Air Travel Booking SIA flight was frustrating
My wife and I have been travelling on Singapore Airlines (SIA) for more than 40 years. We are often proud to talk about SIA and the many accolades it has won, and how it is appropriate that resources should go towards nursing SIA back to financial health.

Yet for all our loyalty to SIA, our recent booking experience for a flight to Sydney has been frustrating and disappointing.

We started making our bookings in January and February, and the staff were patient and courteous.

We were quoted $2,908 for a business class ticket from Singapore to Sydney.

We understand that this was at a time when travel bookings were minimal and SIA was trying to sell as many tickets as the pandemic situation allowed.

Requests to redeem a seat using KrisFlyer miles were met with replies such as "no more seats available for redemption". This is also understandable as SIA could be trying to get cash for tickets.

But by the time we tried to confirm the flights this month, we were told that the price had now shot up to between $4,600 and $4,750. This was despite SIA having e-mailed us a "confirmed" travel itinerary.

Several long phone calls did not result in any helpful responses.

I was simply told that SIA would investigate and it would take up to two weeks to reply on whether the fare quoted previously could be used.

The frustration mounted when my flight, which was confirmed on March 16 for a May 16 flight, had its initial April 6 deadline for ticketing changed to yesterday - a mere three days from when SIA e-mailed me to confirm the booking.

I sincerely hope that SIA, in its attempt to get back on its feet, will not use the pick-up in the economy and travel to take advantage of its customers, in the process tarnishing the good reputation it has taken many years to build.

Peter Ho

Source: https://www.straitstimes.com/opinion/forum/forum-booking-sia-flight-was-frustrating

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