A couple of weeks ago, Singapore Airlines’ frequent flyer program KrisFlyer announced its first change in award pricing in five years, affecting flights ticketed from 23 March 2017 onwards – and that day has crept up, so if you’re sitting on a KrisFlyer balance, it could be time to act.
In short – KrisFlyer are increasing the cost of many awards but also reducing the amount of taxes and charges to pay in cash with them. If you want to book at the lower points prices, you should look at this in the next couple of days.
At the time we noted that the increase in some award pricing and elimination of the online booking discount look negative, when you factor in the savings on fuel surcharges, in some cases you’ll come out ahead and in others paying more, so it’s worth looking at the big picture.
Here’s our summary from when the changes were first announced.
What is changing?
- Change 1 (negative): 15% online booking discount to disappear
- Change 2 (positive): elimination of fuel surcharges on Singapore Airlines and SilkAir flights
- Change 3 (mixed, thanks to changes 1 and 2): increase in Saver award pricing on Singapore Airlines and SilkAir flights to/from most of Australia and New Zealand, North Asia, Europe and the US
What is staying the same?
- Saver Awards for Premium Economy
- The higher priced Advantage Awards for all sectors and cabin classes
- Upgrade Awards for all sectors and cabin classes
- Star Alliance award chart
- Other partners’ award charts, e.g. Virgin Australia
Change 1 (negative): 15% online booking discount to disappear
A nifty feature of KrisFlyer was the ability to access a 15% discount on award flights when booking online or via the mobile app, and in cases where you had to phone the call centre because you could not complete an online booking and they would honour the discount.
The online booking discount currently reflected in the top right-hand corner will disappear
This discount will now be eliminated, bringing the program into line with most of its competitors.
Change 2 (positive): Elimination of fuel surcharges on Singapore Airlines and SilkAir flights
Even though KrisFlyer’s fuel surcharges were neither low like some US airlines nor extravagant like British Airways or Lufthansa, the elimination of these charges helps to temper the increase in award pricing on some routes and, in fact, reduces the real cost of awards to medium-haul destinations like much of Asia and the Middle East.
In welcome news, you’ll no longer be liable to pay fuel surcharges (YQ) on Singapore Airlines or SilkAir award flights
Change 3 (mixed): Increase in Saver award pricing on Singapore Airlines and SilkAir flights in 5 of 13 zones
I have analysed the change in points pricing on a range of routes from Australia and deepened the analysis by calculating how much you will save or be out of pocket when factoring in the savings on fuel surcharges you will no longer have to pay.
Here are the links to the old award chart and the new award chart.
I made the following assumptions:
- We aim to redeem KrisFlyer miles when we get at least 2.2 cents per mile from them – I’ve used this to calculate the ‘real cost’ of an award
- Pricing is for one-way travel
- ‘Old rate’ automatically includes the 15% online booking discount
Some people would value KrisFlyer miles lower than our current 2.2c valuation so you’ll need to bear that in mind when reading the results.
Pay attention most to the fourth column showing the points change in percentage terms – which may scare you on the surface – and the last column showing the real cost change.
| Route | Old rate | New rate | Points change | Fuel surcharges savings | Old total cost | New total cost | Estimated total cost change |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Perth - Singapore | 27,625 | 32,500 | +18% | $166 | $774 | $715 | -8% |
| Adelaide - Mumbai | 61,625 | 76,000 | +23% | $331 | $1687 | $1672 | -1% |
| Melbourne - Tokyo | 65,875 (Business) 80,750 (First) | 83,000 (Business) 105,000 (First) | +26% / +30% | $207 | $1656 $1984 | $1826 $2310 | +10% +16% |
| Brisbane - San Francisco | 85,000 | 110,000 | +29% | $482 | $2352 | $2420 | +3% |
| Sydney - London | 80,750 (Business) 112,625 (First) | 105,000 (Business) 148,000 (First) | +30% / +31% | $356 | $2133 / $2834 | $2310 / $3256 | +8% +15% |
On the surface, it doesn’t look good when you look at an average increase in outright redemption pricing of 27% across these routes.
However, when we factor in the estimated savings you’ll make on fuel surcharges, with these examples and our valuation of miles, only an average increase in real cost terms of 6%.
