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This is the story of a 'super deal' (error fare) which was published by SQ in May last year which was an one-way fare from Santiago, Chile to a few cities in India and Nepal served by MI for a price of SGD1,500 in Business Class. It's not exactly cheap for an error fare but this is definitely not a normal price for such a distance. The routing would be SCL-GRU-SIN-COK for me with SCL-GRU being in economy Q fare, and the rest on SQ/MI C fare. The fare class of the booking is C-based and I earned miles and PPS values accordingly but the pricing seems to probably take into account only the first segment.
I am not new to error fares and have been enjoying quite some of them since 2011 such as the $800 business class fare from BKK-GRU with TK ( a case of missing zero in the fare filing in Thai Baht), and then I bought 3 business class tickets of about $200 each from RGN-SIN-LHR-JFK on MI/SQ/DL J class (a case of overnight devaluation of the Kyat and all the airlines caught off guard without updating their fare filing). That was the most amazing and I went three times to Yangon to take these flights in one year. Haha. There was also a SGN-PNH business class fare with QR which allows a routing via Doha for $200. But this was not honoured and the airline cancelled all the tickets sold.
Most of these fares were honoured so far and I travelled on them glitch-free. I have one remaining fare for next year which is BKK-ADD-YYZ return with ET in J class for $900. I bought two, one directly from the airline and this they had cancelled but they have yet to approach me on the other ticket booked through expedia and let's see how it goes on that one. I will lie low first.
In any case, with advancement in technology, and increased checking and auditing after all the past mistakes, the airlines are pretty thorough these days and error fares are getting really quite rare.
For the SCL-SIN-COK flight which is the subject of this trip report, I had only travelled up to SIN since the fare allowed unlimited stopovers along the way whether in GRU, BCN, or SIN. I will be travelling onwards to Kochi only in September.
One week after the error fare was published (which lasted online for 3 days), SQ announced the withdrawal of SQ61/62 effective Oct 2017. That was a real bummer and I thought this would definitely be a no-go as it's the airline's one time chance to cancel tickets with a reasonably valid reason. Some people were impatient and they called the airline asking for replacement flights and naturally many of them got declined and was told no choice but to refund. I decided to just lay Low and see how things play out after many weeks and months. Fortunately for me, by lying Low, my cancelled SQ61 flight was resurrected and replaced by SAA and SQ via JNB after 2-3 months later. That was my first good luck as I realise SAA is having a new J product and the sector would be served by this new product. At the time, there was very little information of what product is that and I believe this report is one of the very few available about the new SAA. For SQ, I further had the 2nd good luck to have the aircraft further 'upgraded' from a 2006-era 77W to the A350.
And that's why this report will be focused mainly on comparing the two airlines with their newest J products (SAA A333 and SQ A359). I will be skipping covering the first sector in Latam economy because that is a fairly regular economy flight and the report might get too long and boring. I will also be writing a separate report on such economy flight across the Andes because the views are stunning and I will be sharing my epic Bolivian adventure.
Part 1: South African Airways
Flight: SA223
Type: A330-300
Reg: ZS-SXJ
Cabin: Business
Seat: 12D
Load: 100%
I had a 7 hour layover in São Paulo and decided to make a trip to Japan Town in Liberdade district for a wonderful Asian meal after an abstain from it for the previous 4 weeks. This was my 4th visit to the city or so and it still is one exciting, energetic, and fascinating one for me although, having visited most Latin American cities, I think I still love Mexico City the most.
I was back to Guarulhos airport in the mid afternoon and unlike in my previous visit some 3 years back, the new Terminal 3 has now opened and this is where most intercontinental departures depart from.
The interior is pleasant calm and cool with a lot of grey which reminds me of Japanese airports.
It's not a huge terminal certainly, approximately the size of Changi Terminal 1
And by that time, the SAA counter has opened.
Business Class passengers have their own lane.
I was there just to request to swap seats to the second cabins on both flights because I had already been issued boarding passes all the way to Singapore in Santiago earlier that morning.
It was not a busy time and immigration and security didn't take more than 10 min and soon after I found myself in the retail area.
I proceeded upstairs to the lounge. LATAM merged is dominant in Latin America and they have a huge lounge and they look quite good and upscale.
Star Alliance has its own lounge and it looks good as well.
Plenty of seating areas.
And differently-themed areas.
Food selection was quite good as well. Certainly no complaints.
Walking towards the gate and we passed quite a few airlines. Sadly, no more SQ here.
