Singapore Airlines has announced a new initiative called “KrisFlyer for Families”. Essentially, this is a family pooling program allowing families to pool miles earned by children with their parents or guardians (for a fee). The first 5,000 parents and guardians who link their child’s account to theirs between now and 8/31/21 will receive 500 KrisFlyer miles, so this makes for some free easy miles for families through the end of this month.
The Deal
- Singapore Airlines is launching “KrisFlyer for Families”, a mileage-pooling program allowing children’s accounts to be linked to a parent/guardian to transfer miles from the child to the parent. They are offering 500 free miles for those parents/guardians who link a child’s account by 8/31/21.
- Direct link to more information
Key Terms
- 500 bonus miles available for linking a child’s account by 8/31/21
- Note that a child must be 2 years old to be eligible for a KrisFlyer account
- Once a child’s account is linked to a parent/guardian’s KrisFlyer account, the link cannot be changed. The two accounts will be automatically delinked when the child turns 16.
- 500 KrisFlyer miles will be credited to the parent/guardian’s account for the first child account linked to the parent/guardian’s account. Applicable to the first 5,000 parent/guardian accounts linked.
- You will not be able to transfer miles from the parent’s account to the child’s account.
- Your child’s account must have at least one miles accrual from a flight in the last 36 months and no miles accrued from credit card transfers or co-brand card spend in the last 36 months.
- You can transfer up to 50,000 KrisFlyer miles from your child’s account to yours every calendar year.
- For every 5,000 KrisFlyer miles (or part thereof) transferred from your child’s account, you will be charged a fee of USD 5 or 500 miles.
Quick Thoughts
The new KrisFlyer for Families program makes it possible for a family to pool miles by connecting children’s KrisFlyer accounts to the account of a parent or guardian. Note that there is a limit of 5 child accounts that can be linked to one adult KrisFlyer account and a limit of 50,000 KrisFlyer miles per child’s account can be transferred to the parent each calendar year. However, note that service fees will apply for the miles transferred. It will cost $5 or 500 miles for every 5,000 KrisFlyer miles or part thereof transferred from the child’s account. On the one hand, paying $50 to transfer 50,000 miles from the child’s account to the parent’s account isn’t so expensive as to make it not worth it, but on the other hand you already paid for the tickets to earn the miles in the first place and you’ll be charged $5 whether you transfer 2,000 miles or 4,500 miles or 5,000 miles — if you have less than enough miles for an even increment of 5,000 you’ll either be stuck paying the $5 or leaving orphaned miles that expire in 36 months. It sure beats not being able to pool the miles at all, but it isn’t quite ideal either.
However, the first 5,000 parents who link a child’s account between now and the end of August 2021 will receive 500 KrisFlyer miles. Unfortunately, earning more miles does not reset the expiration of Singapore miles, so this will really only be useful if it will push you closer to an award ticket that you’d like to redeem. Still, free miles are free miles.
Somewhat oddly, the terms indicate that once the child’s account is linked to a parent or guardian it cannot be changed. That probably isn’t an issue for most people / in most situations, it just seems like an unnecessary restriction if situations change. Note that you’ll only get 500 miles for the first child linked to your account — you will not get 2,500 miles for linking all 5 of your kids.
Also somewhat odd is that the terms indicate that the child’s account needs to have earned at least one mile from a flight every 36 months (no surprise there as that’s kind of par for the course for Singapore), but what is strange is that it says the child must have had no miles accrued from credit card transfers or co-brand card spend in the last 36 months. I can’t immediately imagine the situation where your less-and-16-year-old would have been in position to get miles from a credit card transfer, but it’s odd that doing so would prevent them from being able to pool miles.
Overall, this is surely good news for those whose primary program is Singapore and who fly paid tickets with their children.
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