SQ started making partner award space available for online redemption via Krisflyer on December 7, but the roll out was a mess and only two airlines, Lufthansa and Air NZ, were available on the day of launch.
I reached out to SQ on launch day and was told that:
Weโd like to share that online redemption for Star Alliance carriers are being progressively rolled out. Please contact KrisFlyer Membership Services if your preferred Star Alliance airline does not appear in your search results. In such instances, service fees for Star Alliance redemptions done offline will be waived. Thank you.
Well, Matthew and I have been playing around with the booking engine in the days since and am pleased to report that weโve found more partner airline awards now available for booking. Hereโs what we found:
EVA Air
EVA is great at releasing award space to partner airlines, and you can finally find their seats on Krisflyerโs online booking engine. Hereโs a sample routing to YVR via TPE in business class.
EVA has a very excellent full flat business class product that it operates on routes to Singapore, and should be your choice over SQโs awful A330s.
Air Canada and Air China
This is a business class booking I found, also to YVR, combining Air Chinaโs A330 and Air Canadaโs 77W.
Donโt be so quick to pooh pooh Air China, they might not be an aspirational airline but theyโll at least give you a full flat seat on their A330s. Check out The Shutterwhaleโs review here.
Air Canada has an excellent reverse herringbone business class product on their 77Ws and Iโm looking forward to giving this a try in 2018.
Turkish Airlines
Turkish Airline business class space was found between IST and JFK.
Iโve reviewed TKโs business class before and itโs one of the more interesting experiences youโll get in the sky. Electronic candlelight dining in a darkened cabin with a personal chef? Yes please.
SAS
Intra-Europe business class might not be a dream redemption, but hopefully the fact that we could find this means thereโs long haul space to be found too.
No point showing you photos of intra-Europe business class, but hereโs SASโs gorgeous long haul business class on the A330. I really, really need to figure out how to try this.
Aegean
Again, not what youโd call a must-fly, but itโs good to know that Aegean space is appearing for online redemptions too.
Airlines we couldnโt find
We didnโt find any award space on the following carriers, but it doesnโt mean itโs not out there. If you find any give a holler on the comments below
- Air India (heh)
- South African Airways
- Swiss (but they hardly release award space to anyone)
- United
- ANA
- LOT Polish Airlines
- Asiana
- Brussels Airlines
- Thai Airways (surprising)
- Shenzhen Airlines
- TAP Portugal
- Croatian
- Avianca
- Austrian
- Juneyao
- Ethiopian (whatโs really interesting is that SQโs online booking engine doesnโt even recognise the ADD airport code)
- Adria (ditto, SQ doesnโt recognise Ljubljana LJU)
- Copa (SQ doesnโt recognise PTY)
Weโll continue to monitor this and update this post as more partner awards come online.
Does Eva block redemptions on long haul? Or open it only in the last few weeks? Trying to book BKK to LHR for June and donโt see any availability.
Certain routes dont get all the permutations and combinations of flights. i.e BKK LHR on Eva
In my experience no, Aeroplan has Eva space all the time. Obviously at like 300+ thereโs more space, but at least from YVR/SFO/LAX/SEA thereโs always good economy availability (except maybe at holidays? I havenโt tried) and pretty good business availability. If you canโt get one city you can usually get one of the others and take a connecting flight. Iโve never really looked at IAH/ORD or anywhere else cuz I live at YVR. As far as outside of those flights, BR seems to give up some of the best availability too. I know when I was looking to fly LHR-BKKโฆ Read more ยป
Would appreciate if Aaron could state the dates that he saw the *A availability. I was trying out various destinations and dates e.g. Sin โ IST and I couldnt find any TK flights available.
you can see the dates in the screenshots
Doesnโt recognize MDE either, one of my frequented airports. I tried searching for Avianca space that expertflyer says is there, and it doesnโt show up. But I donโt know what to make of this. My experience with calling Krisflyer is that they canโt see the same availability. I had an entire booking mapped out YVR-EZE when I called and she could only see the United space and not the Air Canada space with the exception of one flight. All flights I had lined up with Aeroplan and Expertflyer. I have no idea what to believe now, it seems like itโฆ Read more ยป
If youโre going to book Avianca why not search and reserve with LifeMiles instead?
i search on kvstool. but itโs notoriously temperamental and costs money. when it works though, itโs amazing.
KVS Tool itself is very well-tempered, but, sometimes, the airline systems are not.
If you are experiencing any issues while searching for Award Availability, please do not hesitate to get in-touch, so we can look into the matter.
Can you comment if it is even worth to redeem KF miles for non-SQ flights? Would it be a โwasteโ?
Aaron has posted many times on that topic. Google โMilelion star allianceโ.
More partners appearing online now, like NH and TG.