United Removing Singapore Airlines Online Award Bookings

Why the hell do we have alliances anymore? Now i did have a geat experience on the phone tonight with UA booking partner space on TG, but jeez.

If they remove from LM, I will not be happy!

before the safety video Jeff was telling us UA is proud to be part of the worlds largest network. Well, it is, unless you want to use it. I wish he would stop talking things we like - usually, it ends very soon after the videos are produced. He's a jinx.

Oh well. Singapore's loss? Turkish's gain?

Have been looking at Maldives and was toying with which way to go. Guess my decision has been made for me.

I suspect this is what SQ is thinking: United members are ripping all the easy benefits through credit card bonus, lower redemption rate at the expense of my members, I need to put this to an end, full stop.

Two thoughts:
1) Perhaps post merger United Intl First and Biz class is not equal or similar in the eyes of SQ anymore (CO cheapened the UA product).

2) What happened to crediting/rewarding frequent FLIERS…not frequent card spenders? Too much "other" misc etc.

A year and a half (or so) ago, there was, all of a sudden, a ton of SQ premium cabin award availability through UA (and, I think, other partners). It stayed that way for a few days before the door slammed shut. I wonder if this removal of SQ award inventory from web booking has anything to do with that? Maybe SQ is somehow worried that this will happen again, and one way to prevent it from having a huge impact is by removing people's ability to see the award inventory online.

Doesn't make a lot of sense, but I wonder if that earlier event is somehow related to this.

perhaps has to do with the fact that all the others require you to log in to search for awards seats while UA does not and therefore the information is more freely accessible by the public?

United is working hard to be the EasyJet of legacy carriers. I flew business this summer on Brussels Airways to Berlin and back to JFK - United tool FOREVER to credit miles to my account for this flight initially saying that it didn't qualify and blaming it on Brussels. I finally got the miles, my husband just flew the exact same route, only a more expensive ticket and United refuses to give him miles saying it was booked in P class? The Boarding passes say C and Y WTF? I've written Brussels, but really why fly United if they just make up shit as they go and then don't give miles you actually earned? $3800 for a C class ticket that doesn't earn miles? Really has anyone ever heard such a thing?

Personally, I think it's because a lot of people complained that SQ award space is never available on their flights from the US-Asia in their premium cabins.

Most likely it's more cost cutting from UA. Do all alliance partners pay each other the same amount for every award or do they charge different amounts? My guess is that UA decided it was costing them too much money to pay SQ. Since everyone avoids UA metal when they can they are probably trying to drive more traffic to their own a/c. Except of course they are removing a bunch of Asia destinations...

Glad I managed to book an SQ C leg for next autumn the other day.

Is there ever any good news anymore? Geez it just keeps coming.

Don't understand this logic. The phone fee is peanuts for the type of service desired, so the consumer will pay for it regardless.

Does UA think that people who book these awards are the dumbest of them all? If they wanted, they would block all SQ premium flights, so this is more like penny-pinching a few extra fees...

Hmm those three airline CEO members must be laughing at their accomplishments this year.

Maybe this is revenge for last year's open access to SQ F/J awards? 🙂

In UA's defense, Singapore Airlines has never allowed you to book partner airlines on their website. It's always been annoying to me because I like to use Membership Rewards points through SQ to book domestic travel since they charge fewer miles for Y and J redemptions.

Of course they have substantial costs doing things over the phone. Their systems are so antiquated and staff so inept (and not English fluent) that it takes 25 minutes to do what AA agents can do in 10. Even booking BA avios award trips via phone can be done faster and easier!

Actually I think this is kind of great. UA has a massive membership. Hiding SQ availability from UA members (except those in the know) means that there will be more availability for others.

I'd love for no partner availability to be shown to UA members. The majority of the general public would just assume it is not available.

I've seen SQ availability almost disappearing in the last few days on LifeMiles as well...

Another change we are sure to like. United is positiioning itself to become a 2nd class airline rather than even giving the appearance of competing with the major international carriers like CX, SQ, LH, VS, and BA. The cost cutting method as a means to increase profits is merely a short term strategy that will come at the long term expense of losing high value flyers and the loyalty of elites. If you are a paying customer on an international Business or First class flight, would you choose Lufthansa or Singapore, or would you choose United?

given all the bad things going on at United this is definitely their doing, not Singapore... United airlines is going to s**t.

Well said in LGA now taking my last United flight ever - the EasyJet of legacy carriers

I wouldn't think SQ could unilaterally raise their redemption rates to Star partners -- I'm pretty sure those rates are agreed within the alliance framework, or everyone would be raising them all the time without limit.

Perhaps it is some combination of United's old Starnet blocking instinct re-surfacing, and SQ just disliking United in general.

I bet there will be increased SQ premium award availability between now and Feb 1 and UA doesn't want to pay.

There are more changes on the way including a revenue based system next year. This is from a high up United employee I met chilling in a hot tub 2 weeks ago. Also something to do with foursquare or something.

It's also getting harder to get a SQ seat on Lifemiles. What's going on?

It's worse than we initially thought.... 🙁
http://shrewdtravel.com/singapore-airlines-kills-partner-long-hauls/
They're killing advance partner awards to Australia

Now I'm wondering if SQ is planning on exiting Star.

I sent out a tweet to SQ to see if I could fish anything about it. United will never tell you why they did something...but I am guessing this is a move by SQ.

Because United wants to do everything they can to discourage people from booking partner awards, and SQ must be more costly than others. And because they suck. More and more every day. Only time I will collect their miles any more is when they are free. And only time I will fly them any more is when I have no other viable option- and I will credit the miles to another program.

