Singapore Now Refusing to Re-Deposit Award Miles
 

To preface, I booked a trip on 12/26/17 to MLE and moved the travel dates at some point for March 2019 departure. My wife and I decided to not make the trip, so I called in Feb 2019 to cancel the award ticket and re-deposit miles. I was informed I would receive all miles back except for 85k, due to those being past their expiration date and charged a fee of $150. This fee was processed by Singapore and hit my CC immediately. Nearly 2 months later and still no miles have been re-deposited, so I called into SQ and they are now informing me that since I called in to cancel greater than 365 days after ticket issue that the re-deposit request is not valid.

At this point I am out the original taxes and miles plus the additional $150 re-deposit fee I was charged. I am just dumbfounded as to why the original agent said he could process the cancellation if it is not allowed and even gave me exact miles I would receive back as well as the taxes. If we had known I would get nothing back, it is likely we would have taken the trip instead of losing everything. Are there any SQ reps on this board or any contacts who may be able to help me out? So far the phone reps I have spoken to have not been very understanding nor do they seem to understand why I am so confused.

You will need to escalate this. You can try calling and getting a supervisor or so and see where this leads. If no head way I'd suggest to submit feedback via the website form and ask for a case to be opened.

SQ can't have it both ways. Either they give you back the 150USD redeposit fee if there was nothing to be redeposited or they honor what their agent advised and processed and give you back the non-expired miles as told to you.

For all the hassle they should throw in some service recovery, but that comes later. Overall this will be an uphill battle, but stay firm and push for your preferred option (miles i assume). YMMV.

Thanks, since posting, I have escalated via website contact form, social media team and also had another phone agent submit an appeal (since no supervisor was available). I will give it a couple days to shake out and push more as needed.

At this point, I would much rather have the balance of miles and taxes back rather than the $150 fee, since that is what I was originally promised. If I had known this was not an option at time of cancellation, we likely would have taken the already booked trip instead of planning to put the miles toward a future trip.

I can tell you that you are at the mercy of SQ.

I have repeated called out SQ's CEO stupid for a reason. Guess what he has done so that I am allowed to call him stupid.

The pride of the Republic...oh well...

A $150 refund is more realistic and easier to achieve.

The problem is even your miles are not forfeited due to ticket expiration, your miles will be still subject to the expiration policy.

You may have lost the miles either way.

I would have asked them to review the telephone call recording when you cancelled the tickets. However, I would not have asked for the miles back, but instead asked for a goodwill gesture of the equivalent amount of miles (there is a subtle difference, asking for miles to be put back is likely to meet the cannot response, as the system won't allow it, but the second, they might consider).

I received an e-mail overnight from SQ stating that as a courtesy I would be receiving a refund of the original taxes paid and balance of miles as stated in my original cancellation call. I assume those will be subject to the original expiration date, which I feel should be extended ~2 months due the misunderstanding and wait I've gone through waiting for them to be re-deposited. Once they actually hit my account, I'll push for some kind of concession to that effect, although I feel I'll get nowhere with my request.

I don't understand how in the first place you someone could have booked Dec 2017 and then rescheduled it to Mar 2019? That is more than 12 months and I thought tickets were not valid for more than 12 months?

Simple, SQ award tickets on SQ are valid for 12 months from date of first travel not for 12 months from date of ticket issue. So booking in Dec 2017 for travel in Nov 2018 would allow you to rebook same sector up to Nov 2019.

Miles were back in my account last night...

All of them originally promised to me. Expiration dates match to 3 years after original earn dates

That's a pretty optimal outcome. You dodged trouble there.

You really lucked out! Congrats!

that's great! Congrats!