Singapore Airlines’ KrisFlyer program is the best program for booking Singapore Airlines first & business class awards, given that the airline doesn’t release premium cabin long haul award space to most partner frequent flyer programs (though Air Canada Aeroplan has access to some business class space). Fortunately KrisFlyer miles are easy to come by, as the program partners with all major transferable points currencies.
The KrisFlyer program has a unique waitlisting feature, whereby you can waitlist an award ticket if there’s not currently award availability. In this post, I’d like to take a closer look at how that works.
In this post:
In the past there was sometimes value to manually following up on waitlist requests (especially if you had PPS Club status), but it’s my understanding that there’s no longer any sort of manual intervention for waitlists, so that serves no purpose.
Until 2019, Singapore Airlines waitlisted awards could clear all the way up until the day of departure. At the time they cleared pretty regularly, since the airline was often willing to release unsold seats to award passengers. However, with waitlists now clearing or being canceled two weeks before departure, people aren’t having the same luck (after all, lots of seats are sold within two weeks of departure).
By all means waitlist yourself on several flights, but don’t count on the waitlist clearing. Think of it more in the sense that if the airline were to release more award seats on a flight, you’d have first dibs for those seats. Singapore Airlines isn’t especially generous with last minute award availability, so make of those odds what you will.
In general I’d say your odds are best in economy, premium economy, and business class, given the number of seats. Nowadays it’s extremely rare for waitlists to clear for Suites and first class. Why?
- Singapore Airlines’ Boeing 777s have just four first class seats
- Singapore Airlines’ Airbus A380s have just six Suites
More often than not I find that these cabins just naturally sell out, and a couple of weeks before departure you’ll have at most one or two unsold seats. The odds of the airline wanting to clear an award at that point are pretty low, especially since many premium cabin seats are booked within a couple of weeks of departure.
A great solo travel tip spotted this week on One Mile at a Time.
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