Sandeep1

Yeah absolute no brainer on miles being the superior outcome. Was honestly scratching my head as to what I would buy if forced to use the vouchers.

demue

SQ should really offer the option of a certain miles amount OR KrisShop vouchers. They will set the ratio and then people can make their decision. Especially for passengers not based in SIN it is not very practical to have stuff shipped across the world, assuming one can even find something palatable from the shop. I would pretty much always opt for the miles personally, unless the value ratio was utter rubbish (like 100$ voucher or 1,000 miles). YMMV.

benjinito

Hi SQ board, I had 23.5k miles that were due to expire on 4/27/22, and was extended by 6 months to 10/27/22. On 7/25/22, I used it towards an award redemption due to depart on 4/25/23. However, I need to reschedule this trip to January 2024. Could you please recommend the best course of action for me?

Option 1. Pay the $75 redeposit fee in the next few days, get my miles back. At the end of this month, when my 23.5k miles were originally due to expire, I'd get an automatic extension on those miles to April 2023 (Is this still true? Will it be done automatically or do i need to call in?). I can rebook for April 2024 between January - April 2023.
Option 2. Use my free pre-7/31/22 change and change the ticket to 7/25/23. If this resets the validity of the ticket (I'm not sure if it does), I can then rebook from 7/25/23 to January 2024 and only pay the $25 change fee.

Appreciate your advice! Thank you!

vsepr

since you issue the ticket on 7/25/22, the last travel date is 25/7/23. since you want to travel in January 2024, you have to cancel this ticket before 31/10/2022 before the miles expire, pay US$75 cancellation fee to refund the miles. The miles may not be refunded to your account before 31/10/2022 because it takes time to be refunded. if they are refunded in November 2022, the miles will be extended to May 2023. after the miles are extended, you can re-book January 2024 trip.

vsepr

I tried to cancel 2 award tickets with expiry miles on 30/9/22 and 31/10/22, travel dates in September 2023. The CSO tried to appeal for me to get the expired miles reinstated. After 2 weeks he call me and told me it was unsuccessful, meaning if I cancel the award tickets, the miles will be forfeited but I can get my taxes back after paying the cancellation fee. KrisFlyer will only reinstate the miles for 6 months for these 3 reasons:

1. self or family's medical reason, need to provide supporting documents and prove relationship
2. border closure by government
3. natural disaster or political crisis

So I decide to hold on to the tickets and wait till closure to travel dates to see if there is any of the 3 reasons.

jphripjah

I want to thank everyone in this thread particularly @demue and @hclee01 for inspiring me to set this injustice right.

As predicted, I got nowhere with the phone agents in my request to get my "expired" miles reinstated. They would just say "nothing I can do but someone will call you back" and then no one from Singapore Airlines would ever, ever call me.

I could have done the webchat next, but i thought of something more effective.

When I was a young corporate executive, I learned how effective it can be to resolve problems with large companies by writing a letter to the CEO. Or, in 2022, by emailing the CEO. Which is so much easer, because you don't need to find an envelope and a stamp.

I used to be dismissive of people who contact corporate CEOs over minor issues, thinking this is tacky, nutball behavior. But it really works.

High ranking corporate executives don't like being contacted directly with customer complaints. They read one of these emails and they forward it to one of their subordinate directors or managers and the say "handle this." And then that director or manager will consider it priority #1 to resolve the issue ASAP so the boss and other top executives don't get any more bothersome emails from this guest, which could then be blamed on that director or manager.

In my case, after waiting a month and hearing nothing from Singapore Airlines, I decided to email not the CEO, but someone who google told me is the Vice President of Krisflyer. Google also told me the email address format for the company.

So I sent this VP a polite email screenshotting the company's "No miles will expire in 2022" announcement and regaling him with a tragic and shocking tale of my 24,797 miles miles being deemed "expired" between the time I booked an award in May 2022 and canceled that award in July 2022, notwithstanding Singapore Airlines' "no miles will expire in 2022" promise (a promise a I quoted four times, in bold, in my otherwise brief missive).

Less than 36 hours later, at 2 a.m. here in Las Vegas, my phone rings. Caller ID says Singapore. Lady on phone says they have received my email and will be reinstating my miles.

Justice has been served and I am going back to bed.

demue

Nicely done and glad to hear that you persevered by reaching out to an SIA Exec (RP) though certainly this measure shouldn't be required and an escalation through customer service channels should suffice. Now I hope you find a good redemption for those reinstated miles.

jphripjah

I agree. It shouldn't have been necessary but Singapore Airlines has handled this poorly by promising that miles won't expire and then expiring some miles anyway, and then giving their front line customer service staff little to no authority to set things right.

I thought the reimbursement would appear on my statement as a generic "courtesy" award of points like when someone complains about a a poor flight experience.

Instead it appeared as "reinstate expired miles" suggesting that maybe they have a recognized code for this and are reinstating expired miles behind the scenes but only if you manage to complain to the right person:

https://i.imgur.com/yt4Sro7.png

What's also interesting is that these miles, which originally had a June 2002 expiration date, and were deemed expired after I booked an award in May and then canceled it in July, are now showing an expiration date of December 2022:

https://i.imgur.com/QRYB3bV.png

I guess under Singapore's COVID "no expiration in 2022" policy, these miles will soon be extended six months until June 2023.

bent

yes, guess their system works in a way that they will automatically extend those expiring in Dec22 by another 6 months to jun23. So you will have another 7 more months to decide how to utilise them!

sbs2716g

SQ have announced that they will extend miles expiring in Jan 23 to Jun 23 for another 6 months.

https://www.singaporeair.com/en_UK/s...7q4MZo2Hpcsoj0

Sandeep1

Thats incredible, I’m a bit shocked they’re extending again.

gnomey

what a pleasant surprise. I was expecting the worst. I assume automatic extension again.

bent

ya, as per their usual extensions i.e. after the month of expiry, it will then be credited back - reflected in the statement.

demue

A nice move, though a little earlier announcement may have saved some folks some anxiety .

bent

yea, there were already peopple griping how they were forced to use miles for less than ideal redemptions just cause they could not get award redemption for flights on the dates they wanted..

so even though it is pleasant news, there's still unhappy people.