What to do with 2.5 million Krisflyer miles?

[jhm]

Trust me, it's not that easy.

It's not easy (or else we'd all be doing it) but not as impossible as some of the above posts in this thread seem to imply.

Personally, I'm not bothered like some of the obsessive compulsive BA miles collectors who (e.g.) in the past would go to the extreme of doing a tour of half a dozen local Tescos each morning (with the route programmed into their GPS units) so as to buy up the daily stock of boiled beef in each store for which there was a special offer (and then give away the beef or buy a freezer to hold it all to slowly eat up!).

However, I did once order for home delivery a total of about 200 mini bottles of cheap nasty wine where the cash cost was much less than the miles I obtained (due to a special promotion). And free delivery due to another special promotion. And kudos from others to whom I gave away the nasty wine!

[pavion]

Or you could be the World's First Person to spend 882,000 miles on a one way flight from Australia to New York in First Class for the hell of it!

[Gunners]

I would like to thank everyone on the interesting debate on how to accumulate Krisflyer points. There are clearly some entrepreneurial and creative people amongst us.

It is easy to collect points from business partners, credit cards usage, car/hotel partner programs and from employees etc.

The purpose of my question was to consider the most effective way of using Krisflyer Points and secondary whether it is a good idea to "disrupt" the airline business model.

It seems that the best value for money from any frequent user program is to be to use the points earned on the product of the specific program. The Krisflyer program seems to be skewed to promote the point end (business first) product. Notwithstanding economy class redemptions obviously use less points.

Therefore, from a value perspective it would seem logical to use points to buy airfares for members of a charity group under the nonimate a friend (limit of 5 per person) via redemption. I would like to know if "friend A" received some Krisflyer Points whether that friend A can then nominate another five friends within a charity group so that they can be used by a number of employees within a chairty. Charities could have some of the airfares paid for using points (they have to pay tax and airfuel)

Alternatively the ponts could be auctioned at a business function (eg business airfare return to Europe) and the proceeds donated to charity. Not sure on the legality and how many times a friend can be nominated.

I am not sure how many times you can change redepmtion nominees or whether points received from another Krisflyer member can be transferrred to other members.

I also have this dilemma. More Krisflyer or even Qantas points could easily be collected from business colleauges to used for charitable purposes.

However, if I became serious in collecting points and giving them to charities, this approach may be disruptive to the airline business model.

From reading other threads it would seem that that there is a limited amount of redemption inventory and a serious appoach to collecting points and providing them to charity for flights may be detrimental to the airline and other Krisflyer members. Also as I believe that the points system is set up so PAX can experience the ponty end. I am not sure if collecting points for charities would be a concern to SIA or not.

There could be legal implications. I must stress I love SIA and many of my employees and colleauges regularly fly with SIA. I do not wish to do anything that would upset our business relationship with the airline.

I guess I need to research these mattters more.

Thanks for your previous comments.

Gunners.