Two contrasting examples
Let’s look at the first and last examples:
Whilst a one-way Business Class award from Perth to Singapore will increase 18% from 27,650 to 32,500 miles, we think you’ll now save $166 in fuel surcharges. It’s hard to say for sure, but that’s our assumption at this point.
Valuing KrisFlyer miles at 2.2 cents a piece, the old pricing costs $774 in dollar terms ($0.022 x 27,650 miles + $166 fuel surcharges), whereas the new real cost will be $715 ($0.022 x 32,500 miles + $0 fuel surcharges), representing a saving of $59.
Looking at the last example of a First Class ticket from Sydney to London, you’ll be up for a 31% increase in terms of points required but will save $356 in fuel surcharges, tempering the overall real cost increase to only 15%.
Our take: how the changes will affect you
The winners (or lowest losers) in these changes are travellers based in Perth and Darwin wanting to travel anywhere except North Asia, Europe and the US (East and West Coast).
Those four zones, along with the rest of Australia and New Zealand, are the only ones that have increased their pricing, with all others staying the same.
That means that if you are planning on booking travel from Perth or Darwin to a zone other than those mentioned above, it would be best to hold off until after the changes as your real cost will decrease.
If you are going to one of the long-haul destinations, you’ll save by booking before the changes occur.
If you are based near one of the other Australian airports that Singapore Airlines serves (Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane and Adelaide), it would be best to book in the next three weeks as all flights from this zone will increase in price, regardless of destination.
This applies if you are currently waitlisted for a flight too, so try to get it ticketed before 23 March or else the new pricing will kick in.
Finally, if you’re travelling between or within any of the eight zones that are not affected by increased pricing, such as Cape Town to Singapore or Manila to Jakarta, you’ll be better off waiting.
The following Point Hacks guides have been updated as a result of these changes:
- 9 of our favourite ways to get the most out of 100,000 KrisFlyer miles
- 7 reasons why KrisFlyer is one of our favourite frequent flyer programs (and 4 downsides)
- How to and why to transfer your points between Velocity and KrisFlyer
- A guide to redeeming KrisFlyer miles on Singapore Airlines’ A350 service to San Francisco: make it a RTW for an extra 8,000 miles + $200)
- Singapore Airlines new Singapore – Canberra – Wellington route now open for Velocity & KrisFlyer redemptions
- How to redeem Velocity points for Business & First Class flights to the USA from Australia
- The airlines and frequent flyer programs that charge the lowest fuel surcharges
- The best value frequent flyer program redemptions – the programs and routes to target
- The best uses of 100,000 Velocity Points
- All you need to know about using points to travel with infants
- What can you use 100,000 Amex Membership Rewards points for?
- How to get to Italy using your Qantas, Velocity, Asia Miles or KrisFlyer points/miles
- How to get to Mexico using your frequent flyer points
- How to get to India using your Qantas, Velocity or other frequent flyer points
- The best options to get to South Africa using frequent flyer points
What do you think of the changes? And how will they affect your travel plans?
Matt, I’d love your feedback on this… Adelaide to Bali is known as backtracking and instead of charging me 28,000 miles as they should (zone 9 to zone 2), it always takes me an hour on the phone to SQ (it can’t be booked online as backtracking) to convince them not to sectorise it and charge me 33,500 miles. I have flown this route so many times yet every time I book it is a massive headache. They always try to do this. I booked last night at 28,000 after an hour of discussion. They put it in the system next to my waitlist. This morning my waitlist has come through and they are saying they will not honour the 28,000. Blind Freddy can see that is what the cost is in their own chart. Still waiting for a call back from the manager. 🙁
That most definitely sounds frustrating, Susan. I would suggest copying and posting this in the Questions section to see if anyone else has had the same experience and/or can suggest a quicker way to get the lower pricing next time.
This means that I am more likely to use my amex explorer points on Cathay Pacific for Sydney to Europe business redemptions rather than KF as value is better. Subject to availability of saver biz fares on both ofc.
Anyhow, availabily is still the determining factor in the end. Often I fly one way with one airline in eco (e.g. use velocity miles for an economy redemption on ethiad or quantas miles on one world) and use Cathay or SQ for a business class the other way, depending on how avails work out.
