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Singapore Airlines' KrisFlyer program is renowned for its premium service and extensive network, offering travelers numerous ways to earn and redeem miles. With a strong presence in Asia and connections worldwide, KrisFlyer provides its members with a range of benefits and opportunities. This guide will explore how to earn KrisFlyer miles, highlight valuable redemption options, explain the program’s expiration policy, and discuss how to earn elite status and the nuances of Singapore Airlines' award pricing.
How to Earn KrisFlyer Miles
Flying on Singapore Airlines
Earning KrisFlyer miles is straightforward when flying on Singapore Airlines. Miles are earned based on the distance flown, fare class, and your membership status. Higher-tier members earn bonus miles.
Flying on Partner Airlines
Singapore Airlines is a member of the Star Alliance, which means you can also earn miles when flying with any of the 26 Star Alliance member airlines, including Lufthansa, United Airlines, and ANA. Additionally, Singapore Airlines has partnerships with other airlines, such as Virgin Australia and Alaska Airlines, allowing you to earn miles on these flights as well.
Partner airline earning is neatly determined as a function of your fare class and distance traveled. How much you’ll earn varies significantly from airline to airline, but it all comes down to your fare letter code. For instance, when flying on Lufthansa Airlines, you can elect to earn Singapore Airlines miles as follows:
Credit Card Transfer Partners
Singapore Airlines has several US transfer partners, which makes it relatively easy to quickly accumulate KrisFlyer miles:
Here are some of our favorite cards you can get to gain access to easy KrisFlyer miles.
Buy Singapore Airlines Miles
You can’t just simply purchase Singapore Airlines miles from a points store similar to how you can for other airlines. Rather, you can only purchase them when you’re actually checking out an award flight. Additionally, you need to have at least 50% of the miles needed to purchase the flight in your account when you are checking out in order to be prompted with the special purchase miles options.
Unfortunately, this is by no means a good deal. Purchasing miles is extremely expensive and can cost you anywhere between 3–5 cents per mile. Rarely is that worth doing, but it could be worth considering if you are only a few thousand points away from a rare business/first class redemption.
Do KrisFlyer Miles Expire?
KrisFlyer miles expire 36 months after they are earned. There are no options to extend their expiration date, except by converting them into KrisFlyer miles vouchers through the KrisFlyer Milestone Rewards program, which allows for a 6-month extension. It’s important to monitor your account to ensure you use your miles before they expire.
How To Earn Singapore Airlines Elite Status
There are actually two types of Singapore Airlines elite status: KrisFlyer and the PPS club.
KrisFlyer Elite Status
To qualify for KrisFlyer Elite Silver or Gold, you need to earn Elite miles by flying on Singapore Airlines, SilkAir, or any Star Alliance partner airline. Elite miles are earned based on the distance flown and fare class. The qualification requirements are:
- KrisFlyer Elite Silver: 25,000 Elite miles in a membership year.
- KrisFlyer Elite Gold: 50,000 Elite miles in a membership year.
Benefits of elite status include priority check-in and boarding, extra baggage allowance, lounge access (for Elite Gold and PPS Club members), complimentary seat selection, and more.
PPS Club
Getting PPS club status is no joke. While you can earn KrisFlyer Elite Gold status from flying any fare class, you can only earn “PPS Value” flying First Class, Business Class, or Singapore Suites products.
PPS Value is based on your total airfare and applicable surcharge, but not airport taxes. Additionally, it’s calculated in Singapore dollars, so any purchase is converted back to SGD. There are two major tiers:
- PPS Club Member: 25,000 PPS Value in a membership year.
- PPS Solitaire Club: 50,000 PPS Value in a membership year.
The PPS club confers some incredible benefits for its most loyal Singapore Airline flyers, including a special check in at the First Class counter at Changi Airport, priority immigration, first class SilverKris lounge access, and an APEC business card. I’m sure there are also many soft benefits provided to ensure these members get the highest degree of attention and service available.
Who Are Singapore Airline’s Partners?
Being a part of the Star Alliance, Singapore Airlines has a long list of partner airlines with reciprocal status recognition, mileage earning/redemptions, and more. With Singapore Airlines status, you’ll see how much time and money you can save during your journey at the airport.
Singapore Airlines also has several interesting (random?) partners. For example, Singapore and Alaska Airlines are partnered, despite them being in completely different alliances. You can even earn Alaska miles when flying on Singapore flights—super cool.
How Singapore Airlines Prices Its Award Flights
KrisFlyer miles can be redeemed for award flights on Singapore Airlines and its partner airlines. The number of miles required for a flight is based on a region-based award chart, making it relatively straightforward to understand the cost in miles. Singapore Airlines offers two types of award redemptions:
Singapore Airlines Award Chart
Singapore Airlines award flights are priced into two broad groups:
- Saver Awards: Lower mileage requirements but limited availability.
- Advantage Awards: Higher mileage requirements but more availability.
While Advantage Awards can be significantly more expensive, they are oftentimes more available than their Saver counterpart (for good reason).
Here’s a snippet of how Singapore prices its saver award flights:
According to Singapore, the world is basically split up into 13 different zones. Zone 12 refers to the USA (West Coast) & Canada, while Zone 13 refers to East Coast USA & Houston.
Singapore Airlines Star Alliance Award Chart
Singapore’s Star Alliance award chart is based on round trip pricing, so to get to one way, you simply divide it by two.
Singapore Airlines Sweet Spot Redemptions 2024
KrisFlyer miles have a lot of general use cases that could provide tremendous value when optimally used.
West Coast US To Singapore On Singapore Airlines Business Class: 107k Miles One Way
You can fly nonstop across the Pacific ocean in one of the world’s best business class products starting at just 107,000 miles one way. Advantage pricing starts at 128,500 Krisflyer miles one way.
Fly United Business Class For Just 36k Miles One Way
As always, you can find partner airlines booking domestic US airlines for cheaper than the US airlines could ever offer themselves. In this particular instance, you could book United Airlines business class (even transcon ones) for just 36,000 KrisFlyer miles each direction. That’s pretty good compared vs what United will sometimes charge for transcon routes.
Singapore Airlines Spontaneous Escapes
Every month or so, Singapore Airlines releases its awesome spontaneous escapes promotion, which features highly discounted deals for Singapore Airlines flights around the world. While you need to book these relatively close in (think 1-2 months before departure), if you have the flexibility, this could be an incredible deal for you.
For instance, in the past, we’ve seen deals where you could fly business class from JFK <> Frankfurt for just 56,700 KrisFlyer miles. Considering this route is served by Singapore Airlines’ A350-900 and features some incredible business class seating, it is quite the steal.
Singapore Airlines Award Cancellation Policy
Singapore charges relatively reasonable fees to reinstate your points if you need to cancel your flight. They also explicitly define other scenarios, such as date change or route change fees.
Conclusion
Singapore Airlines' KrisFlyer program is a valuable frequent flyer program with extensive earning and redemption opportunities. Whether you're a frequent traveler or an occasional flyer, understanding how to maximize your KrisFlyer miles can help you get the most value and enjoyment from your travel experiences with Singapore Airlines and its partners.
