Pay for any SQ flight with KrisFlyer miles!

[stargold]

It appears that the website now gives you the option of paying for whole or part of your flight with your hard-earned KrisFlyer miles. No need to worry about availability - if there's a seat for sale, you can redeem for it.

Well, the catch: the exchange rate, as you might expect, is eye-wateringly crap.

You get just over SGD 10 credit for every 1,000 miles redeemed. So, in order to redeem a simple SIN-HKG one-way in Y, it looks like the following:



No, I don't think I'll be rushing to do this anytime soon... Ironically, 65,000 miles is enough to redeem 2x F Saver on the same route.

PS. Bookings that have been part-paid with KF miles will apparently only earn miles with KF (i.e. can't credit to other Star partners), and will only earn the pro-rata amount of miles corresponding to the amount of cash paid. So, if I pay for this SIN-HKG with ~65,000 KrisFlyer miles, I get... zero miles!

[SilverChris]

Reminds me of a certain Latin American FFP's cash + miles awards

[ycp81]

Qantas have this option as well.

[stargold]

Reminds me of a certain Latin American FFP's cash + miles awards

Yes, but I don't think that there will be queues for this one!

[SMK77]

Yes, but I don't think that there will be queues for this one!

While the pros won't use this, I think this is a very nice gesture for the less frequent flyers: your miles don't expire because you don't have enough to redeem for a ticket but you can just apply them to reduce the price for your next ticket. It's all about options and different scenarios and this is a nice addition which is meaningful.

[Kyo]

It's, in a way, a partial response of sorts also to that BBC episode...

For some, if they don't have enough miles whatsoever, or if they want to pay everything in miles outright (even if they don't have enough and are dumb enough to buy more), SQ will put the onus back on these idiots that they had all the choice in the world, and still choose what they choose.

Nobody can help people like that... this just takes the finger pointing away in some instances

[adamantine]

holy cow... the conversion rate is totally crap.

even if you fly once a year and have some miles expiring, I would much rather redeem those expiring miles for an award to a cheaper destination than to use it to offset a ticket to somewhere further... the payoff is really low.

[floppy]

More info available here:
http://paywithkrisflyermiles.com

I echo the view that this pay with krisflyer miles option won't appeal to everybody but it's still a nice option to have.

[vincent0720]

holy cow... the conversion rate is totally crap.

even if you fly once a year and have some miles expiring, I would much rather redeem those expiring miles for an award to a cheaper destination than to use it to offset a ticket to somewhere further... the payoff is really low.

Agree...conversion rate is really bad

[sqdazz]

Reminds me of a certain Latin American FFP's cash + miles awards

It's quite different. This is using points to pay for a commercial fare not an award seat.

It's almost identical to Qantas' points plus pay option though.

[KC*]

I can imagine that this will be useful for those who can never really accumulate enough miles to redeem any tickets. At least they will not be totally wasted - even if used to offset the price of a cup of coffee.

[adamantine]

I can imagine that this will be useful for those who can never really accumulate enough miles to redeem any tickets. At least they will not be totally wasted - even if used to offset the price of a cup of coffee.

hahaha this cracked me up

[CarbonMan]

Indeed the rates are very high. From my calculations, taking an example of SIN-KIX-SIN, SQ is charging slightly above Standard redemption rates (without 15% online discount) plus standard taxes. This is for a solo pax.

For 2 pax on a 2-to-go pricing, it makes a little less painful. The full cash price. is $2051. On the miles+cash scheme, one needs to pay 123,284 miles + $794.65. Through the full redemption method, for 2 pax, one will need to pay 90,000 miles (Saver, no online discount) or 180,000 miles (Standard, no online discount) plus approx the same amount as taxes. Good when there're no more Saver seats.

The approximate rate of 100 miles = S$1 is indeed fairly high.

This is truly a case of "give, but don't want to give".

[MAN Flyer]

Miles & Cash finally official

When were those Krisflyer feedback sessions when they told people about this ?. Oh yeah, 2010 !!!!.

I suppose they've be thinking about what rates they can get away with...

Dear Mr MAN Flyer,

We are pleased to inform you that from 18 July 2013, you will be able to use your KrisFlyer miles to pay for all, or a part of your Singapore Airlines or SilkAir airfare (including taxes and surcharges) when you book on singaporeair.com

With this new payment option, you may combine your miles with cash (payable with credit/debit card) to pay for an airfare on your desired flight, instead of waiting for that award ticket and/or flight upgrade to become available. Plus, with only a minimum of about 5,000 KrisFlyer miles to start, this feature will also allow you to use smaller amounts of miles in your account that may be expiring.

To start, all you need to do is log in at singaporeair.com and check the 'Pay with
KrisFlyer miles' box before searching for your flight(s).

You may also like to know that in subsequent enhancements, you can use your
KrisFlyer miles to cover the cost of taxes and surcharges associated with your
redemption award tickets.

We hope you will benefit from this new initiative, the latest in a series of revamps made to the KrisFlyer programme. You can look forward to hearing from us in the coming months as we work on further improvements to our loyalty programme.

Thank you and we look forward to welcoming you onboard soon.


Yours sincerely,

Shirlene Teo
Manager Loyalty Marketing

[CarbonMan]

http://www.sqtalk.com/forum/showpost...82&postcount=1