Newbie redemption questions: cancelling, changing dates, expiry

[SliverKris]

I made a TR about my experience in MalaysianWings when I was a KF newbie, trying to deal with this redemption stuff. At the time it was written, MH's Enrich has yet to offer an online redemption function.
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In conjunction with KrisFlyer's 10th anniversary, Singapore Airlines offered a discount of 25% for all online redemption made from 1 February 2009 until 15 September 2009, for travel before 1 October 2009, which was an addition of 10% from the usual online redemption discount that KrisFlyer usually offered to its members. On top of that, a discount of 50% for online redemption was also offered, but this offer was date-to-destination specific.



As a new KrisFlyer member who only completed a single return journey with the carrier (KUL-SIN-AUH-JED vv), I was thrilled to find out that I was so close from being eligible to redeem a return flight in the lowest redemption category (Region 2 – Malaysia, Indonesia & Brunei) under the Economy Saver ticket. Redeeming 11,250 KrisFlyer miles under this ticket (75% x 15,000 miles) will enable me to fly KUL-SIN-DPS vv the furthest. After converting 12,000 Choice Points into 2,000 KrisFlyer miles from my Standard Chartered Bank credit card program, I have 11,514 KrisFlyer miles, sufficient for the intended redemption on the aforementioned ticket category.

Recalling all the memories that I have, the most generous offer that Enrich ever came out with in the history of Malaysia Airlines for a return ticket KUL-DPS was 17,500 Enrich miles, which was offered from May to July 2009. That was the moment where I realized that this offer is too good to be left out.



So, on 26 May 2009, while playing around with the KrisFlyer website…



… I made a mock booking to DPS during the Hari Raya holiday, a period of which I planned to return back to Malaysia, which coincidentally just short of the dateline of the offer, which is on 30 September 2009.



Pairing 22 September 2009 with 24 September 2009 as the date of the inbound and outbound journeys resulted in the availability of the flight, KUL-SIN-DPS-SIN-KUL on the Economy Saver ticket, which was incredible!



A further click away, and I was soon have 'accidentally' created a comprehensive itinerary to the enchanting Bali, on an exciting all-Boeing 777-200 aircraft on all 4 sectors.



Another click away and I was directed to the payment page, of which one has to settle because award tickets offered by airlines are excluding the airport taxes and applicable surcharges, a practice that is common industry-wide all over the world. For my planned itinerary, I have to pay MYR 439.00, which made up of MYR 51.00 of airport/government taxes and MYR 388.00 of carrier surcharges.



After keying in my credit card particulars, I have then completed the simple and extremely pleasant experience doing an online redemption process, something that is impossible for me to do even after years of diligent devotion to Enrich. I was issued with an e-ticket and a confirmed itinerary, which can be modified, right away!



The whole process left me grinning from ear to ear throughout the day. I was so excited! I continued playing around with the confirmed itinerary, incorporating 'Muslim Meal' as my preferred meals. The insanely easy to use interface allows travelers to:

• Select Seat
• Select Meal
• Opt for a Singapore Stopover Holiday
• Book Hotels or Transfer Service
• Modify Booking
• Cancel Booking
• Update Passport and PR Details

… all in just a few clicks. It is wonders! I don't understand, cracking my head back and forth thinking on why Malaysia Airlines failed do the same with Enrich all these years. WHY?

An icing to the whole experience was that my activities were recorded almost on-time, meaning one doesn't have to wait for 3 months to see the movement in the FFP account, unlike a certain 5 star carrier's program. My redemption was recorded right away and it appeared in my statement on 27 May 2009, less than 24 hours after it was made.



I was blown away by KrisFlyer's online functions! Definitely the best among all 4 FFPs that I enrolled as a member; better than Emirates' Skywards and KLM's Flying Blue online functions. Malaysia Airline's Enrich you asked? *LOLwhileROTFuntilFaintedFor2days*

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Fast forward to 14 September 2009, maybe as a karma for belittling Enrich devastatingly on the world wide web in the past couple of months, I was shocked with the news that I can't return to Malaysia for Hari Raya, which in return means that I can't spent the 2nd, 3rd and 4th Hari Raya in Bali on the SQ ticket which was redeemed 4 months earlier.

What should I do? Will I lose all the miles since the ticket has been issued? Can I change it to a much later date? What should I do in order to credit back all the 11,250 miles which has been redeemed?

This is suck!

p/s Should things went according to plan, I will embark on the journey tomorrow (22 September 2009), well, what can I do.

[SliverKris]

Upon contented with the fact that no miracle whatsoever can bring me back to Malaysia for Hari Raya, I searched through the KrisFlyer website and stumbled into this question, which exactly reflected my situation, in the FAQs section.



