. But one person now is unable to travel and I wanted to separate that person from the booking thus cancel that person’s ticket. I was told that while this would’ve been possible for a redeemed SQ flight, KF is unable to do so for a partner airline flight! The only way is for the entire PNR to be cancelled - yes, affecting all passengers! - then rebook the remaining passengers on another PNR, but always subject to the partner airline’s availability of redeemable seats. KF wouldn’t be able to determine if any cancelled partner airline flights go back to the redeemable inventory to be immediately rebooked. So it’s a huge risk if you cancel the PNR for everyone just because one passenger is unable to travel, and then the other passengers could be left stranded because they end up losing their confirmed redemption tickets!

Upon further pressure, SQ got back to me with a workaround, albeit inelegant one. I was told the remaining passengers should proceed to travel, and after the travel date then call to cancel the redemption for that one passenger who could not travel. As concession SQ granted exception approval to waive the cancellation and no show fees. But they assured that the KF paid for that untravelled ticket will return to my account.

Indeed. And I don’t think this is an issue that most KF agents (both India and Singapore) even know. I had made several calls each time speaking to different agent - and some actually were totally unaware until I told them. My partner airline redemption was booked by phone some months back, and the agent who helped me back then just went through the “standard” booking routine of asking how many passengers in what class, and booking them under one PNR. Or maybe they do, but just don’t bother because it’s obviously more work to book each person on individual PNRs.

I told them that they should clearly advise members of the implications, or otherwise automatically split into separate PNRs as standard modus operandi for partner flight redemptions.