Singapore Airlines KrisFlyer is now a Chase Ultimate Rewards transfer partner and with that comes the possibility of reasonably priced awards in premium cabins on SQ flights. Singapore has three award pricing tiers on their own metal and often your desired flight will not be available at the saver level. With SQ’s waitlisting feature, you still stand a chance at getting a seat on your desired flight for the cheapest mileage rate.
Q: How do I waitlist for an award on Singapore Airlines’ website?
A: You must have a Singapore Airlines KrisFlyer account in order to search for award space online. Singapore’s airfare search tool centralizes both revenue and award searches. When searching for awards, be sure to check off “redeem award flight(s)” rather than “pay with KrisFlyer miles” (which is a revenue-based redemption scheme that is rarely worthwhile).
Click “search and book” and you will see current availability at the three tiers. You can click the redemption level you wish to waitlist at if your desired level is not available. Below, saver and standard are not available, but you can waitlist for either level. Naturally, the standard award has a better shot of clearing than a saver award.
You can proceed to the purchase page without choosing any further option or you can also choose the lowest confirmed option available, here a full award, and still waitlist for the saver option. Since a full award is last-seat or near last-seat availability, there is no need to confirm space in advance if you are trying to secure a cheaper award.
Click continue and your award will be waitlisted. No credit card info is needed and the reservation will show up in your reservations area of your KrisFlyer account and be e-mailed to you.
Q: When will I clear off the waitlist?
A: It depends. It may be the next day, it may be several weeks later, the day before the trip, or never. I am 2/2 in waitlist clearings (both JFK-FRA, Suites Class), but that is a small sample size.
Q: How will I know that I cleared the waitlist?
A: Singapore will send out an e-mail notifying you that your waitlist has cleared. You will have roughly 30 hours upon receipt of e-mail to confirm the reservation or it will be cancelled.
We are pleased to inform you that the following flight on which you were previously waitlisted is available for confirmation:
Flight No. SQ25
From JFK (JFK – JFK)
To FRA (FRA – Rhein Main)
Departing Date 07 Jul 2014
Departing Time 20:55 hoursWe would appreciate if you could log onto www.krisflyer.com to confirm your booking. Please note that your booking will be cancelled if no confirmation is received by 16:00 hours (GMT+8) 29 Mar 2014. If you have other waitlisted flights in your booking or require assistance, do contact your local Singapore Airlines office.
Thank you for choosing Singapore Airlines.
Yours sincerely
Singapore Airlines
Q: Must the miles be in the account before waitlisting?
A: Yes.
Q: What are my chances of clearing the waitlist?
A: As I noted above, I am 2/2, but from what I have read and heard from others, the majority of people eventually clear, even it is not until the very end.
Q: How can I maximize my chances of clearing?
A: Choose flights that are more lightly booked. You can use Expert Flyer or even call Singapore to check fare buckets and loads. Seat maps are not necessarily a reliable indicator, but certainly an empty seat map is more conducive to your upgrade clearing than a seat map with no empty seats.
Matthew,
This helps a lot. I’m trying to book two business class tickets on SQ for my parents to attend my graduation in Spring 2015. I was wondering how long the waitlist will clear as I do not have miles in my KrisFlyer account and needed to know how SQ handles waitlists before transferring miles in.
Other than using KrisFlyer miles, have you the latest information on how to go about using UA miles or any other miles without a fuel surcharge to book these two SQ tickets for Singapore-North America.
Many thanks.
thanks very helpful information. sometimes it’s a bit of jungle in their own site regarding these thing. very grateful.
To add another data point, I had a flight on waitlist (2 suites), was not notified that waitlist had cleared, but later found the space on the website. So it is important to check space, even if you are on the waitlist.
I made a redemption booking for a business class seat with SQ 3 weeks prior to the flight day. The only option available was a saver seat instead of standard, but I didn’t need a stopover anyway. Didn’t hear a word from them and decided to call them 2 days before the flight to inquire. Got a shock when the call center personnel told me the company will notify me up to 3 hours before the flight – and he added that the airline is prepared to fly with empty seats reserved for commercial bookings rather than release them for redemption.