So, you’ve finally decided to become a full-fledged travel hacker – to start collecting miles in order to fulfill to your dream of travelling the world. You’ve told all your friends and posted an Instagram story—no, Instagram post about it to really seal the deal. But, erm…now what?
Before you start texting your boss to ask for a sabbatical and applying for the best air mile credit card there is, read this 5-step guide to figure out how exactly you can earn, calculate and redeem your KrisFlyer miles.
(Note: This article talks about KrisFlyer miles as it’s the most popular frequent flyer programme in Singapore. General principles apply for other programmes like Asia Miles, but the specifics differ.)
Contents
Step 1: Sign up for KrisFlyer membership
Step 2: Earn KrisFlyer miles with your regular spending
Step 3: Convert your rewards points to KrisFlyer miles
Step 4: Calculate how many KrisFlyer miles you need for your trip
Step 5: Do the actual KrisFlyer miles redemption (finally!)
Frequently Asked Questions
KrisFlyer contact details
Step 1: Sign up for KrisFlyer membership
First of all, if you aren’t a member already, you’d need to sign up for KrisFlyer membership. You just need to fill in the registration form online. KrisFlyer membership is free.
Psst, you may want to check the Singapore Airlines website for a sign-up promotion, which is rare but does happen once in a while. There’s a field at the bottom of the sign up page for you to enter a promo code, if you have any.
KrisFlyer is a loyalty programme that primarily rewards customers for spending on the following airlines:
Singapore Airlines
Scoot
Star Alliance airlines (e.g. ANA, Thai Airways, Lufthansa, SWISS, United Airlines)
Star Alliance connecting partners (i.e. Juneyao Air, the only one so far)
SQ partner airlines (Alaska Airlines, JetBlue, Olympic Air, Virgin, Vistara)
For most of these, you’d earn 50% to 100% of the actual miles flown, known as KrisFlyer miles. For example, a return trip from Singapore to Bangkok is 1,760 miles.
Now comes the confusing bit.
Assuming you’re flying Economy on Singapore Airlines, you can earn 50% (880 miles), 75% (1,320 miles) or 100% (1,760 miles) in KrisFlyer miles, depending which fare class you book your tickets under. The fare class is indicated as a letter of the alphabet when you book.
If you fly Premium Economy, Business or First class, you can get 100% to 200% in KrisFlyer miles. On the other hand, if you take the same flight on Scoot, you earn only 10% to 25% of the mileage in KrisFlyer miles. Again, there’s a range because it depends on which fare class you buy.
It also means that if you’re very serious about earning miles, you might not want to fly budget.
You can refer to this KrisFlyer miles chart for earning miles to see the miles accrual rates. KrisFlyer also has a miles calculator to help you figure out the mileage for your flight.
Other ways to earn KrisFlyer miles are by spending on KrisShop and with SQ’s partners, such as hotel chains and car rental companies.
Step 2: Earn KrisFlyer miles with your regular spending
Obviously, you can earn KrisFlyer miles by buying air tickets…but that kinda defeats the point a little, right? The whole point of earning miles is to NOT pay for your flights!
What you really want is to earn KrisFlyer miles with your regular spending. That way, you’d be getting your flights for “free”.
Ideally, you would put every single dollar of expenses towards earning KrisFlyer miles. This takes commitment. It’s a lot more than just picking one credit card and hoping for the best. To play the whole miles game properly, you need to really geek out and do lots of reading up on the following ways to earn miles.
Rewards programmes: Browse through the KrisFlyer partner pages and find out which rewards programmes you can sign up for. This includes not just travel/hospitality, but also stuff like petrol kiosks, supermarkets and telcos.
KrisShop: About to check out your shopping cart? HALT RIGHT THERE. Before you buy a single thing online, make sure you go through the KrisShop to earn miles on a whole bunch of beauty, health, pets, sports, travel items and more.
Air miles credit cards: A good miles credit card is a must-have for any miles chaser—even more so if you travel a lot and/or have high local expenses. Consider getting a card with a welcome miles promotion to kick-start your KrisFlyer account balance.
Rewards credit cards: Pair your miles credit card with a rewards card to get the most out of your shopping and day-to-day purchases. The right one can let you earn up to 4 miles per $1 spent.
