The Singapore Airlines website has never been the easiest to use for award bookings, lacking the kind of functionality you might take for granted with other frequent flyer programmes such as mixed-cabin bookings, or instant refunds for cancelled awards.
But there have been signs of investment, such as the addition of online partner award redemptions in 2017 and an award calendar in 2019 (though both features are still buggy up till today). And now, Singapore Airlines has unveiled another feature that has the potential to be very useful indeed: a flight redemption map.
This shows all available award redemptions for a given set of dates, cabins and budget. It’s very much a beta product for now and has some noticeable limitations, but I love the idea behind it and can’t wait to see it develop further.
Singapore Airlines flight redemption map
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| Redemption Flight Map |
The Singapore Airlines flight redemption map basically shows you all the destinations with immediately-confirmable award space, with filters for:
- Date
- Miles budget
- Cabin
- Interests
Interests is a bit of a fluffy filter, but date, miles budget and cabin are extremely useful.
Here’s a simple example. Suppose I’m looking for my virgin First Class experience. All I need to do is select the cabin I want, and straight away up pop the options.
If I want to refine the results further, I can enter a specific date range, but otherwise a quick check of the website confirms the result: a First Class Saver award is indeed available from Singapore to Zurich departing on 29 October 2024.
What’s nice is that this doesn’t waste your time with waitlist options. If something appears on the map, that means it’s available for immediate confirmation, no questions asked.
The map also takes into account any ongoing award sales. For example, thanks to the KrisFlyer Global Redemption Sale, all Economy Class flights have been discounted by 25% for bookings till 22 September 2024. Sure enough, the pricing for Europe flights reflects at 31,500 miles, 25% off the usual 42,000 miles.
The use cases for this tool should be readily apparent. It takes the guesswork out of award flight searching, and if award space is what dictates your vacation destination, as is the case for many miles chasers, then you can see at a glance the options for the period where you can take leave.
Alternatively, you can use it to browse all the possibilities for a given number of miles, or to check what destinations can be booked over peak periods like school holidays.
What’s the limitations?
Geographical coverage
The biggest limitation at the moment is that the redemption map only works for flights to and from Europe, but Singapore Airlines says the destinations will be expanded progressively to the rest of the network.
Availability only from Singapore
Even though the eDM says the redemption map shows availability for flights to and from Europe, in practice I could only find awards to Europe.
Regardless of which European gateway I chose, it always showed no availability for flights to Singapore. So that’s a bug they’re going to have to fix.
No filter for number of seats
The redemption map also has no filter for number of awards. If you see a result, you know there’s at least one seat available, but beyond that it’s anyone’s guess. You’ll need to run the search on the dates provided to see whether it’s possible to redeem multiple seats.
No award type toggle
While you can set a miles budget, I think it’d be nice if the map tool also had a filter that let you search for Saver or Advantage awards.
After all, if I knew that changing my travel dates slightly could let me snag Saver space, I’d be more inclined to do that.
Not real-time space
The results shown on the redemption map are refreshed daily and not in real-time, so there is a possibility that the awards it reflects have already been snapped up.
For what it’s worth, the map does show you how long ago the award was spotted, which gives you an idea of how fresh the result is.
Only Singapore Airlines awards
The redemption map only shows Singapore Airlines award space, so you won’t be able to view any of its Star Alliance or non-Star Alliance partners.
But really, I think it’s asking a bit much for non-Singapore Airlines award space to be shown, and if all this tool ever does is showcase the entire Singapore Airlines award network, I’d already be satisfied. Besides, if you want to search for Star Alliance award space, superior options such as Seats.Aero already exist.
Conclusion
Singapore Airlines has launched a new redemption map that shows a menu of options given your travel dates, budget and cabin. This saves you from having to guess and check on the website, and is a great idea generation tool for those who let award space decide where they holiday.
As with every new tool, there are a bunch of limitations, most notably that it only covers Europe for now. However, I’m sure these will be iterated on, and I’m excited to see what this evolves into.
How’s your experience playing with the redemption map so far?
Still very clunky to use
Also, why must login to even check?
????
I could search for avail on the map without need for login. They only prompted login after clicking on the destination
Probably because award availability depends on membership status (more awards especially Saver for PPS for example).
prob a bug on their end, but i noticed that if u zoom out the map, you will see the SIN destination if you select a SIA EUR origin. Suppose they will get it fixed soon. Seems like this happens because the map is auto zoomed-in to EUR region. Eventually when roll out to all destinations, they will prob need to auto zoom out or something.
Another half-baked IT solution proudly rolled out by SIA. Welcome to world class.
Ah yes, the world class whiner.
not too much to ask for isn’t it? its an incomplete product masquerading as though its a gamechanger.
Hope it will get better . I was hoping to go GIG via Europe using Star Alliance members but almost impossible to find .
Damn the comments are harsh. That’s an awesome idea and good outcome for a version 1. Looking forward to use it more!