Due to Singapore Airlines’ unpopular “time-stamping” policy, unused Singapore Airlines KrisFlyer miles expire after three years.

Unlike with Qantas points or Velocity points, simply maintaining a bit of activity on your account won’t extend the validity of your expiring KrisFlyer miles. If you have Singapore Airlines KrisFlyer miles that are due to expire soon, you need to either extend or use those miles to avoid losing them forever.

Here’s what you can do…

How to check when your KrisFlyer miles will expire

You can check when your miles are due to expire by logging into your KrisFlyer account on the Singapore Airlines website. On your “Account Summary” page, scroll down to view the “expiring miles” section. If you happen to have miles within the next six months, they’ll be itemised here.

Note that when redeeming KrisFlyer miles, the oldest ones are always used first. So if you’re constantly earning and burning miles, you’ll probably be OK. But with the time-stamping policy, KrisFlyer miles are not a long-term investment!

Redeem your KrisFlyer miles

The obvious solution is to redeem your KrisFlyer miles for something of value. The best value redemption is award flights.

Book a flight

You could use your miles to book a flight with Singapore Airlines, Star Alliance or another partner airline such as Virgin Australia.

You can even redeem your miles to book a flight for someone else. You can nominate up to five “redemption nominees” on your KrisFlyer account and use your KrisFlyer miles to book flights for them. These can be any KrisFlyer members – they don’t necessarily have to be family members.

Even if you only have a small amount of KrisFlyer miles, you could redeem as little as 12,000 KrisFlyer miles (plus taxes) for a one-way Virgin Australia domestic flight within the eastern states.

You can use your KrisFlyer miles to book an award flight that takes place after your miles expire. Singapore Airlines allows award bookings up to 355 days in advance. You would just need to book before the miles expire.

Please note that if you cancel a KrisFlyer award flight booking after the miles would have expired, you will not get a refund of the miles. However, changes to existing award bookings are possible.

Other redemption options

If you don’t have enough miles or simply don’t want to book a flight, there are also various ways to redeem KrisFlyer miles on the ground. For example, you could:

• Book a hotel or rental car via KrisFlyer vRooms,
• Use at least 1,000 miles to offset purchases on KrisShop.com (125 miles = SGD1),
• Convert to KrisPay miles (1:1 conversion rate) and redeem within six months on Kris+, or
• Donate miles to Make-A-Wish Singapore

Transfer your KrisFlyer miles to another loyalty program

If you’re a Velocity Frequent Flyer member, an easy solution is to simply transfer your expiring KrisFlyer miles into your Velocity account.

Your miles will lose some value in the process, as the conversion rate is 1.55 KrisFlyer miles = 1 Velocity point. However, once in your Velocity account, your Velocity points will never expire as long as you continue to earn or redeem at least one Velocity point every two years.

You could also convert your KrisFlyer miles into one of the following hotel loyalty programs:

• Shangri-La Circle (12 KrisFlyer miles = 1 Shangri-La Circle point; minimum 20,000 KrisFlyer miles per conversion)
• Marriott Bonvoy (2 KrisFlyer miles = 1 Marriott Bonvoy point; minimum 3,000 KrisFlyer miles per conversion)
• Accor Live Limitless (4.5 KrisFlyer miles = 1 ALL point; minimum 4,500 KrisFlyer miles per conversion)

Converting KrisFlyer miles into hotel points is fairly poor value. For example, if you transferred 9,000 KrisFlyer miles to Accor Live Limitless (ALL), you would receive 2,000 ALL points. Those are worth €40, or around AU$65, towards an Accor hotel booking.

But, as with any redemption, at least it’s better than losing the KrisFlyer miles entirely!

Pay to extend the miles

If you need more time to use them, Singapore Airlines does offer the option to extend the validity of your KrisFlyer miles for a fee.

You can extend the validity of expiring miles for another six months for a cost of 1,200 miles or USD12 per 10,000 miles (or part thereof). If you’re a KrisFlyer Elite Silver or Elite Gold member, including as a HSBC Star Alliance credit card holder, the same fee will extend your miles for another whole year.

Become a PPS Club member

KrisFlyer’s PPS Club and Solitaire PPS Club members are not subject to the three-year mileage expiry rule.

If you have a large number of KrisFlyer miles due to expire, this is one way to avoid losing them. However, it is an extreme measure as to achieve PPS Club, you would need to spend at least SGD25,000 (excluding taxes) in one year on Singapore Airlines Business or First Class flights!

Matt Graham

The editor of Australian Frequent Flyer, Matt's passion for travel has taken him to over 90 countries… with the help of frequent flyer points, of course!
Matt's favourite destinations (so far) are Germany, Brazil & Kazakhstan. His interests include aviation, economics & foreign languages, and he has a soft spot for good food and red wine.

You can connect with Matt by posting on the Australian Frequent Flyer community forum and tagging @AFF Editor.