Got your eyes on great-value Singapore Airlines award flights? You better act fast and lock in your travel soon, because the clock is now ticking ahead of a significant devaluation of KrisFlyer miles.
Singapore Airlines will increase the number of miles needed to book awards and upgrades in its KrisFlyer loyalty program from 5 July 2022. The impending devaluation will also trim back the popular ‘stopover’ feature from 1 August 2022. There’s a lot to digest, so here’s what you need to know.
KrisFlyer awards to increase by ~10%
As costs and demand for travel continue to soar, Singapore Airlines will raise the number of miles needed for award seats by roughly 10%. Overall, you’ll still get great value out of an award booking. But you’ll need more miles to lock it in. Key increases on ‘Saver’ awards for Australian-based travellers are shown below.
| Route/Pricing in KrisFlyer miles | Current pricing | New Pricing from 5 July |
| Perth or Darwin to Singapore or South East Asia | 20,000 miles in Economy 36,500 miles in Business | 21,500 miles in Economy 40,500 miles in Business |
| Rest of Australia to Singapore or South East Asia | 28,000 miles in Economy 47,000 miles in Premium Economy 62,000 miles in Business 85,000 miles in First/Suites | 30,500 miles in Economy 51,000 miles in Premium Economy 68,500 miles in Business 93,500 miles in First/Suites |
| Perth or Darwin to Europe | 43,000 miles in Economy 106,000 miles in Business | 47,500 miles in Economy 119,500 miles in Business |
| Rest of Australia to Europe | 53,000 miles in Economy 91,500 miles in Premium Economy 116,000 miles in Business 163,000 miles in First/Suites | 58,500 miles in Economy 101,000 miles in Premium Economy 130,500 miles in Business 183,500 miles in First/Suites |
For reference, here is the new award table applicable from 5 July 2022. Use it to check other routes you may have planned, and be sure to go to Page 2 for Saver awards.
You’ll also need more KrisFlyer miles to upgrade on Singapore Airlines and Star Alliance flights, as well as to book awards on Star Alliance and partner airlines. You can see the revised award tables for those categories here:
- Singapore Airlines new upgrade chart →
- Star Alliance new award chart →
- Star Alliance new upgrade chart→
KrisFlyer award stopovers are being trimmed
KrisFlyer has traditionally offered a generous stopover policy, where you can take a break in between flights while paying the lower one-way award rate throughout. Unfortunately, some of the key benefits of this policy are set to change for new bookings made from 1 August 2022. In a nutshell:
- Complimentary stopovers will be limited to up to 30 days.
- You can no longer pay to add additional stopovers on award bookings.
By limiting stopovers to 30 days, the new policy will really curb some of the more adventurous routings we used to write about. And since you won’t be able to add paid stopovers for US$100 anymore, you’ll have to rely on booking a specific award type to get access to stopovers.
| Ticket type | Saver award | Advantage award |
| One-way | No complimentary stopovers | One complimentary stopover |
| Return | One complimentary stopover | Two complimentary stopovers |
What about booking Singapore Airlines with Velocity Points?
At this stage, the number of Velocity Points needed to book Singapore Airlines flights is not changing. These rates are set by Velocity Frequent Flyer, which has a partner reward table. It’s worth noting that Velocity hasn’t devalued its points tables for quite a few years.
Summing up
Devaluations are never good news in the frequent flyer world. But by the same token, they’re not unexpected either. KrisFlyer awards were last changed in 2019. Now, just three years later, the travel landscape has been completely reshaped by COVID-19.
The increase in award costs is close to 10% across the board. But for cheaper rewards, the changes might still be tolerable. For example, my favourite redemption is Perth to anywhere in South East Asia for 36,500 miles in Business. That’s now increasing to 40,500 miles – paying 4,000 miles more is something I can work with.
But for someone looking to fly from Sydney to London, for example, that award is now increasing by 14,500 KrisFlyer miles in Business Class. You’ll need to work a bit harder to make up that shortfall.
Overall, KrisFlyer awards still represent great value. For the Sydney-London award I mentioned earlier, the value per mile drops marginally from 3.40 cents per mile to 3.03 cents per mile when looking at a $8,482 Business Class return fare in May 2023. That’s taking into account the AU$585 of taxes on the return award booking.
And Singapore Airlines reward seat availability is among the best in the industry right now. That’s still worth something to us.
That’s very disappointing
Biggest shame is the stopover, you’d think they would have left that option for at least Singapore itself to encourage travelers to spend time in the city.