As Australia’s third-largest international carrier, Singapore Airlines’ KrisFlyer frequent flyer program is one of the most useful frequent flyer programs for travellers from our region.

Its unique partnership with Virgin Australia’s Velocity program, flexible change policy, great stopover options and easy earning opportunities means it should be on most frequent flyers’ radars.

But it’s not without its downsides, so this guide explores both the good and bad of KrisFlyer.

Note that Krisflyer made some changes to their award pricing from 23 March 2017 onwards and Star Alliance redemptions from 7 December 2017, with a mix of both positive and negative changes. All figures below have been updated accordingly.

Ability to transfer to/from Velocity

Singapore Airlines releases more saver award space to its own members, so sometimes it is worthwhile to transfer your Velocity points to KrisFlyer.

Plus, if you want to save some of your Velocity points, especially now that Singapore Airlines have eliminated fuel charges on award bookings, the taxes for the same flight across both programs are now virtually the same.

For example, a Business Class ticket from Sydney to London would cost 139,000 Velocity points plus $90 in taxes if booked through Velocity, but you’d save ~10,750 points and pay the same amount in taxes if you transferred Velocity Points over to KrisFlyer.

Whether you use Velocity points or KrisFlyer miles will depend on the specific Singapore Airlines redemption you have in mind.

There are very few cases where it would make sense to transfer the other way round, i.e. from KrisFlyer to Velocity, but if you find a good-value redemption opportunity, that certainly is a possibility.

It’s the only way to fly Singapore Airlines Suites

You cannot redeem partner points (such as Velocity or United MileagePlus) for First Class travel on Singapore Airlines flights, meaning you have to transfer them to KrisFlyer in order to enjoy the luxury of the First Class Suites on the A380 on services to Sydney, London, Paris, New York, Los Angeles, Frankfurt, Zurich, Beijing and Shanghai, amongst others.

Free or cheap stopovers

One of the best ways to maximise an award redemption on KrisFlyer is to add stopovers – usually in Singapore, but available at some of Singapore Airlines’ appealing mid-point cities including Frankfurt, Manchester, Tokyo, and Hong Kong.

For example, a one-way saver award from Sydney to Frankfurt via Singapore costs 105,000 KrisFlyer miles in Business Class and 148,000 in First.

If you redeemed Sydney to New York via Singapore and Frankfurt, it would cost you 118,000 miles in Business and 152,000 miles in First, which is only 13,000 and a meagre 4,000 miles more, respectively.

You have two great stopover opportunities here:

1. If you redeem a one-way saver award, you can buy a stopover for $100 USD. So you could fly to New York with a longer stopover of your choosing in Frankfurt, and use Frankfurt as your European launch pad for an extra 13,000 miles in Business! The difference is even less with a First Class round-trip award – only 4,000 miles! Not that we’d pay it, but a one-way First Class retail fare between Frankfurt and New York costs almost $6,000!
2. Or, if you wanted to hit up even more cities, you could double that one-way saver price to make it a roundtrip saver award, which also allows you to do an open-jaw within the same region (US East Coast) and gives you one free stopover (with additional ones available for purchase at $100 USD each). Singapore Airlines flies to New York and Houston (not really ‘East Coast’, but whatever), so you could fly from Sydney to New York via Singapore and Frankfurt, and then back from Houston to Sydney via Manchester and Singapore. That means you can visit Singapore (purchase $100 USD stopover), Frankfurt (free stopover), New York, Houston and Manchester (purchase $100 USD stopover) for 236,000 in Business Class or 304,000 in First Class + $200 USD for the two additional stopovers, which is a pretty great deal in my opinion.

You can read more in our guides to including stopovers on Singapore Airlines-only and combination Singapore Airlines-Star Alliance flights.

Easy to earn

KrisFlyer has partnerships with all the major Australian banks, with the key partners being:

• American Express Membership Rewards
• Westpac Altitude Rewards
• ANZ Rewards
• St. George Amplify Rewards

Don’t forget that ability to transfer points from Velocity to KrisFlyer makes any Velocity-linked credit card a KrisFlyer-earning card too.

Flexible change and cancellation policy

Singapore has one of the more generous policies when it comes to changing your travel plans.

It offers free date changes on Singapore and SilkAir flights, and charges $20 USD on partner airlines.

If you find a cheaper Saver award available after you have already booked a more expensive Advantage award, you can pay $12-20 USD to change the award type. The same fee is charged for changing route or cabin class.

Or, if you need to cancel your award booking and want the miles re-credited to your KrisFlyer account, you only have to fork out $30 USD. Compare that to Qantas’ 5,000-point cancellation fee.

Simple to book

KrisFlyer’s online booking system is quite easy-to-use compared to other frequent flyer programs.

Tip: If you cannot book a certain award online (e.g. Sydney to New York with a stopover in Frankfurt), you can do so over the phone and prices should be the same now that they have eliminated the 15% online booking discount.

In our experience, we have encountered by-and-large quite knowledgeable and helpful phone agents if do you need to call to make an enquiry or booking.

Two other benefits of the booking system are that there are no close-in award booking fees for booking 21 days or less from departure, like with American and United, and you can waitlist awards, meaning you put your name down in case award space opens up in the future (which it often can), but you do need to have required amount miles already in your account to do so.

Part of the largest alliance in the world

Singapore Airlines is one of Star Alliance’s 27 members (compared to SkyTeam’s 20 and oneworld’s 15), meaning you have more diverse redemption opportunities on airlines like Lufthansa, SWISS, ANA, United and Turkish Airlines.

Downsides

KrisFlyer is not without its downsides:

• KrisFlyer doesn’t release much space to partners, such as Velocity and United, which means it is protecting its own back
• Due to Premium Economy being added to the award chart, which is great for people that want to redeem Premium Economy seats. However, for a large portion of frequent flyers, this is bad news, as for upgrades from Economy that used to get you to Business, now it will only get you to Premium Economy where that cabin exists on a flight
• Miles expire 36 months after acurral regardless of other activity, which is different to a lot of other airlines where you just need to earn more miles to extend the validity of all of them. If you want to extend their validity by six months, you’ll be up for a $12 USD or 1,200-mile charge per 10,000 miles

Summing up

KrisFlyer is a program that’s definitely engaged in the Australian market, with connections to all major Australian banks, which makes them easy to earn. Their unique partnership with Velocity means KF miles can be earned in many more ways too.

The best uses for KrisFlyer miles are on Singapore Airlines flights, especially on their world-renowned A380 Business and First Class cabins, with the new nonstop (only Business and Economy Class) A350 service from Singapore to San Francisco that started in October 2016 offering a great way for especially travellers from WA and SA to get to the US in style.

Their flexible change and cancellation policy is one of the best around and the free/cheap stopover options mean you can do combination trips on the cheap.

KrisFlyer have improved its standing by eliminating fuel surcharges in their recent announcement but they can go further by releasing more award space to their partners, but a lot of airlines seem to be going in the opposite direction, so it’s just joining the pack in that respect.