Thanks Matt for the article. Its deeply disappointing that Sia have decided to follow AA and basically shaft the majority of their loyal following.
Transferred my Amex 120K signup bonus and have booked 2 SYD to LHR o/w in suites in Feb 2018. All confirmed and taxes paid. Going to take the chance and simply change the booking dates for Sept 2018 later .
Reading all the blogs Pointhacks and others, I really can’t see that their is a clear consensus that this isn’t possible without throwing more points at KF. Happy to take the risk, 60k Plus is better in my pocket then SIA.
Hi Jackson, I did the same and booked my Euro flights for Feb which I will then push out later in the year. I did ring KF to confirm and at first they said the new rates would apply but when I questioned further they advised that if only the flight dates and nothing else changed then the no additional charges/points would apply. This makes sense given KF let you make date changes for no fee up to 24h before your flight. So if they do try to charge you more when changing the dates I would challenge it. I also 100% agree with your sentiment that this change is pretty disappointing, but then again I guess they didn’t have any incentive to keep redemption’s lower than the competition when they arguably have a better product as well.
How do you calculate the Fuel/Insurance changes?
For example, if I book today for IAH-BKK roundtrip, I’m paying 132,000 miles + ~$650usd according to the checkout screen.
After the change, it will be 176,000 miles + ? what? I’m thinking most of the $650 is going away if it’s just airport taxes left but can’t figure out what that would be. (IAH-ICN-SIN-BKK and back)
I have the hardest time redeeming Krisflyer points so it’s worth it to me to pay more points (since I prefer using Korean Air for US-Asia travel as I get way more eligible dates). Now to wait with fingers crossed the open travel dates don’t change in the next 3 weeks and go to waitlisted…
The best place to look for approximate fuel surcharges is on Google’s ITA Matrix search engine.
Hi Matt,
So when using ITA to search a fare, you would remove the fare price along with the SQ YQ surcharge, and that should give you the estimate of the fees/taxes you would pay – is that right? First time I’ve used ITA Matrix search engine so trying to wrap my head around it. Thanks
That’s correct! That should give you a pretty accurate estimate.
Excellent, thanks!
Good article Matt!
I’ve got my AMEX plat bonus points sitting in my account that I was going to transfer to KF. are they still a good option for premium class travel despite the new changes?
Thanks for the great article Matt.
One question… if you waitlist a flight now (for example Melbourne to Amsterdam in September on a business saver), which is currently advertised at 95k points, when it comes around to the time of the flight, will it cost 95k points if the waitlist gets cleared, or will it have automatically increased to 105k points under the new awards pricing? Thanks in advance
Hi Mike,
Any newly ticketed tickets after 23 March would be based on the new mileage chart. In your case, 105k.
There is hardly any good news with this change – think of it as effectively your money in bank losing approximately 20% in its value. The frustrating thing about this is, that it comes at a time when Australian reward cards are altering earn rates (i.e. due to interchange fees).
In my humble opinion, the rates indicated in the article do not take into account the further loss in value of Krisflyer miles as a result of increased redemption rates (and especially so, at a time when earning rates are rapidly changing.)
Whilst I understand that this is likely a commercial decision, it certainly makes the proposition of the program significantly less attractive to passengers on this side of the planet.
The math on your BNE-SFO fuel savings is wrong- i see it as $480.80 that you would save on a one-way booking- not $166
Thanks, Dean. You’re correct. I erroneously calculated based on a two-stop itinerary via SIN and HKG instead of one stop via SIN. That significantly reduces the overall real cost increase on BNE-SFO from +19% to +3% and lowers the average across routes from 8% to 6%. Post updated.
For those thinking “Oh I’ll just book thru velocity direct and save points now”, I’m sure Velocity is going to ‘update’ their award charts to reflect the Krisflyer change too. They did when Etihad started charging per sector.
Availability of velocity reward seats with singapore seem a lot lower than going straight with kf? (east cost to london/amsterdam)?
What do you think is likely to happen with confirmed bookings that you want to change?
I already have a confirmed flight but have also waitlisted a preferred one, suppose they would just keep the old pricing with no changes right?
