Tofino87

Star alliance carriers such as Air Canada are allowing you to book Singapore Airlines awards on any route.

Meanwhile, the VS website states:

Important information regarding redemption bookings

Due to specific Civil Aviation Authority of Singapore’s (CAAS) requirements, there are still some restrictions around booking redemptions on Singapore Airlines. Unfortunately, not all routes are available at this time. Existing tickets will be handled in accordance with current border restrictions and CAAS transit approvals. Apologies for any inconvenience caused.

Redemptions on the following flights are now enabled:

Frankfurt – New York

Taipei – Los Angeles

Tokyo (Narita) – Los Angeles

Hong Kong – San Francisco

Rome – Copenhagen

Manchester – Houston

Please note: We do advise that you should always refer and adhere to prevailing border restrictions and government regulations on travel to the relevant countries.



I know long haul premium redemptions are NOT available in Business/First class - but what is going on here for shorthaul/medium hall flights, in general, throughout Asia???

danielonn

Singapore Air is Star Alliance and Virgin Atlantic is Skyteam .

Nottingham Nick

Virgin Atlantic is NOT a member of Skyteam.

Nick

craigthemif

Neither of which answers the OP´s question.

Although of course we cannot really answer the original question because VS awards on most partners have always been a black box.

UKtravelbear

VS can only offer rewards on partners that the partners make available to them.

There is also a difference between a partner that is part of your alliance and one that isn't

That would explain why AC can access SQ reeards (same alliance) but VS can't (just a partner)

Tofino87

Thanks for the replies. Sure I understand the difference between partners and alliance partners - but the wording in the VS statement is “Due to specific Civil Aviation Authority of Singapore’s (CAAS) requirements” certain routes are not available.

If this was the case, they wouldn’t be available to other alliance members either.

Sounds like BS from VS.

Jma12

Have you tried calling in to book? Sometimes the website is not* up to date.

RAPC

Indeed, that was the situation a while ago with that statement. Looks like the website is out of date, which is no surprise recently as there are quite a few out of date pages to be found.

CX HK

A number of East Asian routes (Hong Kong, Taipei, Tokyo) have been disrupted due to local Covid-regulations, e.g. in Hong Kong an airline is automatically banned for a period of time if the airline happens to carry more than X number of infected passengers into the city.

It's cumbersome, costly, and most of all impossible to predict or avoid, so SQ doesn't do round trips ex-HKG anymore until further notice.

heer84

Wondering if this is still the case? I am hoping to use my virgin points for some regional flights in Asia on Singapore Airlines. There is business class award availability on United Airlines, so hoping this now applies to VS

Tofino87

I’ve chased them multiple times about this. Most recently about 3 weeks ago.

I told them that there are no longer restrictions on which routes can be booked due to CAA regulations - I want X routing on X day, which is available.

Reps went away, came back said not available. I said it is - they went to speak to a manager for almost 10 mins and then said that basically Singapore were not letting them see availability - they’ve been blocked from it.

so they can only see 1 or 2 routes, long haul, in economy now.

Sounds like a load of BS to me. Any other way to force the issue?? It has proven inconvenient for me personally, as I was hoping to make use for intra-asia travel.

UKtravelbear

I’ll repeat what I said already - VS can only offer the availability that SQ shows to them.

That the flight you want is available via another SQ partner is neither nor there when it comes to VS.

you can call “BS” all you like but it’s not going to force VS to book something they can’t book.

heer84

I see the message is no longer listed on the Partners page for Singapore Airlines - hoping now we can start redeeming miles on Singapore Airlines