futaris

On singaporeair.com:

http://www.singaporeair.com/saa/en_U...Redemption.jsp

And these two threads:

on sqtalk
on AFF

Kiwi Flyer

The 50% discount flights have dates such that can only go to and from SIN. Unable to do xxx-SIN-yyy

davem4

I booked Jan 31 :-O

BNE - SIN - NRT

NRT - SIN - BNE

Would have saved 150 dollars if i had waited (i had to transfer about 150 dollars worth of credit card points to be able to redeem)

futaris

That's not true. It's only valid on certain flights (in economy), eg:

01May09 SQ256 BNE-SIN 09:30-15:35
02May09 SQ342 SIN-ZRH 13:55-20:45

Miles Required 23750
Airport/Government Taxes AUD 72.11
Carrier Surcharges AUD 292.60

It worked yesterday and 5 minutes ago.

lokijuh

One watchout here ....

This is departure from the normal 15% discount, where cancellations, changes are allowed with fees. Does this now mean to have an award ticket that is changeable it needs to be phone booked without discount at all (or booked for travel after 30 Sep and moved)? Or am I misreading the conditions, and this clause only applies to the 50% discount awards?

tfung

I guess this also applies to upgrade awards?

SuperFlyBoy

They must be really desperate to fill their planes!

I just flew on one sector recently, where the complete aircraft (all classes) was not even 30% full! Maybe less.

demue

I'm not sure. I would say it depends on day of travel and route. For example, my colleague and I just headed from SIN to CDG on a Sat night (he on SQ & I via FRA on LH) and his SQ flight was packed to the last seat in Y at least. My LH flight was 95% in eco and again almost full to the last seat in Biz.

SuperFlyBoy

Chinese New Year?

UA's pricing was amazingly high, when I was trying to route from SIN (actually via for me) to the US!

(Btw, loads on LH have improved substantially ex-BOM with their new biz offers, so flights were *pretty* packed recently!)

Kiwi_FF

Lets try a worked example:

AKL-LHR one way in Business Class as a Saver Award

Before the 50% discount

Zone Nine to Zone Twelve 75,000 less 15% equals 60,000 miles required

With the 50% discount

AKL- SIN Zone Nine to Zone One 45,000 less 50% equals 22,500 miles required

PLUS (must be two awards via SIN and only available on the old 777-200 with sloping seats!)

SIN-LHR Zone One to Zone Twelve 60,000 less 50% equals 30,000

So we are comparing 60,000 to 52,500.

So when I get spam email from SQ with a headline that is frankly economical with the truth does that makes me feel better towards the company and more likely to travel with them, or is it another slip down the slippery slope of madness that is the airline industry's idea of marketing!

To constantly set expectations that are unachievable and then nickle, dime and wheeze from there towards reality which they lack the integrity to be upfront about.

I have never seen an industry so thoroughly commoditise itself as the madness that has been airline marketing over the past 2 years and it dismays me that SQ is following the same path with such enthusiasm and little regard for its customers.

fone

Erm, 50% only applies to selected economy saver awards, it does not apply to business or first awards, those are only 25%.

lokijuh

Hate to be a pedant, but 75,000 less 15% actually equals 63,750 miles.

And as fone points out 50% discounts are only off selected Y saver awards, you only can get 25% of business savers . in this example 56,250. A bit of a saving. But you can get some better savings in Y, eg AKL-SIN-LHR 1 way for 23,750. Trouble is with the falling AUD & NZD the +++'s are going up up and away....

Even the 25% of the business award ain't too bad, especially if using credit card pts. I don't know what earn/burns on credit cards are like on that side of the ditch (or indeed if you have any CCs that tfr to KF), but in Australia this compares particularly favorably to the competition (namely QF) - where a oneway Y flight needs 64,000 pts.

fallinasleep

I was chatting with a friend from Singapore and told him about the 25% discount and he said that the online discount used to be 25% before it was cut to 15% a few years back. Is that correct?