Here’s how you can optimise your spending for different spending categories:
Spending category
How to optimise for KrisFlyer miles
Online shopping
Shop via KrisShop + use a rewards card geared towards your spending categories
Dining
Earn Chope dollars (1,200 Chope-Dollars convert to 1,000 KrisFlyer miles) + earn 100 KrisFlyer miles per reservation you make on Quandoo + combine with dining credit card rewards points
Petrol
Earn Esso Smiles or Shell Escape points
Grab rides
Charge to Amex KrisFlyer + earn Grab Rewards points
Other day-to-day expenses
Use a rewards credit card for contactless payment
Travel spending
Book KrisFlyer partner hotels + use a miles card with high overseas earn rate
One-off expenses (e.g. home renovation, LASIK surgery)
Get a miles card with big sign-up bonus
Massive expenses (e.g. wedding banquet)
Pay with a miles card with high local earn rate
Step 3: Convert your rewards points to KrisFlyer miles
While you go crazy optimising your life for KrisFlyer miles, don’t forget that you’ll be earning a lot of these KrisFlyer miles indirectly, in the form of rewards points or bank points.
This means that at some point, you need to convert your points to KrisFlyer miles.
I can’t cover the conversion procedure of every rewards programme known to man here, but here’s a checklist of general things you should note before signing up, so you can plan your miles collecting journey properly.
Expiry date: Every rewards programme has different validity periods or expiry dates. You must know these and set a reminder to yourself to redeem them before they vanish. Don’t let your hard-earned points go to waste!
Denominations: Familiarise yourself with the rewards catalogue of all the rewards programmes you’re enrolled in. KrisFlyer is supposed to be impartial towards all their partners, so you don’t need to compare the “exchange rates”. However, the important thing to note is the denominations. Make sure you can collect enough points for the denominations offered within the time frame.
Conversion fee: If you’re converting bank points such as Citi Miles or DBS Points to KrisFlyer miles, you usually need to pay a conversion fee of $25 each time you do so. This will eat into your costs, so obviously you should accumulate as many points as possible and convert them in one shot.
Lead time: Few rewards points allow for instantaneous conversion into KrisFlyer miles. You shouldn’t convert your points just before you book your round-the-world trip and expect to see them in your KrisFlyer account right away. Buffer about a week or more.
KrisFlyer miles expiry: Whether you’re earning KrisFlyer miles directly or converting them from rewards points, they have a shelf life of 3 years. Because COVID-19 was a thing, Singapore Airlines implemented a rollover scheme that extended or rolled over points based on one’s membership cycle. Check here for more details.
Step 4: Calculate how many KrisFlyer miles you need for your trip
As you get into the swing of earning miles or rewards points, it’s worthwhile to know how many KrisFlyer miles it’ll take to get you on that flight of your dreams. This helps you identify a specific target that you can work towards.
Just to give you an idea of things, here’s how many miles you’d need to redeem an Economy Saver (i.e. cheapest) return trip to the following destinations:
Return flights
KrisFlyer miles needed
Singapore to Bangkok
25,000
Singapore to Hong Kong
30,000
Singapore to Dubai
50,000
Singapore to Melbourne
56,000
Singapore to London / Paris / Los Angeles
76,000
Singapore to New York
80,000
This table is actually a simplification. In fact, there are several factors that determine the “cost” of your flight in KrisFlyer miles.
Zone: The number of miles needed is not based on the actual distance but by zones. For example, all of Europe is in Zone 11 so it costs the same whether you fly to Greece or Sweden.
Cabin class: It’ll cost you more to fly Premium Economy, even more to fly Business, and the most to fly First Class or in the coveted Singapore Airlines Suites. That said, lots of miles chasers would rather save their miles for Business or Suites, because they’re so expensive you’d never pay for them in cash.
Saver or Advantage: These are the 2 rates for redeeming flights. As the name suggests, Saver flights cost less in miles, but they’re limited in availability. If you want more options, you’ll need to spend almost double the miles for Advantage.
All the information is readily available on the KrisFlyer redemption charts. Quick links here:
Singapore Airlines
Star Alliance airlines
SQ partner airlines (Alaska Airlines, Virgin Atlantic, Virgin Australia, Vistara and Juneyao Airlines)
But let’s be real—your brain is probably too fried to understand charts right now. Use Singapore Airline’s KrisFlyer miles calculator to figure out where you can fly for free instead.
Step 5: Do the actual KrisFlyer miles redemption (finally!)
