how to select seat & food if booking done by phone?

[Ikarus2006]

Hi Everyone,

I wonder if you have any idea of how I could specify my seat and food preference on a multi-city booking that happened by phone.

Need to tell you that I always book online using the handy seat and food selection menu. This time, due to the fact that the booking engine was displaying the wrong amount of miles (50% of what I should have earned with a W category), I decided to do it via FRA/SQ office. After 5 phone calls I got a very kind guy to help me. Only issue is, after the flight booking was done, he said I would be able to specify seats/food at later stage.

When I go now online on "my bookings" I do not get any option to do that. It only states that seat preference has not been specified.
The question - is there a problem in the system (web site) which does not allow me to specify seat/food or is it a standard that for bookings done via the phone you can only specify those details by calling back the booking office?

Any help is urgently welcome!

[Singapore_Air]

Kudos for booking Singapore Airlines. Glad to hear it worked out in the end after the morning debacle!

I'm assuming you entered your booking reference, first name and last name into the system?

If that doesn't give you the option of selecting your seat, you can put in a request via the main call centre I believe (as that's what I've done before).

[Ikarus2006]

Singapore_Air... as usual, speed of light response - Thanks!

I did it by logging in into my KF account. I then clicked on my booking ref. and the only clickable thing was the seat map (the image one, not the interactive one) of the planes beside the specific flight details.

[kelvgoh]

Singapore_Air... as usual, speed of light response - Thanks!

I did it by logging in into my KF account. I then clicked on my booking ref. and the only clickable thing was the seat map (the image one, not the interactive one) of the planes beside the specific flight details.

if your PNR is displayed but no select seat function is available, your only recourse is to make the dreaded call again.

[Ikarus2006]

will be even more glad to do those calls... the day that we will earn miles also by using a phone provider

[Singapore_Air]

You can use Skype or similar if you have it and free phone +1 800 SIA 3333, that 1, 800, 742, 3 3 3 3.

I would suggest bypassing the KrisFlyer stage first though (if it makes a difference i don't know)

and manually put your Booking Reference, Family Name and Given Name in the three fields at the bottom:

https://www.singaporeair.com/saa/en_...revalLogin.jsp

Otherwise, call Singapore Airlines, preferably via Skype.

[Ikarus2006]

So, I did call this morning SQ in FRA, Reservations Dept.

What they said is that I can express my preference for type of food on the 4 legs of flight and I can ask for a window or aisle seat, but I cannot specify a seat numer.

Why is that? I mean, if they have an online system doing it where passenger can do it themselves, I cannot believe that the system of the SQ Reservations cannot put into my ticket the seat preference request!

Is it due to the fact they are trying to make the calls as short as possible to keep queuing time low or is there a real limit in the system available to reservations?
Besides, I was forced to book via the phone due to a website problem, so I do not see why I should have limited freedom of choice now...

[jjpb3]

Why is that? I mean, if they have an online system doing it where passenger can do it themselves, I cannot believe that the system of the SQ Reservations cannot put into my ticket the seat preference request!

Is it due to the fact they are trying to make the calls as short as possible to keep queuing time low or is there a real limit in the system available to reservations?

Because SQ seems to have pursued a strategy of dis-intermediation. This means incenting online booking with something, in this case ASR.

Besides, I was forced to book via the phone due to a website problem, so I do not see why I should have limited freedom of choice now...

That's exactly when such a strategy fails to deliver, unfortunately. Did you try to explain why you booked offline? Just curious. Honestly, I don't know what that would do. But mentioning the website failure has worked for me when I was arguing for the 15% KF redemption discount.

[Ikarus2006]

jjbp3,

Thanks for the feedback. I did indeed mention the fact that I used the phone booking option since I had a problem online.

I have just been called back and, due to the website problem, FRA Reservations will exceptionally fax my request to SIN reservations to try and get my seat preference fixed. Will hear from them in 3/4 days from now...

[quik!]

Unfortunately, the option to select seat, food and the 15% KF redemption is only open to bookings booked via SQ.com. I too had to learn the hardway, was going to upgrade my booking but since my booking was done via my corp travel agent, the options did not show up when I retrieve my booking via SQ.com

Will try to call and argue my case that I couldn't book online

[Bon]

I've been trying to book a SIN-LAX first class-saver award ticket online and the taxes comes to about S$2000!

I sent a few emails to KF asking if I could book the ticket on the phone and still get the 15% discount. We'll see what they say.