Back in January this year Singapore Airlines “revised” (by which they meant “devalued”) the KrisFlyer program, increasing the number of miles needed to fly in Premium Economy, Business Class and First Class not only on the SIA network, but a couple of months later also on Star Alliance and partner airlines.
SIA always likes to give us a little carrot or two with every bit of bad news, and this time they decided to add the ability to upgrade directly from Economy Class to Business Class using miles on flights with a Premium Economy Cabin installed (previously this was not possible).
Additionally, award searching across a seven day period was to be added, which rolled out in late January 2019.
Waitlist changes
Another change the airline announced surrounded some modifications to the current waitlist process, which the airline called ‘Certainty for waitlisted redemptions’.
- You would be be informed on the outcome of your waitlisted redemptions at least 14 days prior to your departure date.
- If your waitlist was unsuccessful that would mean it would be cancelled at this time.
- You would no longer be able to waitlist within 14 days of departure, with the exception of waitlists for redemption upgrades, which would continue to be available up to departure time.
At the time no one could really decide whether this “enhancement” was a good thing or a bad one.
The airline said the changes would come into effect “in the second quarter of 2019”. Well the second quarter came and went with no announcement, so here we are in Q3 and today the airline has outlined some of the changes, which take effect in August 2019.
Perhaps they meant the second financial quarter of 2019 (SIA’s financial year runs from April to March), but the email was to KrisFlyer members (not investors), most of whom would not know this. Strange if that’s the case.
The new waitlist process
Today the airline shared a few new details of the revised waitlist process, which will take effect for flights departing from 14th August 2019 onwards.
- For flights departing from 14th August 2019, waitlisting will only be available up to three weeks prior to departure. For example if you wish to waitlist on a flight departing 14th August 2019, you will have to join the waitlist by 24th July 2019 at the latest.
- All successful waitlists will be confirmed and unsuccessful ones cancelled two weeks prior to your waitlisted flight. In the above example for a 14th August 2019 flight, that would be on 31st July 2019.
- Redemption upgrade waitlists will continue to be available to book and be held in the system right up to departure date, as previously announced.
There’s not much here we didn’t know already, except the addition of the new waitlist ‘registration deadline’ three weeks before your flight, and of course the implementation date itself.