This five-star luxury hotel brand’s frequent flyer program offers 500-1000 airline frequent flyer points per stay, bonus points if you link your account to KrisFlyer, and generous status benefits if you are an American Express Platinum Charge cardholder.

Locations & key hotels

Shangri-La is on the smaller side of a hotel chain, covering five brands – Shangri-La Hotels, Shangri-La Resorts, Traders Hotels, Kerry Hotels and Hotel Jen – at just 111 hotels worldwide.

The vast majority are in Asia, particularly Mainland China, Hong Kong, Malaysia and The Philippines.

Here in Australia, we have three properties in Sydney (which we gave a five-star rating here), Brisbane and Cairns.

The view from the Shangri-La Sydney

The bar at the four-star Hotel Jen in Brisbane

The Shangri-La in Cairns is right on the marina

There is also a Shangri-La resort on Yunaca Island in Fiji.

And the other key hotels of interest outside of our region are: three in Europe (London, Paris and Istanbul), two in Canada (Toronto and Vancouver), and properties in the main Gulf stopover cities of Dubai, Abu Dhabi and Doha.

A Shard room at the Shangri-La, London

A deluxe room at the Shangri-La, Dubai

Benefits of linking your Golden Circle and KrisFlyer accounts

Under the Infinite Journeys partnership, which we have a separate guide about here, you’ll get the following benefits:

• earn double KrisFlyer miles on a return Singapore Airlines flight taken by 31 May 2017
• double-dip by earning KrisFlyer miles and Golden Circle points on Shangri-La stays (see ‘Earning points’ below)
• fast track to KrisFlyer Gold status if you have Golden Circle Jade status, automatically available to holders of the American Express Platinum Charge Card

Earning points with Golden Circle

Every time you stay at a Shangri-La property, you can choose to earn either Golden Circle points or between 500 and 1000 points/miles per stay (not night) across a wide range of airline frequent flyer partners.

Depending on where your points allegiances lie, we would go for the following:

• Qantas Frequent Flyer (1000 points)
• Velocity Frequent Flyer (1000)
• Cathay Pacific Asia Miles (500)
• Singapore Airlines KrisFlyer (500) – earn Golden Circle points and KrisFlyer miles by linking your accounts
• Etihad Guest (500)
• British Airways Executive Club (500)
• American Airlines AAdvantage (500)

Redeeming points with Golden Circle

If you have accumulated a Golden Circle points balance, you have two options for redemption:

• you can transfer a minimum of 2500 points at a 1:1 ratio to any of the program’s frequent flyer partners
• you can redeem your Golden Circle points at Shangri-La properties, starting at 1,000 for a Standard Room in smaller Asian cities right up to 20,000 in London, Paris and The Maldives. Executive suites will set you back 3,000 to 20,000 points. Australian properties are around the middle of the pack. You can check out the award chart here.

Status

Golden Circle has three tiers of membership (from lowest to highest), with the following benefits:

• Gold: welcome fruit platter
• Jade: complimentary breakfast for two, complimentary room upgrade (where available), 11am early check-in and 4pm late check-out (where available, but not at some hotels in China, Tokyo, Canada and The Maldives), and choice of three welcome gifts
• Diamond: same as Jade, plus 8am early check-in and 6pm late check-out (where available) and the choice of three welcome gifts includes bottle of wine

You can check out the requirements for achieving each status tier on the Golden Circle website.

Your status is valid until the end of the next calendar year (31 December) after you achieve/requalify for it.

Tie-up with Amex Fine Hotels & Resorts

The American Express Fine Hotels & Resorts benefits at Shangri-La Hotels typically include:

• 12pm early check-in (subject to availability)
• 4pm late check-out (guaranteed)
• $100 USD food and beverage credit
• Full buffet breakfast for two
• Room upgrade (subject to availability)

Current offers

You can access a full list of all current offers here.

Summing up

If you are looking to stay at a Shangri-La property in the future, make sure to credit your stay to the most appropriate airline frequent flyer program for your situation.

By linking your Golden Circle and KrisFlyer accounts, you’ll get bonus points.

And those readers lucky enough to be American Express Platinum Charge cardholders will automatically get generous status benefits and a fast track to achieving KrisFlyer Gold status.

Some photos courtesy of Shangri-La.