For a first class europe redemption, is there any point in booking now for any available date and then changing the date of the flight when I know my actual travel dates?
Hi Jules,
From other travel blogs, I have read that someone asked a SQ agent and got the following response:
“any changes to cabin class or destination/routing will result in a reissue fee & recalculation of miles. But if you’re just changing dates the revalidation will be complimentary with no additional miles charged. The new dates must also be within the validity of the ticket (12 months from date of first flight).”
My take on this is if you know you will travel before March 2018 and you value KF miles more than saving $, you can book now and change the dates later. Best to reconfirm this by ringing up SQ and asking the agent.
(I gleaned this from another forum.)
Changes to the following will cause the new awards chart to come into play:
* cabin class
* destination
* routing
Changes to dates (as long as they’re within a year of original first flight) won’t cause a recalculation.
So I guess you should be OK, Jules?
I’m actually planning on travelling to Europe July 2018. I was told that there is a $20usd reissue fee for changing the dates of flights post 12 month ticket validity. Should I book now for Feb 2018 and then try for my actual travel dates later? Or will I need the extra points to change my travel dates to 2018?
I am also wondering this, although risky unless specifically said by a kf agent. my gut is as per the previous post, doing this will recalculate the points and you will need to front the additional points of cash.
otherwise what stops people rorring this
I too am extremely frustrated with this as I was planning on booking for July 2018 from AUS to Europe in Business for 2 people (after saving my points for 3 years) so now am contemplating booking now and then moving dates later. I guess I will call KF to confirm before doing it but seems reasonable to me that a date change alone should be allowed without the additional charge. For me this will be approximately 100K more points for the same booking which would take well over a year for me to earn.
Cool – thanks for the reply folks. I agree and think you should be able to book now and change later without significant penalty.
Thanks Keith – I will be eagerly awaiting that article!
Matt – how much is it to upgrade from ECONOMY to business via points now?
Hi Emily,
see the following quoted from Krisflyer announcement
“Mileage levels for the following remains unchanged:
*Saver Awards for Premium Economy Class
*Standard Awards for all sectors / cabin classes
*Saver/Standard Redemption Upgrade Awards for all sectors / cabin classes
*Star Alliance Award Chart
So, the upgrade mileage costs remain unchanged.
http://www.singaporeair.com/en_UK/sg/ppsclub-krisflyer/use-miles/redeem-miles/kf-change/
I booked some award J flights on Singapore Airlines through Velocity. When I factored in the surcharges I didn’t bother to transfer pts to Krissflyer as it was a close call and I have quite a few Velocity points.
Going by my one experience and looking at these increased charges it would make more sense now to just book direct with Velocity unless of course I wished to redeem 1st Class flights.
this of course is assuming that Velocity don’t change their award redemption rates.
Might be worth a comparison article?
Yep, we will update our existing guides and comparisons in coming weeks to get a conclusion on Velocity vs KF.
Impacts obviously on the value of transferring Velocity over to krisflyer with the removal of the 15% as it was a way to mitigate the slight hit in point ratio transfer
Hi Matt,
Will there still be any cash component to pay for redemption tickets? I’ve always preferred there to be some $$$ to pay because I’ve been able to use my Amex to pay for it and thus take advantage of the travel insurance etc that comes with the card.
There will presumably still be airport taxes and government charges totalling a few tens of dollars so no worries there.
In fact, the text at the top of the award chart confirms it:
“Awards start from 7,500 KrisFlyer miles and from US$24 in taxes, charges and fees”
Hi,
If you look at the breakdown of the fare costs in Change 2 above, you can see that there are all sorts of government charges outside of the Base fare (top value-e.g. $7504) and airline charges (YQ).
So in answering your question, yes there will still be a small cash component, depending on your port of departure.
I actually don’t mind this, as there’s always ways to find points when you need them but no real way to avoid paying fuel surcharges (sometimes over $1000 for KF redemptions).
Probably most interesting is that this removes the option of transferring from Velocity to KF as the points required for most routes are now almost the same.
eg. Aus East Coast to Europe: 139k Veloctity (~103k KF transferred) or 105k KF outright.