spikey

Will be embarking on a round the world (RTW) trip in April to June 2022. Booked the trip in November 2021. Singapore-Frankfurt on SQ, Frankfurt-Paris on LH, Paris-London on LH, London-Orlando on Air Canada and Los Angeles-Singapore on SQ. Took me three hours and a service charge (can't remember - it was around US$100) sitting with the customer service officer in the SQ office in Singapore to work out the details. I had 360,000+ miles ready to try for a F RTW but I may have been mistaken but a wry smile crept across her face as I asked. I soon found out why....you basically had to be as lucky as striking the lottery mutliple times to be able to string F class awards across various cities across various airlines. Then I changed strategy and tried for Biz Saver:

Singapore-Frankfurt - on SQ, no problems booking this. Spare award seats available. Actually wanted to try for a connection to Berlin but that wasn't available.

Frankfurt-Paris - on LH. Also no problems booking this.

Paris-London on LH. This was funky. Depart CDG at 1035, arrive FRA, transit for a few hours, before arriving in Heathrow at 1640 hrs. Very limited Star Alliance options on the day to reach London.

London-Orlando on Air Canada. This was the leg that took the longest to work out. She told me that securing a United award from London to US was like striking the lottery. Fortunately, we managed to secure the last remaining seat on a Air Canada flight heading to Orlando, via Montreal. Never tried Air Canada before. Always a first time.

Orlando-Los Angeles. Failed. Spent considerable time trying to make this work but gave up - looks like a real challenge securing UA. But since I was already in continental US, I could just make my own way to arrangement to head to LAX for my connecting flight back to Singapore.

Los Angeles-Singapore on SQ. Didn't manage to secure a direct flight back to Singapore but given the challenges before, was happy to secure a flight back on SQ via Narita.

Looking forward to the trip and I hope that it's well worth the 240000 miles.

sol95

I'm surprised they charged you the service fee. When I made my RTW booking 3 years ago, there was no service charge as it could not be done online. I had a magnificent 4 month itinerary all set out, and was so excited for it. I was set to start my trip on March 26 2020...

I ended up cancelling my trip for a full refund once multiple legs were cancelled a few weeks out from the start date. At first, I was bitterly disappointed - at not being able to go and also the wasted hours prepping and organising the trip AND the hours on the phone cancelling multiple bookings. But in hindsight, I'm glad I didn't leave as I would have been stranded in some country unable to return home to Australia!

spikey

Just exteneded the total duration of the trip by another 6 days....in doing so, I found out that Air Canada had switched my Heathrow-Montreal-Orlando to Heathrow-Toronto-Orlando....including a layover of 14 hrs....sigh

sammyg901

It may not be the case now but in January there was plenty of United availability opening up nearer the time out of Heathrow and the Polaris seat is pretty nice. Getting a connection to Florida to match up may not be so easy but maybe you could work that out yourself

NeoOfTheCRS

Can anyone tell me if this RTW award routing is allowed? Even though, I am just using FRA as transit, is that considered back tracking?

NetJets Germany

you’re trying to go transpacific twice, in economy? Was that intended??

NeoOfTheCRS

Sorry. That was an extra (Plan B) segment. Only one transpacific segment and the itinerary above is updated accordingly

Since I last posted, I was able to get an SQ agent on the phone very quickly by calling the 24 hour reservations call center in Singapore. I think the US number is completely worthless.

The agent in Singapore took down my preferred itinerary and said someone would call me in 72 hours. It's the farthest I've gotten so far

NeoOfTheCRS

Updating. The 72 hour call back came! The SG 24 hour call center is amazing. Good agent, but the website says there is availability that she can't see.

Update: My RTW redemption hopes have been smashed as SQ.com shows a lot of availability that the agent says is not truly available. Very sad :-(

lerasp

did you try to get this ticketed any further? I'm contemplating booking a RTW on SQ but haven't started the process yet. For those who have booked, is it correct that date/itinerary changes after you fly first leg are not allowed? that seems counter to all other award rules (generalizing) as at least based on available, you can at a minimum change your dates.

spikey

Given that I've tried emails and sending in my itinerary multiple times, the only efficient way to book a SQ RTW is to head down to the customer service centre and speak to the agent face to face. I remember that it took me three hours to sort the entire RTW with the agent and I headed back a couple of times thereafter to try my luck on date changes and VTL flights back to Singapore (which are no longer needed).

LAXGUY

I see this thread hasn't had any recent activity but am hoping someone can verify what I was told by an agent today.
I know that you have to keep going east to west or west to east on a RTW award ticket. However I didn't realize--as I was told today--that the "no backtracking" rule applies to connecting flights. In other words, if I start my RTW by flying LAX to DPS (Bali) with a change of planes in Singapore--and without spending 24 hours there--I can't return to SIN because Bali is east of Singapore.
Seems a bit unfair given how many Singapore Air flights transit through SIN. If that indeed is the rule, I don't think it's clearly stated on the SQ website.
If your experience has been different, please comment.

NeoOfTheCRS

SQ rigidly enforces no backtracking in my experience.

lerasp

Does anyone know if the new rule that stopovers can be max 30 days also apply to rtw award?

sam_goh

I'll be honest with you - it's pretty much what the agent can do to push things through. I spent close to 60 hours on research and phone calls with SQ. So many different rules, departments, callbacks, some see inventory some don't, no consistency at all. Kept going in circle on the phone.

In the end what worked was sending my dad down to Ion center twice. Managed to book 4 J in a RTW. JFK -> FRA (SQ, stop) -> BUD (LH, stop) -> IST (LH stop) -> SIN (SQ stop) -> MEL (SQ open jaw). SYD -> SIN -> SFO (SQ). So it is possible to backtrack, you just can't stop in SIN the 2nd time as a layover. I had to stress that SYD -> SFO via SIN was not a stopover just the way it was routed.

spikey

Some reflections:
Tip #1 - never call or email to work out a RTW redemption
Tip #2 - head down to Ion and pray you get a customer service representative who is savvy enough