Here’s a list of what you can do with those KrisFlyer miles you spent all that time collecting, with quick links to the relevant pages:
Redeem free flights on Singapore Airlines
Redeem free flights on Star Alliance
Redeem free flights on SQ partner airlines
Upgrade paid flights on Singapore Airlines & SilkAir
Upgrade paid flights on Star Alliance & SQ partner airlines
Use KrisFlyer miles to pay for Scoot flights
Use KrisFlyer miles to pay for non-flight stuff
Redeem free flights: You can redeem free flights, known as “award flights”, on Singapore Airlines through singaporeair.com. Star Alliance airlines and SQ partner airlines, however, are only integrated with KrisFlyer miles to some degree. If you cannot redeem your flight online, you can fill in a reservation form or call KrisFlyer to book.
Upgrade paid flights: If you don’t have enough KrisFlyer miles for the flight you want, you can use your miles to upgrade your (paid) flight to the next cabin class, i.e. upgrade to Premium Economy or Business.
Use KrisFlyer miles to pay for Scoot: Singapore Airlines has discontinued vouchers for Scoot flights, but you can still use your KrisFlyer miles as “cash” to pay for your Scoot airfare. (You’ll definitely get judged by fellow travel hackers, but hey, it’s your life.)
Use KrisFlyer miles to pay for other stuff: It’s hardly worth mentioning, but you can also use KrisFlyer miles as money to pay for stuff like KrisShop purchases or to KrisPay merchants. I guess it’s a nice way to use up random leftover miles that are expiring soon.
FAQs about KrisFlyer miles redemption & fees
If you’ve followed this guide all the way through, you should be all set for your free trip! Or perhaps some questions popped into your head:
Are there any costs when you redeem KrisFlyer miles for flights?
Yes, your award flights won’t be 100% free. You need to pay taxes and miscellaneous charges in cash. This is only a fraction of the airfare anyway, but it’s something to bear in mind.
Don’t forget you can earn miles on those extra costs if you use your air miles card to pay for that final bit of your flight!
Can you transfer KrisFlyer miles to anyone else?
No, you can’t transfer your miles to anyone else. So if you and your partner are both chasing miles, you might want to consolidate everything in one account.
That said, KrisFlyer members can select up to 5 people to form your “Redemption Group”. These KrisFlyer nominees are allowed to use your account to book flights and collect tickets, so you can “share” your account in this way with friends/family.
Selecting your KrisFlyer nominees is a commitment because if you ever change your mind, it’ll cost you US$30 or 3,000 miles each time you make changes.
What if you don’t have enough KrisFlyer miles for the flight you want?
Tough luck. Consider changing your destination to a cheaper one, flying on a lower cabin class, or waiting till you have more miles.
But if all these are out of the question, there is the option to top up extra miles with cash. It’ll cost you though. Top ups are sold in blocks of 1,000 miles and they cost US$40 per block.
Another way to “buy” KrisFlyer miles is to pay the annual fee on certain miles cards. For example, if you pay the annual fee of S$194.40 on the Citi PremierMiles or DBS Altitude, you get 10,000 miles. That’s less than S$20 for 1,000 miles, which is way cheaper than KrisFlyer’s top up rate!
What if you want to make changes to your award flights?
Book your award flights carefully, because there’s pretty much no turning back once you’ve booked. (Unless you booked Advantage, which allows you to change the date/time to suit your schedule.)
Here’s a table of fees you’ll have to pay if you want to make changes to your flight:
Fee
Cost (Saver)
Cost (Advantage)
Change date or time (Singapore Airlines or SilkAir)
US$25
Free
Change route, cabin class or award type (Singapore Airlines or SilkAir)
US$25
US$25
Change date, route, flight or carrier (partner airlines)
US$50
N/A
Cancellation / refund of miles
US$75
US$50
No show penalty
US$100 (Economy) / US$200 (Premium Economy) / US$300 (Business or First)
KrisFlyer contact details
For enquiries and certain award flight bookings (e.g. on SQ partner airlines), you will need to contact KrisFlyer Membership Services the old school way – by phone.
Tel: +65 6223 8888 (24 hours)
Address:
2 Orchard Turn
#04-05 ION Orchard
Singapore 238801
For non-urgent enquiries, there’s also an online feedback form.
Alternatively you can try to call Singapore Airlines’ ticketing office or go down to the counter to bang table, though I’m not sure how effective they’ll be at addressing KrisFlyer-specific issues.
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