Singapore Airlines to devalue (a little), but adds Scoot flight redemptions

Singapore Airlines has announced a modest devaluation of its KrisFlyer programme for bookings made from 1st November. 

The full announcement is on the website here.

The good news is that it isn’t terrible, and there is some upside regarding redemptions on low cost sibling Scoot.

To quote:

Members will benefit from a reduction of 5% in Economy Saver award redemption rates for flights within Asia and South West Pacific (Zones 1 to 9).  

Business and Suites/First Saver award redemption rates for Zones 1 to 9 will increase by 5%. 

Saver award rates will increase by 5% across all cabin classes for flights to and from Europe and the United States of America (Zones 11 to 13). For flights to and from Africa, the Middle East, and Turkey (Zone 10), rates will rise by 10 to 20%. 

Advantage award rates across all zones and cabin classes, except for Zone 10, will increase by 10 to 15%. For Zone 10, the Economy Advantage rates will increase by 5%, the Business Advantage rates by 18%, and Suites/First Advantage rates by 15%. 

KrisFlyer is a rarity amongst frequent flyer schemes in that it tends to change its pricing every 2-3 years (more often than most) but only in small increments (smaller than most). It is almost as if it is making inflation-linked adjustments.

Here are the links you need to the award charts (PDF):

• Singapore Airlines bookings made by 31st October
• Singapore Airlines bookings made from 1st November
• Star Alliance partner bookings made by 31st October
• Star Alliance partner bookings made from 1st November

There are also 5% to 10% increases in upgrade pricing.

The airline has also announced, without giving details, that it will be giving members the ability to redeem points for ANY Singapore Airlines flight. This will be on a revenue based basis, presumably similar to how Etihad Guest operates – ie if no reward seats are left, you will be shown a mileage cost equivalent to (at a guess) 1 US cent per mile based on the cheapest cash ticket.

If we look at the ‘sweet spots’ I highlighted in this HfP article:

• ‘Europe to the Middle East’ (eg flying Lufthansa or Turkish to Dubai via Frankfurt or Istanbul) goes from 67,000 miles return in business class to 74,000 miles return

• ‘Europe to South Africa’ (eg flying Lufthansa, Ethiopian, SWISS, Turkish to Johannesburg) goes from 120,000 miles return in business class to 132,000 miles return

• ‘Europe to the Maldives’ (Turkish Airlines is the most common carrier) goes from 120,000 miles return in business class to 136,000 miles return

• ‘Istanbul to Singapore’ on Singapore Airlines jumps from 113,000 miles return in business class to 136,000 miles, assuming you can find a day with ‘Saver’ availability. Taxes are also exceptionally low – just US$27 from Istanbul to Singapore and S$65 in the other direction.

Scoot now has its own reward chart

Singapore Airlines has quietly rolled out a reward chart for its discount carrier Scoot. Scoot flights were previously only available on a revenue based basis, ie you got a fixed value per mile used.

You can find it here (PDF).

Prices are exceptionally low – flights start at 1,500 miles one-way – although this is still not necessarily a bargain once taxes and charges are added, so do the maths. Scoot redemptions are non-refundable.

Find out more

The official announcement of the changes is here.

If you want to find out more, I recommend you read this article on the Singapore-based HfP-style site Mainly Miles.

In terms of earning miles if you are UK based, we wrote a full article on how to earn Singapore Airlines KrisFlyer miles from UK credit cards which you can find here.

The obvious route is transferring American Express Membership Rewards points.  As you can see here, it is a 3:2 airline partner from the UK scheme. Singapore Airlines is one of two UK Amex airline partners where the transfer rate is not 1:1. The other outlier is Emirates which is 4:3.