How I’d change the KrisFlyer waitlist

If you’ve ever tried to book a Singapore Airlines award flight, you must have crossed paths with the infamous waitlist. It’s basically SIA’s way of saying, “there’s nothing available now, but maybe later…”

The waitlist can be kind or cruel. It could clear the following day, or it could keep you hanging all the way till two weeks before departure, then dash your hopes with an automated “better luck next time!” message. Whether you love or loathe it really boils down to your track record. Some people’s waitlists never clear, others clear so regularly it’s like they made some sort of Faustian pact. My personal average is about 20%, which is not great, not terrible.

One thing’s for sure: the waitlist is the source of a lot of uncertainty, stress, and calls to the KrisFlyer hotline. So should Singapore Airlines do away with it altogether, or are there benefits to keeping it around? And if it’s to be kept, are there ways it can be improved?

Arguments for the waitlist

Removes the need to keep checking

Most people don’t have the time or inclination to continually check the SIA website and see if redemption seats have opened up. The waitlist removes the need, since it’s fully automated. As soon as a seat opens up, you get a notification.

It benefits elite fliers

Contrary to popular belief, the waitlist is not first come first serve- members with elite status get to cut the queue. It’s not known to what extent exactly this serves as a tiebreaker, but all things equal, Singapore Airlines is more likely to clear the waitlist of a Solitaire PPS Club member than a regular KrisFlyer one.

So if you hold elite status, you might like the waitlist, since it lets you book your flights later and still have a better chance of a favourable outcome. 

It can be a fairer way of allocating award seats

Most airlines don’t release all their award seats at one go. In fact, it’s a common practice to open up more award seats towards departure, when it becomes clear those seats are likely to fly empty otherwise. 

Singapore Airlines also does this, though perhaps not to the extent of some other carriers (the airline is a firm believer in “cabin protection”, which says that it’s better to maintain the prestige of the cabin by flying with some empty seats rather than fill it to the brim with award bookings). And when award seats open, the waitlist is a way of allocating them to those who expressed interest first, rather than someone who just happened to load the website at the right time.

“Maybe” is better than “no”

This is debatable (see next section), but for some people, a “maybe” is better than “no”. 

Having a waitlist at least means there’s a chance you could end up on the flight, versus a hard no if the waitlist didn’t exist. The odds may be fuzzy, but some chance is better than no chance at all.

Arguments against the waitlist

You’re in limbo

You know how I just said that “maybe” is better than “no”? I’m quite certain others will disagree. It’s a bit like asking a girl to the prom, and she keeps saying “maybe” (totally not speaking from personal experience (because the answer I get is always “no”)), which keeps you on tenterhooks and limits your ability to make backup plans. 

So long as your waitlist remains in limbo, you don’t know whether to block your leave. You don’t know whether to tell your travel companions to block their leave. You can’t make any non-refundable reservations- not for connecting flights, not for hotels, not for rental cars, not for activities. And given that the waitlist can remain unfilled up to 14 days prior to departure, you may be on the hook for hefty last-minute prices should it not come through (or even if it comes through, but late in the game).

Since the flight is the most crucial component of your entire vacation, the waitlist makes advance planning really difficult.

The process lacks transparency

Singapore Airlines does not provide customers with an indication of their position on the waitlist, or how likely it is to clear (though there may be good reasons for that, as I’ll touch on later). 

The waitlist is basically a black box, and while you can get a sense of how many seats remain by making dummy commercial bookings or checking the loads with tools like Expert Flyer or KVS, physical availability is a necessary but not sufficient condition for the waitlist to clear. In other words, just because there are seats available for sale does not mean they’ll be released for redemptions. 

Because of this, it’s hard for travellers to know whether they stand a good chance, or whether they need to start firming up Plan B.

Removal, or reform?

The waitlist is a rarity among frequent flyer programmes today. Apart from KrisFlyer, the only other programmes I’m aware of with a waitlist are ANA Mileage Club and EVA Air Infinity MileageLands.

Cathay Pacific Asia offered a waitlist until October 2021, then switched to a more traditional “it’s either there or it isn’t” system. Should Singapore Airlines do likewise? Well, I can see the benefits to having a waitlist (though maybe I’ll be less sanguine once I lose my elite status), but I still think some reform is in order.

The last time we saw a shake up was in 2019, when the 14-day fill-or-kill rule was introduced, and the waitlist closed 21 days before departure. Prior to this, you waitlist could technically clear at any time- even on the way to the airport!

That was a good start, but I don’t think it goes far enough. The way I see it, the problem is that people:

• Add themselves to too many waitlists
• Don’t cancel waitlists when they’re not needed anymore
• May not confirm waitlists even when offered

For the record, I’m guilty of this too. But that’s because the system  doesn’t disincentivise such behaviour; on the contrary, it encourages it.

So here’s my proposed solutions. 

Cap the number of waitlists passengers can add themselves to

Because the system does not limit the number of waitlists you can add yourself to, of course it makes sense for an individual to hedge their bets by waitlisting on as many flights as possible. 

On the waitlist for Paris? Why not add London, Brussels and Amsterdam as well, since they’re a short flight/train away? And why not waitlist on all of them +/- 1 day for good measure too? Such decisions are logical on an individual level, but they have the cumulative effect of clogging up the waitlist.

