Introduction
Yesterday, I looked at some hotel choices that looked pretty nice in Southeast Asia, now I just have to identify options for getting around. Since I’ll be flying into and out of Singapore, the logical choice is using Singapore’s KrisFlyer program.
Award Chart
The Krisflyer program determines the cost of the award by zones (15 of them). As you can imagine, with 15 zones, the chart is pretty big, so I’ve got a snipped subset below.
KrisFlyer Saver One Way award chart – zones 1-9.
If you want to look at the full award chart, you can find it here.
I did a brief search with KrisFlyer’s calculator, and had to beef it up to Business class to narrow it down to just 35 destinations costing 20,000 (or 7,500 or 12,500 miles in economy) or fewer KrisFlyer Miles. This is at the saver level, but I think it really shows the value if you are originating in Singapore.
Mapping Singapore’s Zone 1 to Zones 2 & 3 awards www.gcmap.com
But wait! It gets better! If you book it all online, you can save 15% the miles!
How to get Singapore KrisFlyer Miles
The KrisFlyer program is one of the easiest to transfer miles to, as you can move points from all three major “transferable points” programs, that is, Chase Ultimate Rewards (UR), American Express Membership Rewards (MR), and Starwood Preferred Guest (SPG) Rewards. I’ve tested transferring points from all three programs, and noticed no lag transferring Chase Ultimate Rewards or American Express Membership Rewards points to KrisFlyer. SPG on the other hand has had a delay.
So really, the question isn’t necessarily how to get KrisFlyer miles so much as it is about getting UR, MR, or SPG points (Update: You can also transfer Citi Thank-you points!). I think the chart below underscores why transferable points are so great.
Chase UR, American Express MR and SPG Airline Transfer Partners.
Conclusion
This was just a quick overview of Singapore’s KrisFlyer program’s cool uses when you’re in Singapore. There are other benefits to flying Singapore Airlines if you’re visiting Singapore (such as discounted hop-on-hop-off bus tickets), I’ll try to cover that after I return, so I’ll have the freshest information. I’m sure the savvier of you are already thinking that there has to be some sweet spots on the KrisFlyer chart – I’ll start looking through and see if I can find anything fun to write about and hopefully have something next week.
Note: Kenny at Miles4More has a great series for sweet spots across a variety of airline programs.
I don’t know if you care, but a flight to LOP or MDC puts you in two of the top ten scuba diving spots in the world. If we lived in Singapore, we’d be there far too frequently (and to AMQ via Garuda).
Very cool, thanks! I have only tried scuba diving in a pool — one of these days I will get certified. Even without diving Manado looks very beautiful.
Nah, Manado’s nothing to see on land. Bunaken is peaceful, but the good stuff is under the surface. However, those are wall dives with strong currents and aren’t recommended for beginners. If you’re looking to start, I’d recommend one of the first places we visited, Pemuteran in northwest Bali. There’s also good diving at the Liberty wreck in northeast Bali. No currents, same clear water and fish. (For the record, I have zero interest in Nusa Dua; you can rent houses with pool and servants in Bali for very cheap.)