Upon arriving at Narita, I entered the Red Carpet Club to talk to a United agent to make sure my bags would be routed properly since I had arrived a day later than planned. They reassured me that everything was alright, and that when checking in with Singapore Airlines at Changi, I should notify them about my baggage situation to make sure it gets transferred correctly. As I was about to exit, I noticed my former seatmate from the economy exit row standing outside the RCC trying to use the WiFi, so I asked him if he wanted to be sponsored in. After I got him in, I left the RCC and waited for a guy from my hotel who I had offered to guest into the ANA lounge.
He also had baggage to deal with since he was rebooked on an ANA flight, so I waited for him to get that resolved, which took much longer than it should have. We hung out in the ANA lounge, enjoying the beer machine and the free udon and chatted for a bit before heading to our respective gates.
My flight to Singapore boarded a little late, and although I was hoping for a VDB as it had been completely sold out when I left Seattle, the flight ended up going out with some empty seats in the back. After this whole ordeal, I was exhausted so I quickly fell asleep on the plane. When dinner was served, I was a bit irritated when one of the flight attendants woke me up asking me if I wanted to eat, and I immediately refused and went back to sleep. FAs should really leave sleeping passengers alone.
The arrival into SIN was a little later than scheduled, but not by much. I checked into the SQ transit desk to get my boarding pass and verified that my bags would be transferred, then headed to the transit hotel in T2. They put me in a single occupancy room although I had requested (and they had confirmed) a single occupancy shared bathroom room, so it cost about twice what it was supposed to, but at that point I was too tired to put up a fight. I quickly fell asleep and woke up at around 5am to head towards the SQ business class lounge to grab something to eat before flying to Bangkok. I was surprised at how great the lounge was – from the food to the layout and the decor – easily one of the best I have seen.
SQ Raffles Class lounge in SIN T2
Food sampling at SQ lounge
I was able to snag a window seat, and the business class seat was fairly typical, although one difference from those in the states is that the chair adjustments are automatic – no physical force is required, and the seat tilts/raises itself by pushing a button. That was neat. The service was decent, and I thought it was interesting that they did not serve any hot drinks because of turbulence. It wasn’t that bad, and United would still serve hot drinks in those conditions, but the SQ flight attendants were cautious. They apologized profusely at the end of the flight that they were not able to serve hot drinks, however.
In-flight breakfast
One nice thing about flying business class was that we were given priority passes for clearing immigrations, and so I was able to get in a fairly short line with only about 3-4 people in front of me. This did not really make a difference for me in the end because I needed to pick up my checked bag, but I thought it was a nice touch.
Waiting at the carousel for my bag, I noticed all of the priority tagged bags starting to come off. As a Star Alliance Gold and flying business class, my bag should have been priority tagged, so it should have been one of the first bags off the plane. I waited and waited, but it still didn’t come. I thought maybe because of the delayed flight, it did not get priority tagged or that it wasn’t placed with the rest of the priority bags. As the last bags came off the belt, it still was not there, so I went to the baggage office to make a claim. After taking my information, I asked when it was last scanned, and they told me SEA. Uh-oh. But my bag never should have come off the plane in SEA, so it should have at least made it to NRT.
Since all of the things I needed for my short stay in Bangkok were in my carry-on, I didn’t really mind as I was going to leave my checked bag at the airport and pick it up when I returned for my flight back to SIN. As a business class passenger though, Thai Airways (who handles all Star Alliance baggage at BKK), compensated me 4000 baht, roughly US$130. This was unexpected, and as I didn’t need the bag until two days later in SIN anyway, it was basically free money. I was a little worried that it was truly lost, but I figured that odds that it will turn up in NRT or SIN and be delivered to me were fairly high, so I decided to leave my worries for another day and continue on to the city.