This is the story of a 'super deal' (error fare) which was published by SQ in May last year which was an one-way fare from Santiago, Chile to a few cities in India and Nepal served by MI for a price of SGD1,500 in Business Class. It's not exactly cheap for an error fare but this is definitely not a normal price for such a distance. The routing would be SCL-GRU-SIN-COK for me with SCL-GRU being in economy Q fare, and the rest on SQ/MI C fare. The fare class of the booking is C-based and I earned miles and PPS values accordingly but the pricing seems to probably take into account only the first segment.
I am not new to error fares and have been enjoying quite some of them since 2011 such as the $800 business class fare from BKK-GRU with TK ( a case of missing zero in the fare filing in Thai Baht), and then I bought 3 business class tickets of about $200 each from RGN-SIN-LHR-JFK on MI/SQ/DL J class (a case of overnight devaluation of the Kyat and all the airlines caught off guard without updating their fare filing). That was the most amazing and I went three times to Yangon to take these flights in one year. Haha. There was also a SGN-PNH business class fare with QR which allows a routing via Doha for $200. But this was not honoured and the airline cancelled all the tickets sold.
Most of these fares were honoured so far and I travelled on them glitch-free. I have one remaining fare for next year which is BKK-ADD-YYZ return with ET in J class for $900. I bought two, one directly from the airline and this they had cancelled but they have yet to approach me on the other ticket booked through expedia and let's see how it goes on that one. I will lie low first.
In any case, with advancement in technology, and increased checking and auditing after all the past mistakes, the airlines are pretty thorough these days and error fares are getting really quite rare.
For the SCL-SIN-COK flight which is the subject of this trip report, I had only travelled up to SIN since the fare allowed unlimited stopovers along the way whether in GRU, BCN, or SIN. I will be travelling onwards to Kochi only in September.
One week after the error fare was published (which lasted online for 3 days), SQ announced the withdrawal of SQ61/62 effective Oct 2017. That was a real bummer and I thought this would definitely be a no-go as it's the airline's one time chance to cancel tickets with a reasonably valid reason. Some people were impatient and they called the airline asking for replacement flights and naturally many of them got declined and was told no choice but to refund. I decided to just lay Low and see how things play out after many weeks and months. Fortunately for me, by lying Low, my cancelled SQ61 flight was resurrected and replaced by SAA and SQ via JNB after 2-3 months later. That was my first good luck as I realise SAA is having a new J product and the sector would be served by this new product. At the time, there was very little information of what product is that and I believe this report is one of the very few available about the new SAA. For SQ, I further had the 2nd good luck to have the aircraft further 'upgraded' from a 2006-era 77W to the A350.
And that's why this report will be focused mainly on comparing the two airlines with their newest J products (SAA A333 and SQ A359). I will be skipping covering the first sector in Latam economy because that is a fairly regular economy flight and the report might get too long and boring. I will also be writing a separate report on such economy flight across the Andes because the views are stunning and I will be sharing my epic Bolivian adventure.
Part 1: South African Airways
Flight: SA223
Type: A330-300
Reg: ZS-SXJ
Cabin: Business
Seat: 12D
Load: 100%
I had a 7 hour layover in São Paulo and decided to make a trip to Japan Town in Liberdade district for a wonderful Asian meal after an abstain from it for the previous 4 weeks. This was my 4th visit to the city or so and it still is one exciting, energetic, and fascinating one for me although, having visited most Latin American cities, I think I still love Mexico City the most.
I was back to Guarulhos airport in the mid afternoon and unlike in my previous visit some 3 years back, the new Terminal 3 has now opened and this is where most intercontinental departures depart from.
The interior is pleasant calm and cool with a lot of grey which reminds me of Japanese airports.
It's not a huge terminal certainly, approximately the size of Changi Terminal 1
And by that time, the SAA counter has opened.
Business Class passengers have their own lane.
I was there just to request to swap seats to the second cabins on both flights because I had already been issued boarding passes all the way to Singapore in Santiago earlier that morning.
It was not a busy time and immigration and security didn't take more than 10 min and soon after I found myself in the retail area.
I proceeded upstairs to the lounge. LATAM merged is dominant in Latin America and they have a huge lounge and they look quite good and upscale.
Star Alliance has its own lounge and it looks good as well.
Plenty of seating areas.
And differently-themed areas.
Food selection was quite good as well. Certainly no complaints.
Walking towards the gate and we passed quite a few airlines. Sadly, no more SQ here.
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