Singapore Airlines has quietly introduced a USD250 (~AU$370) service fee for new KrisFlyer Star Alliance Round-the-World Award redemption bookings.
According to Mainly Miles, Singapore Airlines introduced the fee on 1 March 2023. KrisFlyer did not give advance warning to its members about the change.
The new round-the-world redemption service fee is outlined on the Singapore Airlines website, which says:
A service fee of USD250 per ticket will apply for new Star Alliance Round-the-World (RTW) redemption bookings. An additional service fee of USD25 per ticket will apply for any subsequent servicing. These fees are waived for bookings by all PPS Club members and supplementary cardholders.
It’s not possible to book a KrisFlyer Star Alliance Round-the-World ticket online. That’s why there was previously no service fee charged for booking over the phone, via an email reservation request form (not recommended) or in-person at the Singapore Airlines service centre at the ION Orchard shopping mall.
That said, some call centre staff have incorrectly tried to charge booking fees in the past for round-the-world award bookings.
It’s still not possible to book one of these tickets online, as the Singapore Airlines website simply doesn’t have the capability. But you’ll now be charged for the privilege of booking over the phone (or using any of the other methods).
Will this result in better booking experience?
Booking a round-the-world award with KrisFlyer miles has never been a particularly easy exercise. It can be quite hard to find available award flights and to build an itinerary that meets all of the routing rules for this redemption. But prior to COVID-19, once you had found a workable itinerary, you at least had a reasonably good chance of successfully booking your ticket through the Singapore Airlines call centre.
Unfortunately, during the pandemic, Singapore Airlines closed its Singapore-based call centre. This had been staffed with knowledgeable, experienced agents. Now, calls are instead directed to less experienced operators in the Philippines or India. Many of these staff have little or no experience with booking these round-the-world awards.
There have been many reports on the Australian Frequent Flyer forum over the past year of KrisFlyer members encountering all sorts of difficulties when trying to book a Star Alliance round-the-world award. Here’s one example…
I called Singapore Airlines last night, at about 10pm AEST, to book *Alliance RTW flights. She couldn’t see the flights that I could see, and said there was no availability.
– Skyhawk, 16 September 2022
Skyhawk was able to successfully make a booking around two months after making that post, which you can read about here. But it was a painfully slow process.
Other AFF members weren’t so lucky…
I have made two calls in a week to try to make a Star Alliance RTW award booking. On both calls the SQ rep had no idea what the Star Alliance RTW tool was and could not make any use of the itinerary route reference which I had. So on both calls I had to spend 20 minutes reading out the route to staff who had little familiarity with airport codes. After being put on hold for 15-20 minutes on both occassions I was told there was no availability, even though I had separately checked the availability of award tickets on those dates/sectors using the United award booking page. Their only solution was to call again on another day and repeat the whole process.
– WGM, 19 September 2022
This seems to be the state of affairs at SQ now. Armed with the AFF info on the SQ awards points required for an RTW itinerary I tried to get them to at least tell me how many points were required, so that I could transfer the correct number of points (and no more) from Amex. No way could they, or would they, tell me. I thought that I would fix it a couple of weeks ago by asking the bouncer at the Private Room in Singapore (that’s the separate room in the First Class lounge by invitation only) to tell me the points required for a specific itinerary, with all airport codes provided. She came back 40 minutes later with sorry, the itinerary couldn’t be confirmed due to lack of info from Air Canada. If they can’t get the info, sitting at the top of the tree, then I guess the info just isn’t there. Or, as WGM says, the service has slipped severely.
– ThePointyEnd, 19 September 2022
I’ve just spent 3 days planning things before calling the call centre and I’m not even done.
A problem cropped up when I told them my route, because the only way for me to find award flights on a potential route, was to include one downgrade to economy between BOG-EZE.
However, the agent says that their system will not allow me to include a downgrade! Of course this is ridiculous, if I’m “paying” with points for a business class award, that they cannot let you fly economy if you need/want.
– zan5hin
For the record, the rules do allow passengers booking a round-the-world award in Business or First Class to fly some legs in Economy.
Others have been able to book successfully. One AFF member suggests calling in the middle of the night for the best chance of speaking to a knowledgeable person at the Singapore Airlines call centre.
I had great success calling Kris support line around 2am-4am Syd time. This is their quiet time and you can speak to a RTW award specialist who knows the ins and out else you have to make multiple calls
– Igreen, 11 November 2022
If Singapore Airlines is using this USD250 service fee to train its call centre representatives and upgrade its booking systems, that may actually be an improvement over the previous situation. That said, we suspect this change is mainly designed to discourage people from trying to book these awards in the first place. Time will tell…
Hopefully, anyone paying this fee will at least be transferred straight through to someone with expertise in these types of award bookings!
About the KrisFlyer Star Alliance RTW Award
With the Star Alliance Round-the-World Award, KrisFlyer members can fly around the world on any Star Alliance airlines for a fixed number of KrisFlyer miles (plus taxes and now the USD250 service fee). The price is:
- 200,000 KrisFlyer miles for Economy Class,
- 280,000 KrisFlyer miles for Business Class, or
- 405,000 KrisFlyer miles for First Class.
See our guide to the KrisFlyer Star Alliance Round-the-World Award for more details about the routing rules and how you can put one of these trips together!
