Called in to cancel two award tickets today and they said the refund time for the miles could be up to 6 months? Absolutely absurd and so far from the industry standard.

 

My refund a year ago took ~3 months back when the reopening of travel was more recent and the SQ call center agents were often new(ish) hires not ready for prime time. I had to phone the call center several times to "expadite" things. Not sure what things are like now - I am sure there are more recent data points.

 

Award cancellation in December - took a couple of weeks for the miles to be redeposited. Cancelled another award late January and the miles were back in my account when I got off the phone.

Refund of fees/taxes showed up in the next CC statement.

 

Cancellation of award ticket should result in almost immediate redeposit of unexpired miles back to your account.
Refund of taxes to credit card may take up to 4-6 weeks, depending on bank processing time.

 

Only if the underlying itinerary starts in Singapore. If the journey starts elsewhere, normally the SQ outstation in that region is responsible for handling the refund requests, und unfortunately that includes the miles portion as well, unless you explicitly ask the refund to be handled by the Singapore team / or rather the taxes and fees to be refunded in SGD (At the risk of a small FX loss). Most phone agents these days seem to not have been trained to handle this, hence the frustration many of us have been experiencing when talking to the call centre staff.

 

These miles still haven't been refunded and I need to use the miles to book a new flight as soon as possible. Can I call to expedite? Are there any suggestions on what to do? A flight canceled in Feb and still not refunded in July is asinine.

 

I agree, but don't use sophisticated language like that (asinine) when you call or write in as it will confuse the agents, they won't understand . Either way, given the duration you have been waiting for the refund, "World Class" looks different for sure.

I'd definitely inquire urgently as to the status of your refund for PNR / eTicket # XYZ. You could call, but the downside of that is no proof and nothing in writing. So I would submit the feedback form via the website and state clearly when you submitted the refund, give PNR/ eTicket details and ask for escalation / immediate processing as the miles to be refunded with this cancellation are expiring by [date if you know, e.g. end July] and you have an urgent need to use them now.

Then give it 2-3 days to see if you hear anything and if nothing you can follow up via call and refer to your earlier cancellation and this additional request via website form that you submitted.

The duration is absolutely unusual and should never take that long though unfortunately 7-8 weeks when cancelled online is not unheard of - still very poor in my book. You are way beyond that so something doesn't look right.

 

Yes, you can call and ask for expedite. I just called in to expedite yesterday.