KrisFlyer Finally Corrects Cairns Award Pricing Error

Singapore Airlines’ KrisFlyer program has finally fixed an error where its website was overcharging for certain award tickets to and from Cairns.

In August 2023, the AFF community identified an anomaly with KrisFlyer Advantage award tickets between Cairns and four different zones on the KrisFlyer award chart being priced higher than they should be. This affected Economy Advantage and Business Advantage awards between Cairns and anywhere in Europe, Africa, the Middle East or North America, for travel on Singapore Airlines.

It took a while, but Singapore Airlines finally fixed the last of these pricing errors this week.

What was the incorrect pricing being shown?

The pricing error affected Singapore Airlines Advantage awards between Cairns and the following destinations, which are in Zones 10-13 on the KrisFlyer award chart:

• Zone 10: Africa, Middle East & Türkiye
• Zone 11: Europe
• Zone 12: USA west coast & Canada
• Zone 13: USA east coast

For example, the Singapore Airlines website was charging 218,500 KrisFlyer miles for a one-way Business Advantage award from Cairns to San Francisco. The correct price should have been 169,500 KrisFlyer miles.

Similarly, KrisFlyer was selling Business Advantage awards from Cairns to London for 213,000 miles. The correct price is 154,000 miles.

Here’s a full breakdown of Advantage award pricing that the Singapore Airlines website was showing, compared to the correct pricing:

Saver vs Advantage KrisFlyer awards

Singapore Airlines offers two types of KrisFlyer award tickets: Saver and Advantage. Saver awards are cheaper, but Advantage awards usually have more availability.

The Saver award pricing has always been correct. But some people would want to book Advantage awards for the free stopover, or because Saver awards were unavailable on the flights they wanted. In any case, members deserve to be able to access awards at the advertised price.

Singapore Airlines has now fixed this pricing error

Australian Frequent Flyer first alerted Singapore Airlines to these errors in August 2023. The airline ultimately fixed the pricing error affecting routes between Cairns and Europe, Africa, Türkiye and the Middle East in around June 2024, after we contacted the airline again.

This week, Singapore Airlines finally corrected the KrisFlyer Advantage award price error between Cairns and North America. Its website is now displaying the lower, published prices.

We’re not really sure why this error specifically affected redemptions to and from Cairns, and not any other Australian routes. We suspect it was not deliberate; it was most likely just some sort of coding error. Nonetheless, that being the case, it’s unclear why it took so long to fix.

Singapore Airlines flies its Airbus A350 to Cairns

Either way, this is good news for Cairns-based flyers who can now access the correct KrisFlyer Advantage award pricing on the Singapore Airlines website.

Singapore Airlines flies its regional Airbus A350-900 featuring 40 lie-flat Business Class seats between Singapore and Cairns.

There’s often good Saver and/or Advantage award availability on the Cairns-Singapore route. These flights are also timed well to connect to and from Singapore Airlines’ European services. That’s really handy if you have KrisFlyer miles and want to fly from Cairns to London, Paris, Zurich, Milan or elsewhere in Europe!

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.