From my friend in the UA executive offices, the word is that SQ increased its internal cost for mileage tickets on its metal, and UA simply didn't want to cover the internal cost increase--as you suspected.

For everyone saying that UA is going to pot, I must laugh. People like us who accumulate and burn miles for great mileage tickets around the world do not make money for any airline. No country has more consumers earning miles and points quite like the USA, and that creates far more miles inventory in the USA market--which is one reason so many airlines/hotels have devalued their award charts. It's an arms race--we consumers find new ways to earn more mileage bonuses, and the airlines devalue a bit, and so on, and so on. Nothing really has changed that much relatively speaking.

UA's longhaul biz and first options are pretty darn good for getting us where we want to go in reasonable comfort. We've flown biz on many great foreign carriers, and I'd still say UA biz longhaul seat comfort is darn close to as good as almost any, and UA GlobalFirst is better than ANY biz class on ANY airline. For the crazy ones among mileage hoarders/runners who simply like to fly in premium class just to enjoy the flights, you are the exception--and airlines do not care about you as much as those who travel for business/pleasure and/or who pay for tickets. SQ didn't offer premium award tickets to other Star flyers anyway, so for us this isn't a huge change--we don't want to fly longhaul in economy if at all possible.

Everyone is whining about the changes, but to be honest I don't see a huge impact. Today, with all the various credit cards and exchanges possible, I can use miles/points to fly on just about any airline through every alliance out there--in first/biz even. The alliances are still quite useful, even if they don't solve all of our challenges, but they never solved all of our challenges before either. We have more options than ever before to go more places than ever before in more premium cabins than ever before. I'm not quite sure what everyone is whining about.

This is not surprising but rather disappointing and I'm pretty sure it's UA pushing for the change. I don't know if y'all recall but a couple of months back I commented that UA stopped showing any availability for the two SQ flights to Europe (JFK-FRA and IAH-DME). I actually was only looking for IAH-DME but when I called UA, their agents told me they don't show any SQ flights on US-Europe routes. Pretty sure UA didn't want any competition from SQ because who in their right mind would choose UA over SQ if given an option?

@Bill - thanks for the intel there. It seems that cost really was about the only sensible explanation.

It will be interesting to see if the effective price hike holds long-term, or if enough *A partners resist and SQ still can't "sell" all its unused seats to its own members, perhaps we will see a reversal.

I agree it's not the end of the world, and perhaps out of all this, there may be greater rewards for those that do a little more digging.

I will agree that UA F is a good hard product. But the service is almost uniformly terrible. I'm glad you think that UA F is better than other airlines' C. It should be. When it comes to UA C I am not a fan of the 2-4-2 777 product.

SQ certainly does release some premium award space to UA. I just booked a flight the other day that includes a leg in SQ C.

Today I called to book a perfectly legal routing involving a leg on Singapore AIrlines (economy), and the flight wouldn't price out either at the computer or the rate desk (they told me the problem was with the Singapore leg), even though it showed them it had award space. I took that Singapore flight out of the itinerary and it priced out perfectly fine. I think UA is blocking the ability to book flights on Singapore at all!

@ Leslie -- what was the leg on SQ?

does anyone know if availability in C class is really gone or is it not showing anymore on line? In ANA tool and Lifemiles, indeed since mid december I see no availability in C class either. Has anyone checked in the paid KVS tool ? Did any of you manage to get a confirmed booking by phone in SQ C class long haul ?

Funny - Flew on SQ Biz class from Sin to MLE (Who doesn't want to go to the Maldives?) in early 2013. Plane was 3/4 empty. Yet, I had to move heaven and earth to get those tickets. These airlines are so stupid (hear me Smisek?) - they haven't a clue how to sell or market any of their products.

I just called United to check on availability for Singapore award travel and the agent said that they were not booking award travel on Singapore Air until further notice...

@ XGC - is this for a travel on one of SQ's flights to/from the US or a different route? Based on my experience, UA stopped booking awards on SQ's flights to/from Europe last year even in economy class but if they stopped issuing awards for _all_ SQ flights, it's very strange.

@ Ivan Y - The route I inquired about was NYC - FRA but UA agent said they were unable to check availability due to technical difficulties. When further inquiring if these techical issues would be solved in an hour or a day, etc., she mentioned they've had them for a month now and had stopped booking SQ award tickets until futher notice. I was looking for availability in F but there was ot even time to give that information to agent so I'm assuming is for all classes.

@ XGC - SQ F can only be booked with their own miles (KrisFlyer) as they don't release F award space to partners for flights to/from the US (and no J for the most part except LifeMiles, I think); easiest way to get KF is to transfer from Amex's Membership Rewards (1-2 days, I think) or from SPG (7-14 days). Don't forget that you need 15% less miles if booking online with SQ 🙂

Now, you used to be able to at least book economy SQ tickets on United. However, when I couldn't find any availability back around September 2013, I called UA and they flat out told me they no longer issue SQ awards to Europe (IAH-DME and JFK-FRA). Based on your experience, it still seems to be the case.

Anyway, sorry if I gave you bad news 🙁 Good luck with your search - SQ F is great!

Update - per WA, looks like any SQ flight number that touches in US (even those legs outside USA) can't be booked - http://t.co/71UeCz4Sqd

@ Ivan Y - Thanks for the info! I was able to instead get Lufthansa on F (using United miles) so I won't cry... 🙂