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 announced some changes on their award pricing effective 23 March 2017, eliminating both the 15% online booking discount and fuel surcharges. 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 (not including the 15% online booking discount).
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:
- 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!
- 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 Standard 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.
Hi, given that KrisFlyer miles expire after 36 months couldn’t you just transfer them to your active Velocity account. Then transfer them back when necessary? or isn’t that possible
Question,
I am Velocity Platinum member and wondering If I would be better joining/transferring to Krisflyer?
I make a few domestic trips a year, my wife and I family pool, and We travel to Europe and probably asia once a year each also. We fly economy but enjoy the lounge option that Velocity allows us. We just had a child however and fear we will start getting knocked back at the lounge now we are 3?
Is it hard to get and maintain lounge access via Krisflyer? We manage to hold platinum annually on velocity thanks mainly to our international trips.
Regards Jack
If you’ve got Platinum with Velocity, then it sounds that your current strategy is working quite well. Perhaps you could consider status matching to a Star Alliance member’s program to access lounge benefits when flying Singapore Airlines.
How does nominee option work???
Hi Matt
I am new to krisflyer. I am going to book two return tickets from Sydney to Indian subcontinent. Other passenger is not a krisflyer member. Will I earn miles worth only my booking or both bookings if I am making bookings under my account?
How do I earn miles worth for two booking in my krisflyer?
Thanks
Hi Rushi, you’ll just earn the miles on your booking and your travelling partner can earn in their account.
Where is the best platform to search for available reward flights?
Hi Matt,
I believe one origin or destination open-jaw is permitted for a round-trip award. So the above example flying to New York and flying out of Huston can actually be booked as a round trip ticket, which would also allow one free stop over.
Yes, you’re right, Ted! So that would reduce the cost of the itinerary I mention above by $100 USD as one of the stopovers would be free. Have updated the guide to reflect so. Thank you for letting me know!
I’m a bit puzzled at the moment.
If I was wanting to redeem VFF points for say 2x 1st class CDG/SYD on SIA do I look at Krisflyer or can I do it via VFF call centre?
Or am I mixing up a J redemption for SIA?
Hi Andrew, answered your question in reply to your other comment on this article.
Matt got my answer about list of eligible stopovers from here:
https://www.pointhacks.com.au/maximising-krisflyer-redemptions-using-free-additional-stopovers/
Thanks Matt for your response.
I think I understand what you are suggesting I do. What im trying to understand is whats the best way if I wanted to visit both London and Frankfurt. I do not want to stopover Singapore, and just be on transit. Correct me if im wrong, as there is no SQ flight between Frankfurt and London so only logical solution is:
{SQ} Perth –> Sing* –> London with KFF
{Any airline} get a flight London to Frankfurt with $$$
{SQ} Frankfurt –> Sing* –> Perth with KFF
*if I decide to stop over, will cost $100USD.
Is there a list of eligible stopovers between Perth and London out there on the interweb? Thanks for the help Matt.
You got it! That sounds like the logical solution. No other stopovers between Perth and London on Singapore Airlines other than Singapore allowed.
Cheers Matt. one option that I could exercise however is Perth > Sing > Frankfurt > Manchester. There is a flight from Frankfurt to Manchester. 🙂
Thanks again for your help, your guide is very helpful.
Naz
Is that flight on Lufthansa? I can’t seem to find FRA-MAN on Singapore. If you mix carriers other than Singapore and SilkAir, KrisFlyer will charge you more on the Star Alliance award chart.
Does KrisFlyer make more award seats available to higher-tiered frequent flyers? For example, there is anecdotal evidence Velocity FF can request (not guaranteed, of course) award seats but I’m curious whether you have any knowledge of KF doing something similar.
The reason I ask is because as a Velocity FF, I’m debating whether I should switch to KF. My preference for redeeming points is long-haul international flights and given VA only has 2 destinations (Abu Dhabi and LA), the value proposition of Velocity is limited.
In response to your first question, I am not quite sure if KF releases more award space to higher-tiered frequent flyers. Would be interested to hear from anyone else that has knowledge of this.
As for choosing between Velocity and KF, remember that you can transfer your Velocity points to KF, so the ‘choice’ to make is not so stark. Also, Velocity usually charges less fuel surcharges than KF does, but that’s not always the rule.
A piece of advice, however, is that if you are booking a revenue ticket in the near or distant future, check out wheretocredit.com so you can see if you will earn more points with Velocity or KF.
No, But if you are higher tier members, they can help you to put through your waitlist seats.
Question about the Free or cheap stop over:
1.) Is the Free stop over, inclusive of both ways e.g. Perth (via Singapore) to Frankfurt (stopover) then to real destination London. And on the way back London > Frankfurt > Perth (via Singapore). is the stopover in Frankfurt counted 1x or 2x? Im assuming its 1x, hence why the article made mention will only cost an extra 12500? i understand 12500 is the extra for 1 leg.
What im basically asking is will it cost me:
107500 * 2 for a stop over.; Or
107500 + 95000
2.) Correct me if im wrong, you are unable to do multi city for Flight redemption? I looked and couldnt find the button. Im assuming people search for the flight via normal booking, taking notes of the saver ‘legs’ then calling up SQ helpline to actually book it?
Hi Naz, if I understand your first question correctly, there aren’t actually any Singapore Airlines flights between Frankfurt and London, only Frankfurt and New York, which is why I gave that example.
If you hypothetically wanted to, you could do Perth-Singapore-London-Singapore-Perth on a roundtrip saver ticket, meaning you could have a free stopover in Singapore.
Or you could do two one-ways, with Perth-Singapore-London, and then returning Frankfurt-Singapore-Perth, but as it isn’t a roundtrip ticket, but rather two one-ways, you would have to pay $100 USD for any stopover in Singapore.
In response to your second question, you are completely correct. You are best off searching the separate legs/segments of the flight, and then giving Singapore Airlines a call. Because you cannot book stopovers/multi-city redemptions online, they should honour the 15% online booking discount over the phone.
An earn points via online shopping
You forgot Citibank as a credit card partner
One of the Key things in favour of Krisflyer is the ability to redeem upto 3 (and sometimes 4) business saver awards. This is almost unheard of with other FF programs. If you have a family of 3, you can all fly in J saver OR family of 4 can travel with 3 J saver and 1 J standard on the same flight. This is a great convenience for families with kids.
Great point Rahul!