Singapore Airlines has announced that as of December 7th, partner awards will be bookable online. That’s exciting news as it means you will no longer need to call in to Singapore Airlines for partner awards. However, along with that news comes a devaluation on a number of partner awards without much notice. Thankfully, most of the changes aren’t massive — and Singapore KrisFlyer miles are pretty easy to come by since they are transfer partners with all of the major transferable currencies. Awards on Singapore Airlines are not changing at this time.
Old Chart vs New Chart
For reference, here is a look at the chart for bookings made through December 6th, 2017:
And here is the new chart from December 7th:
A few key changes
As first pointed out by Monkey Miles, here are the key changes (prices for one-way flights):
| Region | Class | Old Price (through 12/6/17) | New Price from 12/7/17 |
| North America to Europe | First | 80K | 95K |
| North America to Southeast Asia | First | 112.5K | 135K |
| North America to North Asia | Business | 87.5K | 105K |
| North America to North Asia | Economy | 45K | 54K |
| North America to Middle East | First | 75K | 90K |
| Europe to South America | First | 92K | 117.5K |
| North America to Southwest Pacific | Business | 97.5K | 117K |
| North America to Southwest Pacific | First | 127.5K | 152.5K |
While the chart above doesn’t represent all of the changes, it does highlight some of the changes likely to be of interest to North American readers. As you can see, a number of business and first class awards are going up in price. Also note that there will continue to be a phone booking fee of $25 / 2500 miles for making any bookings/changes over the phone that could be done online. The phone booking fee is waived for bookings/changes that can’t be made online.
Bottom line
In terms of percentages, a number of those price changes may look fairly significant. That said, Singapore KrisFlyer is a transfer partner with Chase Ultimate Rewards, Citi ThankYou points, American Express Membership Rewards, and Starwood Preferred Guest. It’s pretty easy to amass Singapore miles, making this devaluation sting a bit less. For a more in-depth evaluation on these changes, see this One Mile at a Time post.
H/T: Monkey Miles
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[…] you heard of a devaluation that was positive? I didn’t think so. And here it comes Singapore Airlines with another one effective December 7. Hopefully the new online booking feature will work as advertised. Some of the more important […]
H/T – Much Appreciated!
These are just star alliance awards, not awards on Singapore metal, correct? If so, then not a big deal.
How can you say this is not a massive devaluation most of these awards are going up 20% or more in cost
Everything is a matter of perspective. As I noted in the “bottom line” section, many of the increases are large in terms of percentages, but I wouldn’t consider it massive in the sense that these are points that are super easy to accumulate. When Alaska doubled (or more) the number of miles needed for Emirates first class redemptions, that was massive as you can only earn 1 Alaska mile per dollar with their credit card or 1.25 miles per dollar with a Starwood card if you’re transferring in chunks of 20K.
With Singapore, you can earn 5x on an Ink Plus/Ink Cash, 3x in many categories between a Sapphire Reserve and Ink Business Preferred, 3x online with a Citi AT&T Access more, 2x everywhere with a Blue Business Plus, 4.5x at grocery stores with the Everyday Preferred, etc. An increase of 20K miles on one of these routes is a lot easier to make up for most people.
I’m not arguing that it’s a small increase — just that it isn’t that bad in terms of devaluations. A devaluation never feels good. But this one feels less bad than many.
Of course, I know not everyone will share my perspective — and that’s why I included a chart with some of the bigger hits.
A lot of the changes look pretty massive to me given the percentage of your readers who do redemptions from NA–especially given that we just had recently a big SQ devaluation.
This looks to me that like these cc point transfers and online partner booking is starting to come at a big cost. It looks to me that these prices are going up to discourage these redemptions that are about to become much easier. Frankly I’d rather call in than deal with price increases–often tens of thousands of points.
Don’t become one of those blogs that downplay big devaluations because that might discourage people from getting credit cards using their affiliate links.
> Don’t become one of those blogs that downplay big devaluations
> because that might discourage people from getting credit cards
> using their affiliate links.
Hah! Dream on. That’s the whole reason for this and every other blog. Just pure greed on the part of the “helpful” blogger.
thanks for posting about the change. never used Singapore chart before but am interested in the NA to Europe in first class (80k) and NA to Middle East in first class for 75k. Would you suggest which partner airlines would be best from Los Angeles? Best as in no fuel charges? And which airline site will I find the availability?
Thanks