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Singapore Airlines Krisflyer “Waitlist” Experience
What’s the deal with being waitlisted for Singapore Airlines? Some say that the waitlist is a matter of hours, others that it never clears. Here’s my experience…
I hadn’t a single point in my Krisflyer account…SOOOO
I used both American Express Membership awards and Chase Ultimate Rewards to transfer into Singapore Air Krisflyer. I transferred both currencies on March 3rd for a flight on July 5th. It took 8 hours for the Amex MR to clear and 4 days for the Chase UR to clear. I booked a waitlist flight from JNB to SIN to NRT on March 8th.
Here’s the product I was hoping to secure:
Singapore had recently done an overhaul on the 777-200 and this plane was scheduled to fly the long route from JNB to SIN.
If for some reason you doubt this to be true you can double check this by looking at the seatmap when you select a ticket. However, when you are waitlisted for an award ticket you can’t look at the seatmap, so you need to be to a little creative: open a new window and go through the booking process as if you were buying a standard fare ticket: one of the final steps allows you to access the cabin and seatmap. Once you’ve seen the business cabin seatmap for the flight that you are waitlisting for, double check it against the seatguru seat map for the flight and airplane you will be booked on. They should match and show the cabin that you want and the seatmap that corresponds to the product you’re hoping to book. In this case, they matched.
But…..
– when I went to book the tickets…I was given a waitlist notice similar to the one below.
I went ahead and waitlisted. It’s 65,000 at the Saver level and it was worth a try. Less 15% booked online: 55,250 points.
Unfortunately it didn’t clear in the timeframe we needed. This was March 8th when I waitlisted myself. Now, my buddy Dave was also going to be traveling on the flight and I was only waitlisted for one person. By May 1st – a solid 7 weeks later – I still hadn’t cleared for the flight. By mid-April I had been looking at alternatives and found a great deal on Cathay Pacific: JNB-HKG-HND for less than $1500 in business. We made the collective decision to just buy the Cathay Biz ticket which had a $45 cancellation fee. The nice thing about the Cathay Ticket was it was on a 777-300ER and was using it’s newer business class. We felt it was a good hedge in case the Singapore Air flights ultimately cleared before we left on our trip around the world.
I received this email June 20th:
On the positive side, I cleared.
The negative, it was too late.
By that time we were already well into the trip. We’d left the U.A.E. and had arrived in Joburg. We were leaving the next day on the blue train with limited internet and would soon be traveling to Kruger and Vic Falls – also with limited internet resources. The iffiness on transfer times from Chase and Amex to Krisflyer combined with the uncertainty of his flight clearing in time, we opted to keep the great deal we had already purchased on Cathay Pacific. Which if you think about it: at $1500 vs 55250 Krisflyer points isn’t that crazy good of a deal on cost per point. I’d rather save those Singapore Krisflyer miles for a trip where I can’t purchase a ticket at such a great deal.
Let me know if you’ve had any experiences with being waitlisted on Singapore Air Krisflyer!
Opinions, reviews, analyses & recommendations are the author’s alone, and have not been reviewed, endorsed or approved by any of these entities.
Chase Sapphire Preferred® Card
Welcome Offer
Earn 60,000 bonus points after you spend $4,000 on purchases in the first 3 months from account opening.
Annual Fee
$95
Points Earned
Transferrable Chase Ultimate Rewards
- 5x on all travel purchased through Chase Travel℠
- 3x on dining, including eligible delivery services for takeout & dining out
- 3x on select streaming services
- 3x on online grocery purchases
- (excluding Target, Walmart and wholesale clubs)
- $50 Annual Chase Travel Hotel Credit via Chase Travel℠
- The begins immediately for new cardmembers and after your account anniversary for existing cardmembers
- 2x on all other travel
- 10% Anniversary Bonus
- Every year you keep the card, your total spend will yield a 10% points bonus. If you spend $10k in a year, you’ll get 1k bonus points
- Chase Sapphire Preferred continues to redeem at 1.25c in the Chase Travel℠ and the slew of other benefits remain in tact including Auto Rental Collision Damage Waiver ( primary ), purchase protections, etc.
- Points are transferrable to 14 Ultimate Rewards partners
- Redeem in Chase Travel℠ for 1.25 cents per point
- No foreign transaction fees
- Suite of Travel and Purchase Coverage
- Auto Rental Collision Damage Waiver is my favorite
- Get complimentary access to DashPass which unlocks $0 delivery fees and lower service fees for a minimum of one year when you activate by December 31, 2027.
- $95 Annual Fee
We keep an up to date spreadsheet that lists the best ever offers: You can find that spreadsheet here.
Historically 80k is a very, very good offer and hit in both 2022 and 2023. In 2021, we saw the offer hit an all time high of 100k. Who knows if that will ever come back.
Main Cast:
Cards that earn flexible points and should be used on the bulk of your purchases.
Supporting Cast:
Cards that earn fixed points in the currency of the airline/hotel and can not be transferred at attractive rates. These cards yield benefits that make it worth keeping, but not necessarily worth putting a lot of your everyday spend on.
The Chase Sapphire Preferred® is exceptional starter card and offers transferrable Ultimate Rewards, and pairs well with other Chase cards.
If you carry this card alongside Chase’s cashback cards like the Chase Freedom Flex® and Chase Freedom Unlimited® or the business versions: Ink Business Cash® , Ink Business Unlimited® you can combine the points into Preferred account and transfer into hotel and airline partners
Annual fee is quite low at $95 a year + you get a 10% anniversary bonus on points + $50 hotel credit in Chase travel.
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