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Singapore Airlines KrisFlyer loyalty programme has launched a potentially very interesting new offer. You can now earn elite status without even having to set foot on a plane!
What is the offer?
“From now till 28 February 2022, accumulate Elite miles as you shop, spend and convert partner reward points to KrisFlyer miles, to count towards an upgrade to KrisFlyer Elite Silver or Gold status.”
There are all sorts of partners included in the offer (full details here), but from a UK perspective, this is the important bit:
The ‘global bank partners‘ include both HSBC and American Express.
As you can see below, KrisFlyer Silver status requires 25,000 elite miles, and Gold status requires 50,000.
To get Silver status then, you would therefore have to transfer 250,000 HSBC Premier Reward Points (which would get you 125,000 redeemable KrisFlyer Miles and 25,000 Elite Miles); or 187,500 American Express Membership Rewards Points (given the new 3:2 transfer ratio).
To earn Gold status, you’d be looking at 500,000 HSBC Points, or 375,000 Amex Points. Remember, you then also have 250,000 redeemable KrisFlyer Miles, as well as Gold status.
Note that you need to transfer in batches that result in at least 10,000 redeemable KrisFlyer Miles for the transfer to also count towards elite status.
Any way to ‘hack’ the deal?
Sort of, yes.
The really smart move would be to get an Amex International Dollar Card, where the transfer ratio to KrisFlyer is still 1:1.
In fact, it works out better than that though, because when you transfer your existing UK Amex Membership Rewards balance to the Dollar Card, they get converted at the prevailing exchange rate – currently 1.37. So, 100,000 Amex UK MR Points becomes 137,000 Amex International MR Points, which could be transferred across to 137,000 Singapore KrisFlyer Miles.
If you did that, you would only require ~91,250 UK Amex MR Points (transferred via the international card) to get Silver status; or ~182,500 for Gold.
Bottom line
Maximising this promotion might sound a little bit complicated and it does require a lot of Amex Points. However, the potential value here is enormous and you’ve got until 28th February 2022 to collect points (and get your head around the deal!).
Anyone tempted?
I can easily use 500k HSBC points for this deal. What are the downsides of this deal for those who are not frequent users of Star Alliance airlines?
KrisFlyer Points are being deleted after a period. Does the period getting extended each time points are being transferred into the account? Or does it work based on FIFO?
As long as you will get reasonable value from the KrisFlyer Miles (and it is a decent programme so shouldn’t be a problem),there isn’t really a downside – unless you have other high-value plans for the points.
Miles usually expire 36 months after being credited on a fifo basis (you can pay a little bit for a 6 month extension etc if required), but given the booking window is about a year, that’s almost 4 years in which to actually take the flights paid for with the points. Also note that you don’t need to transfer until end of Feb 2022 to benefit from this deal, so finding a good use for the miles shouldn’t be an issue for most people.
Any idea how long the status lasts? Presumably if status was acquired now it would last until the end of 2022? However if someone waited until January 2022 to make the transfer the status would be valid for all of 2022 and 2023, when we are more likely to be traveling?
I think KrisFlyer works as follows (but could be wrong), “you will be upgraded as soon as you reach it and your membership will last until the end of the 12th month.”. So, you’d want to leave it as late as possible (hopefully there will be a lot more travel by then!), but you wouldn’t actually get extra time.
Thanks, I suspect that’s how it will work. There are some COVID status extensions and points requirement reductions running at the moment for Krisflyer but I have to admit, I can’t get my head around all the rules and requirements. I’m tempted to transfer a token amount across to see what happens.
Well, not exactly token as it has to be in batches of 10,000 Krisflyer points to gain status points.
I suppose you would be loosing out on any transfer bonus that might be offered in future. There was one recently but they are quite rare,