Singapore Krisflyer devaluation coming in November: Small increases, but adding dynamic awards

As flagged earlier this week by One Mile at a Time, Singapore Krisflyer has announced some award chart changes coming as of November 1, 2025. Most award redemptions are only increasing by 5-10%. On its own, the award price increases aren’t too tough to stomach and I appreciate Singapore providing both advance notice and clear explanation of the changes. Perhaps more concerning is that Singapore is introducing “Access awards”, which will be dynamically-priced awards that can be booked when regular awards aren’t available. Hopefully, that doesn’t lead to a more widespread adoption of dynamic pricing.

Most awards for travel on Singapore metal increasing by 5-10%

Singapore releases very little premium cabin award space to partners (and even when they do, only select partners have access), so if you want to fly Singapore Airlines in a premium cabin, you’ll probably have to book via Singapore Krisflyer.

If you do that from November 1, 2025 onward, you’ll pay a bit more than if you do before that date.

The following are the pertinent award charts (note that the more expensive “Advantage” award pricing is listed on the first page, Saver awards start on page 2):

• Award chart for travel on Singapore Airlines that is booked by October 31, 2025
• Award chart for travel on Singapore Airlines booked from November 1, 2025 onward

The following are the notable changes highlighted by Singapore Airlines in their announcement:

• Flights within Asia and South West Pacific (Zone 1 to 9): Economy, Business and Suites/First Saver award redemption rates will increase by 5%. With this increase:
  • Economy class increases from 29K to 30.5K each way
  • Business class increases from 68.5K to 72K each way
  • First class increases from 93.5K to 98K each way
• United States to/from Europe (Zones 11 to 13) Saver award rates will increase by 5% across all cabin classes. With this increase:
  • Economy awards increase from 25K to 27.5K each way
  • Premium economy awards increase from 52K to 57K each way
  • Business class awardsincrease from 81K to 89K each way
  • First class awards increase from 97K to 106.5K each way
• Flights to and from Africa, the Middle East, and Turkey (Zone 10). Award rates will increase 10 to 20%.
• Advantage award rates (the higher-priced awards currently sometimes available when “saver” awards are not available) across all zones and cabin classes, except for Zone 10, will increase by 10 to 15%. For Zone 10, the Economy Advantage rates will increase by 5%, the Business Advantage rates by 18%, and Suites/First Advantage rates by 15%.
• All redemption bookings confirmed and ticketed on or before 31 October 2025 2359hrs (GMT+8) will be based on current award rates.

On the whole, the increases aren’t awful. I never enjoy seeing award rates increase, but I much prefer knowing about the increases before they happen and that Singapore tends to only make small adjustments.

Star alliance awards also increasing in price

Star Alliance awards are also increasing in price by about 10% in most cases. Frankly, most Star Alliance awards aren’t a great deal through Singapore anyway. You can almost always get a better deal through a program like Avianca LifeMiles or Air Canada Aeroplan (or even United Mileage Plus) if you’re looking to book a Star Alliance award.

For instance, business class Star Alliance awards between North America and Europe are increasing in price from 81K each way to 89.5K each way. Neither of those is a great price for a Star Alliance award anyway, so the increase on awards like that probably won’t have a huge impact on most readers.

As One Mile at a Time points out, economy awards within North America increase from 14K each way to 15K each way. Business class awards increase from 26K to 29K. Again, those usually won’t be your best deal for booking a Star Alliance award within North America anyway and the increases there are very slight compared to those we see from other programs when they devalue.

Introduction of dynamic “Access Awards”

Within the announcement of the above changes, Singapore Krisflyer also announced the introduction of “Access Awards” from November 1, 2025 onward. This is how they describe the awards:

With Access redemption, you will have an added option to use your KrisFlyer miles to pay and secure confirmed Singapore Airlines flight tickets immediately on your preferred flights as long as there are available seats. The number of miles required for seat confirmation will differ based on the demand for seats and may vary throughout the year.

Seats available for Access redemption are over and above the seats available for award flights. With the new Access redemption option, you will be able to use your miles to secure available seats on your preferred flights even if award seats are fully redeemed.

In other words, Access Awards will purportedly increase your….access….to seats using your Krisflyer miles. According to the FAQs page, the introduction of these dynamically-priced awards will not reduce availability of Saver and Advantage awards but rather be an above-and-beyond expansion of access to seats. In other words, Singapore is saying that they will continue to offer the same sort of availability for Saver and Advantage awards and will offer Access awards when regular award inventory wouldn’t otherwise exist anyway.

We don’t yet know what kind of pricing to expect here, but it will surely be higher than the Advantage rates. Access awards will also share the same more favorable award change and cancellation fees as Advantage awards.

If this really is just expansion of the use of miles, this might not be so bad. I’m sure that some folks have tons of Singapore miles and would be happy just to be able to use them even if the value per mile isn’t great. And if some people choosing to use miles poorly makes it possible for Singapore to continue to offer Saver and Advantage award space to those who can plan around it, that might not be a bad thing. On the other hand, I certainly don’t like dynamic award pricing and I think it is reasonable to fear that this is a first step in the direction of a dynamically-priced program.

The good news there is that Singapore tends to be slow to make changes, so I wouldn’t expect further significant changes for a couple of years either way. Time will tell whether Access awards ultimately reduce our access to great value.

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