# How to Upgrade Singapore Airlines Flights Ticket Informations ### Can your ticket be upgraded? In January 2018, Singapore Airlines introduced three new types of fares: Lite, Standard, and Flexi. Each of these types of rates has different rules on baggage allowance, cancellations, changes, and the possibility of updating. **Upgrade 1–888–588–2434 Singapore Airlines Flights** In the following table, I have listed the rate ranges that belong to each rate type, as well as whether they can be updated. ![](https://i.imgur.com/gt6VcZC.png) ### SIA Can your ticket be upgraded? You can find your rate category during the booking process. Click on the “View details” drop-down option that appears in the upper right corner after selecting your flights. ### Ticket reservation from Singapore to Sydney. If someone else has booked your ticket or has already passed the reservation stage, you can still find the fare segment found under “Booking Class” on your e-ticket. ### Singapore Airlines Fare Baskets. Your upgrade eligibility does not depend on where you buy your ticket (eg Singapore Airlines website, corporate travel agent, OTA such as Expedia); rather, the only thing that matters is the rate. One last point to note: codeshare flights are not eligible for an upgrade, so for example, if you buy a Lufthansa codeshare flight operated by Singapore Airlines, you will not be able to upgrade your ticket. ### Which cabin can you upgrade to? Singapore Airlines used to operate a strict “one cabin upgrade” policy whereby you could only upgrade from Economy Class to Business Class if the aircraft you were flying on did not offer Premium Economy Class. That policy has since changed, and Economy passengers can now pay more to upgrade directly to Business Class, even on planes where Premium Economy exists. Premium Economy passengers, however, can only upgrade to Business Class. ### Is there upgrade space available? In the case of Singapore Airlines, the upgrade space and full awards come from the same inventory. This means that you can verify the upgrade slot by making a fictitious reservation for the full prizes. In the example below, we see that there are two seats available for the Business Saver awards between SYD and SIN. Therefore, there must also be two seats available for the Business Class Saver upgrade awards. ### Ticket booking with us If your intention is to purchase a more expensive rate package and upgrade it with miles, you should first run a quick search for that particular date to see if award space is available. You can find out how many miles your upgrade will cost by looking at the KrisFlyer upgrade chart. There are seven upgrade tables to cover the seven different upgrade scenarios: * Economy Standard to Premium Economy * Economy Flexi to Premium Economy * Economy to business-standard * Flexi to Business Economy * Premium Economy Standard to Business * Premium Economy Flexi to Business * Business Standard / Flexi to First (Business Standard and Flexi rates are combined in one graph because there is no difference in the miles required to upgrade) Use the table in exactly the same way as you would for a full prize: just match the zone you are flying from with the zone you are flying to. Note that, like the full awards, the upgrades also include Saver and Advantage level pricing. Saver prizes are cheaper but have fewer seats available. Advantage awards are more expensive but have more seats available. ## Do I get a good value by upgrading my ticket? Does it make more sense to buy an income ticket and upgrade it with miles, or to redeem a ticket directly? **Here’s a helpful way to consider this question:** It costs 15K miles to upgrade a SIN-HKG Economy Standard ticket to Premium Economy Saver. However, I earn 1.2K miles with the Economy Standard ticket, which brings my net cost to 13.8K miles. It costs 24.5K miles to redeem a SIN-HKG Premium Economy Saver directly. Therefore, 56% (13.8 / 24.5) of the miles required for a total redemption are needed to upgrade a revenue ticket. I have used this approach to plot the various scenarios for the charts below. The green bar shows the percentage difference for standard tickets and the blue bar for Flexi. SIA Economy Update vs. Total Prem Econ Swap.png SIA Economy Update vs. Total Bus Class Swap.png SIA Prem Econ Update vs. Total Bus Class Swap.png Zones on the x-axis refer to award table zones, mileage requirements and distances are based on departure from Singapore. Sample destinations used to calculate revenue ticket mileage accrual (zones in parentheses): DPS (2), BKK (3), HKG (4), PVG (5), BOM (6), NRT (7), PER (8), SYD (9), IST (10), LHR (11), SFO (12), JFK (13) Zones on the x-axis refer to award table zones, mileage requirements, and distances are based on departure from Singapore. Sample destinations used to calculate revenue ticket mileage accrual (zones in parentheses): DPS (2), BKK (3), HKG (4), PVG (5), BOM (6), NRT (7), PER (8), SYD (9), IST (10), LHR (11), SFO (12), JFK (13) If it’s too many charts for a single session, just know this. The higher the percentage, the less it is worth upgrading, because, for a smaller mileage increment, you could make a full redemption without spending cash on an income ticket. **Here is the summary of the charts:** My general opinion is that it usually makes no sense to buy an income ticket and upgrade it with miles unless someone else (e.g. an employer) is paying for the income ticket. This is because the mileage difference between an upgrade and a total award tends to be very small. Take, for example, the upgrade from Economy Standard to Business Saver — not only do you have to pay out-of-pocket cash for the Economy Standard ticket, but you pay 78–87% of the miles you would need for a full Business Saver redemption. You can purchase an Economy Flexi ticket to reduce the requirement to 55–73%, but remember that Economy Flexi tickets are prohibitively expensive. If someone else is paying for the revenue ticket, then by all means go out for the upgrade — it’s basically a discount on the miles required for full redemption. ### Other points to keep in mind about updates Upgraded passengers get full rights to the upgraded cabin. Singapore Airlines does not discriminate between upgraded passengers and those who purchased full fare tickets. As long as you are in the same cabin, you will enjoy the same treatment. As a business class passenger, that means access to Book the Cook’s food reservations, lounges, priority luggage, and priority boarding. ### Updates can be put on the waiting list In our guide to redeeming Singapore Airlines awards, we talked about the KrisFlyer waiting list system. What this means is that prized space is not currently available, but you can type your name and the system will notify you if a seat opens. The Singapore Airlines website is quite useless as it shows you a “not available” message with no option to the waiting list in case an upgraded seat is not available for immediate confirmation. A simple call to KrisFlyer’s membership services can get you added to the waiting list, and then it’s a matter of crossing your fingers and waiting for the waiting list to clear. Remember, there is no obligation to upgrade, even if you do. ### Updates can be canceled or changed, subject to a fee Updates follow the same rules as full awards when it comes to changes or cancellations. In other words, canceling a Saver ticket costs $ 75 ($ 50 for Advantage). **The situation is a bit more complicated when it comes to date changes:** * If the new date you are looking for has upgrade space, you pay a fee of US $ 25 (Savings) or nothing (Advantage) to change your date, plus any change fees that apply to the revenue ticket. * If the new date you are looking for does not have room for the update, you will have to pay a fee of US $ 75 (Savings) or the US $ 50 (Advantage) to cancel your update, plus any change fees that apply to the revenue ticket. . * It’s helpful to think of upgrades as an award ticket added to your income ticket, following the same rules and penalties as a total award. * The verdict Because Singapore Airlines’ revenue-generating tickets tend to be more expensive than the competition, it generally doesn’t make sense to buy a ticket and upgrade it with miles. You’ll get much better value by redeeming an award ticket directly. However, business travelers may find it a pleasure to live a little better from time to time, and now you know-how.