Singapore Airlines using Miles

Note: Read the primer on Using Miles if you have not already.
Singapore Krisflyer has separate award charts for flights on Singapore Airlines only and for flights with their Star Alliance partners. Generally, the best use of Singapore Krisflyer miles is for their own flights in business, first, or suites class. Another good option is partner award flights within North or South America, including Hawaii and the Caribbean. Other options tend to either cost too many miles or charge too much in fuel surcharges to be competitive.

Award Chart: Flights on Singapore Airlines as well as Flights with Star Alliance and Flights with Non-Alliance Partners (incl. Alaska Airlines). Flights on non-alliance partners cannot be combined with flights on Star Alliance partners in a single award.
Changes: $25 for Singapore Airlines flights and $50 for partner airlines. A $25 fee is added for any service that is done over the phone if it could have been accomplished online.
Cancellations: $75 to cancel and redeposit your miles. The same $25 fee mentioned above potentially applies here too.
Close-In Booking Fees: None.
Stopovers and Open-Jaws: One stopover and one open-jaw for international round-trip awards (stopovers in the country of departure are excluded). Up to three stopovers can be added to an award (even a one-way award) for $100 each.
Fuel Surcharges: Yes, but none on a) Singapore/Silkair awards, b) Air New Zealand, Avianca, and Copa, nor c) partner awards within North and South America. Fuel surcharges on ANA, Ethiopian, EVA, LOT Polish, Scandinavian, and Turkish can be low also.
Sweet Spots: Singapore Airlines flights in Business/First/Suites Class. Alaska Airlines flights in Economy Class (between most of their destinations in the U.S., Canada, and Central America). Flights within North America (including Hawaii) in Business/First Class or to Southern South America in Business Class. Also note that Hawaii, Central America, and the Caribbean are all considered to be within the same zone, so travel between these regions can be relatively cheap as well. Flights within South America, South Pacific, or Africa.

Go to Singapore. Create an account if you do not have one already.
Fill out the form and submit. Review your results, and select the flight you are considering. You can also edit your search or view results on the next or previous day. As of December 7, 2017, there is now the option to show flights for Star Alliance or Other Partner airlines.
The Booking summary in the top right will update with the cost in miles plus any taxes and fuel surcharges. (Optional) If you are searching one way or one segment at a time, repeat this process for any other legs of your trip and assemble them into a single trip.
Select your flights and complete your booking. For some partners, e.g. Alaska Airlines, you will need to call (800) 742-3333 to book your award.

Suites Class
One of the most fun ways to redeem Singapore Airlines KrisFlyer miles is for awards in Singapore Suites.

To fly Singapore Suites, you need to pay only for a first class award, but it must be on a route flying the Airbus A380. In other words, on an A380, first class is an enclosed suite. Singapore’s routes that fly an A380 are shown in the table below. The reverse direction (i.e. return trip) for all these options does as well. Make sure to check the plane details when booking because they will sometimes fly other planes on these routes and will offer you those options as well.

Origin Destination Miles
New York Frankfurt 86,000
Singapore Auckland 85,000
Beijing 53,000
Frankfurt 125,000
Hong Kong 40,500
London 125,000
Mumbai 53,000
New Delhi 53,000
New York 132,000
Paris 125,000
Shanghai 53,000
Sydney 85,000
Zurich 125,000

Searching With United Airlines
If you are booking an award with Star Alliance partner airlines rather than on Singapore Airlines directly, you may still want to search following the steps at Searching With United Airlines. Although Singapore Airlines has now added the option to search for and book Star Alliance partner awards online, the interface is still a bit clunky. Ultimately, you may want to go back to Singapore Airlines to book your flights to avoid the $25 phone booking fee. Otherwise, you can call Singapore Airlines at (800) 742-3333 to complete your booking over the phone.

Searching With Alaska Airlines
Similarly, if you are booking an award with Alaska Airlines, you will want to use their own award search to find availability. You will also have to call Singapore Airlines at (800) 742-3333 to book the flights you found, but they should waive the $25 phone booking fee since Alaska’s award space does not show on Singapore’s website.

Advanced Tips & Tricks
Waitlisting Awards Before Booking Your Flight – If you’ve found award availability, but the option presented to you is not your ideal choice, consider waitlisting awards for other itineraries that you prefer. Waitlisting Singapore awards is free, but you must have enough miles in your account to book your award. Since no miles are deducted when you waitlist, this means that you can waitlist as many awards as you like prior to booking your non-ideal option that has availability. Should availability come up via waitlist on a more ideal routing in the future, you can then change your itinerary to your preferred one. Note that waitlisted awards are automatically canceled if they do not clear within fourteen days of the departure date.

Finding Extra Award Availability by Adding Segments – If you’re searching for an award, especially to Singapore, and cannot find any available seats in your class of choice, try adding another segment to your trip (e.g. search for LAX-NRT-SIN-HKG rather than just LAX-NRT-SIN). Oddly enough, it appears that Singapore reserves some extra seats for people connecting in Singapore rather than selecting it as their final destination. This doesn’t help, of course, if you intend to actually visit Singapore, unless you can carry on all of your bags and skip the last segment.

Saving Miles with a Stopover – A partner award from South America to the US costs 30,000 miles, while an award from South America to Hawaii (via the US) costs 25,000 miles. Thus, you could spend $100 more and 5,000 miles less to have a “stopover” in your hometown and a flight to Hawaii later. There are likely other instances like this in the award chart.

0 thoughts on “Singapore Airlines using Miles”

  1. This is really interesting, You are a very skilled blogger. I’ve joined your rss feed and look forward to seeking more of your excellent post. Also, I have shared your web site in my social networks!

    Reply

Leave a Comment