Basically it says I have to ring the KrisFlyer Membership Services and they'll charge a Service Fee of 5,000 KrisFlyer miles or USD 50 for the cancellation and re-deposition of the miles back into my account.

So on 21 September 2009, merely a little out of 24 hours before the scheduled departure time of flight SQ 107 on 22 September 2009, the first of 4 which I had in my itinerary, I rang the KrisFlyer Membership Services office in Singapore at +65 6789 8111 and was answered right away, after going through the auto-answering system.

I was assisted by a very pleasant and wonderfully helpful KrisFlyer female agent, whom after I described my problem in details to her, informed me that the correct way to do is by cancelling the booking through the website, just like the cancellation of any other normal (non-redemption) flights, which I already familiar with (despite the FAQs page said otherwise).

As for the charges of either 5,000 KrisFlyer miles or USD 50, I told her that I would prefer to pay rather than loosing 5,000 KrisFlyer miles (because it is equivalent to, more or so, flying on 1 direct KUL-IST flight), to which she pointed out to me that I will be given an option on whether to pay via miles or cash when I undergo the process soon.

A definite plus point to her was that before ending the conversation, she strongly advised me to do the online cancellation pronto because at that time, I was like 15 minutes away from 10:25 on 21 September 2009 - 24 hours away from my scheduled departure time, to which then I am subjected to another Cancellation Fee of 7,500 miles of USD 75 in addition of the Service Fee (as mentioned before) for doing the cancellation in less than 24 hours prior to the scheduled departure time. This very fact is also mentioned in the FAQs page quoted above. I was very impressed with her!

After a big thank to her and ended the phone call, I logged-in into the KrisFlyer website and cancelled the booking right away.



After a click on 'Cancel This Booking' on the left bar, I was directed to a page on whether to pay the Service Fee using miles or cash, to which I choose cash as planned earlier, but I forgot to print screen this page.

Another click away and it was done. All in painlessly less than 1 minute. It's incredible! And I was issued out with the confirmation right away.





What SQ did was, from MYR 439.00 that I paid earlier during the redemption process, they took MYR 106.00 as a Service Fee (which strangely does not equivalent to USD 50, I am still puzzled on what is the actual Service Fee charges amount – USD 30?) and they refunded me MYR 333.00 back into my credit card and 11,250 miles back into my KrisFlyer account.

So in the end, after the whole fiasco, I just lost MYR 106.00 as a Service Fee, which is great! (And probably another SAR 14.00 for the phone call to Singapore, but it is almost immaterial to mention). My KrisFler miles tally is back to 11,514 and it shows right away in the main page!


FINDINGS AND CONCLUSION

An important point to note from the refund policy of SQ against the other Malaysian airlines is that, based on my experience, SQ refunded everything – the airport taxes and all other applicable surcharges, something that AirAsia didn't when they refunded me my 7 tickets. So a big 2 thumbs up to SQ!

This magnificent online functions for managing booking and miles redemption with prompt, flawless and credible refund policy alone is an extremely strong selling point for SQ that can simply, honestly, win over a traveler like me in a snap.

I am still stunned with the fact that SQ excels this good, with regards to this whole subject. If you are familiar with the incredibly much painful procedures of the same while dealing with MH [you know the I-can't-do-anything-although-the-multi-million-dollar-computer-system-is-in-front-of-my-face-you-have to-call-the-hotline-for-everything-and-it-will-take-at-least-15-minutes-of-waiting-on-the-phone-before-someone-pick-up-the-phone-and-in-the-end-they-still-can't-solve-your-problem thingy] or the fuss of getting the attention of AirAsia's top honchos to get things done no matter how petty it was after lurking around their Facebook profiles, then you would possibly appreciate the weight of that statement of mine, much much more.

[SQflyergirl]

Great write up

[SliverKris]

Thanks Jessica. Glad to share that because since MW is a closed forum, it is left buried over there.

[SQflyergirl]

Here's my problem:

My redemption was made online but an involuntary change by the airline has rendered it "offline" - need to call to cancel now. Will there be a difference in time the miles redeposit online vs offline i wonder? (need it immediately for another redemption - $$ for taxes can take longer and that's ok)

[9V-JKL]

Thanks for sharing.

You may want to blank out your real name though...

[Dent@SUB]

Here's my problem:

My redemption was made online but an involuntary change by the airline has rendered it "offline" - need to call to cancel now. Will there be a difference in time the miles redeposit online vs offline i wonder? (need it immediately for another redemption - $$ for taxes can take longer and that's ok)

Did it once...
With offline service, the asked me for my CC number for the cancellation fee, and they charged that first before refunded the money I have paid to them...
The miles came back to me on the next day....
Hope it helps....