Last week, Singapore Airlines increased the cost of most KrisFlyer redemptions for travel on Singapore Airlines and SilkAir. Curiously, however, there was no increase to the cost of award flights on Star Alliance partner airlines. This means that most KrisFlyer redemptions are now cheaper if you redeem miles for a Star Alliance award.
With KrisFlyer, a Star Alliance award is any flight redemption that includes travel on a Star Alliance partner airline/s. This also covers bookings the use a mixture of flights on Singapore Airlines and other Star Alliance partners, such as Thai Airways, Turkish Airlines, United and Lufthansa.
Here is the full list of Star Alliance airlines:
This means that you’ll now spend fewer KrisFlyer miles if you have at least one Star Alliance partner airline flight in your award booking. For example, it now costs 116,000 miles one-way to fly Singapore Airlines from eastern Australia to Zurich, Switzerland…
But if we add a short Swiss Air flight onto the end of the trip, the price decreases to the lower Star Alliance award rate of 105,000 miles…
There are many other routes where it’s also cheaper to book a Star Alliance award. For example, a Singapore Airlines Business Saver award from Melbourne to Wellington now costs 31,000 KrisFlyer miles. But if you add on an Air New Zealand flight from Wellington to anywhere in New Zealand, the price drops to 28,000 KrisFlyer miles. (Note that the connecting Air New Zealand flight would be in Economy as Air New Zealand does not operate a domestic Business class cabin.)
There are a few differences in the routing rules between Singapore Airlines/SilkAir awards and Star Alliance awards, making Star Alliance bookings a little more restrictive. In particular:
- SilkAir flights cannot be included in a Star Alliance award.
- Stopovers are not permitted on one-way Star Alliance awards. (On one-way Singapore Airlines/SilkAir Saver awards, you can add a stopover for USD100.)
- Maximum 6 flight segments on Star Alliance awards.
Interestingly, booking a KrisFlyer Star Alliance round-the-world with up to 7 stopovers now requires fewer miles than booking a round-trip Singapore Airlines award ticket from Australia to North America in Business class.
Would you like help using your frequent flyer points?
Australian Frequent Flyer offers a personalised service that’s designed to take the hard work out of redeeming your frequent flyer points!
Our Frequent Flyer Concierge team can help you to find the perfect flights using your points. Just let them know how many points you have and where you would like to go, and they’ll prepare an itinerary for you.