My proposal is that the system caps each member at a certain number of waitlists, which would force them to prioritise which ones they want. The cap could scale with status, e.g. five waitlists for entry-level KrisFlyer members, 10 waitlists for PPS Club members etc., and members who hit their cap would need to cancel one of their existing waitlist requests before adding another.

Alternatively, instead of a fixed cap, it could be that the system puts a hold on the miles required for each waitlist you add yourself to. For example, if I have 300,000 miles and I waitlist myself on three flights that cost 80,000 miles each, I will only be able to use 60,000 miles in the interim. 

The hold need not be 100% of course; it could be a more modest figure like 10-20%. But the general idea behind this and the fixed cap is to make waitlists a finite resource, something that involves trade-offs. As it is, the current situation just rewards spamming. 

Require periodic waitlist reconfirmations

Since waitlisting does not put a hold on miles, and there’s no penalty for not confirming a cleared waitlist, the current system facilitates the creation of what I call “zombie waitlists”- waitlists that have no realistic chance of being ticketed even if cleared. 

These are held by passengers who have already cleared the waitlist on another flight, or booked tickets with another carrier, or have changed their travel plans entirely. Needless to say, this is a major flaw. These waitlists, even if they clear, will not be filled, and that denies someone else who would have ticketed had they been offered.

To deal with the problem of “zombie waitlists”, passengers should be required to reconfirm their place every month or so. This could be in the form of a reminder email that says “click this link within X days to reconfirm your place the waitlist.”

Some restaurants already do a version of this with their queue systems; every now and then you get an update on your queue position, and a link to cancel if you’ve made other plans already. 

I’m sure some passengers will miss these mails and raise an almighty stink when they realise they’re no longer on the waitlist, but you know what? Tough. If you’re really serious about getting those flights, I don’t think it’d kill you to reply to an occasional email.

Shorter confirmation windows

When a waitlist clears, you usually have at least 72 hours to confirm it. But you often get much more time. Here’s a sampling of my own data points: 

• 7 days to confirm a flight from Bangkok to Singapore which cleared with 44 days to go
• 9 days to confirm a flight from Adelaide to Singapore which cleared with 87 days to go
• 14 days to confirm a flight from Singapore to San Francisco which cleared with 91 days to go
• 21 days to confirm a flight from Tokyo Narita to Singapore which cleared with 164 days to go
• 49 days to confirm a flight from Christchurch to Singapore which cleared with 105 days to go

While I appreciate having more time to consider my options, this is another example of something that’s good on an individual level, but bad in aggregate.

If I have 49 days to confirm a flight but ultimately choose not to, that’s 49 days that someone else is bottlenecked from moving forward with their own plans. And that’s not to mention situations closer to departure where a passenger’s ticketing deadline bleeds into the T-14 day window, meaning that if they decline to confirm, that seat can’t be offered to anyone else on the waitlist (because all outstanding waitlists will have been cancelled).

I think a system where you have 24 hours to confirm a waitlisted flight would be much more fair- provided of course that if a passenger fails to confirm within 24 hours, that seat is immediately offered to another passenger.

Keep in mind, this is not nearly as draconian as some of the other ideas I initially thought of, like compelling passengers to ticket waitlisted bookings or else lose a deposit.

Give elite members a limited number of “force clears”

One way to mitigate the waitlist problem would be to give elite members a limited number of “force clears” each year. What this means is that so long as a flight is available for waitlist, an elite member can use this to guarantee a waitlist clear.

Obviously, this would have to be restricted to the top echelons only, namely Solitaire PPS and PPS Club members (or further restricted by making it a PPS Reward). Moreover, it would probably max out at Business Class; otherwise Suites and First would be perpetually full. 

I’m drawing an analogy from Marriott’s Suite Night Awards, which allow members to prioritise upgrades on the stays that matter most to them. For example, they may not really care about a suite upgrade on a one-night stay on a business trip, but may really value it on an annual vacation with their family.

In the same way, these “force clears” allow elite members to designate a particular trip as important to them, avoid the limbo of the waitlist and start making the rest of their plans immediately.

A waitlist tracker?

I’m putting this with a question mark, because as much as I’d love greater transparency in the waitlist process, I can see this creating a whole new set of problems.

The idea goes that passengers would be able to view a list that shows their relative position on the waitlist, or if that’s too granular, a needle that shows whether you have a poor/average/good chance of the waitlist clearing.

But as soon as I say this aloud, I can see how this could create more problems than it solves. Unfortunately, I can imagine passengers calling up customer service and giving the CSOs a hard time, like “the indicator told me “good chance” so why didn’t my waitlist clear?”/ “why did my position on the waitlist fall, DYKWIA?”

So this should probably be filed under “nice on paper”. If you can think of a way to add more transparency to the waitlist process without stuff like this happening, I’m all ears. 

Conclusion

The KrisFlyer waitlist is one of the most frustrating aspects of the overall frequent flyer programme, but I do think there are some low-hanging ways to improve it, such as capping the number of waitlist bookings, requiring waitlist reconfirmations, shortening the confirmation windows, and giving elite members a certain number of “force clears” each year.

For a guide to how the waitlist works, and some things you can do to improve your chances, refer to the post below.

Guide: Surviving the Singapore Airlines KrisFlyer waitlist

How would you improve the waitlist if you were Singapore Airlines?

(Cover photo: TPG)