The time is about 3am now. It is not that i do not wanna sleep earlier (as i had done so for the past two days); it's just that i have just completed the booking for my mom's return flight from Singapore to Wellington after spending hours on the Web and using up lots of the paid data limit. Since she is travelling during the peak seasons (Christmas and CNY), there was no more ticket available for redemption between these two cities. I would have to find alternative route, which is Singapore to Sydney to Wellington.
Unfortunately, not the entire journey could be redeemed via my SIA air miles. As SIA does not fly from Sydney to Wellington, this leg of the journey is operated by its partner airlines such as Air New Zealand or Virgin Australia. I managed to redeem the flight on SIA (from Singapore to Sydney) but to find the next leg of the round trip was a great challenge.
First of all, i gotta look out for the connecting flight timing. Then, i'd wanna use my air miles to redeem the tickets from the partner airlines as well so that i could minimise my cost.
However, as the airlines would have a quota on the seats for redemption, there was no more availability in December from the partner airlines. I would have to buy one ticket from Air New Zealand for the leg from Sydney to Wellington, which cost NZD395.95. In addition, the transit time in Sydney for this connecting flight is 8 hours!
Then for the return flight, i managed to find one that i could redeem with SIA air miles. Yet, all the redemption of the tickets only covers the ticket price but not other surcharges. I still had to scoop out a total of SGD527 for the surcharges and airport taxes. So all in all, i've spent close to SGD1K for mom's ticket as well. I guess i'll just take that as her Christmas gift then.
Anyway, she will be departing Singapore on 11-Dec-2012 and returning on 24-Feb-2013.
My boss is meeting me up for lunch tomorrow and i'd better go to bed now lest i couldn't wake up in time.
Labels: life, New Zealand
