GrabRewards to KrisFlyer Conversion Rate Announced

GrabRewards, the loyalty scheme for ride-hailing provider Grab, recently announced a partnership with Singapore Airlines which, among other things, will allow conversion of GrabRewards points to KrisFlyer Miles.

At first the conversion rate was kept under wraps, but it has now been revealed:

• GrabRewards Platinum members can convert 11,000 points to 1,000 KrisFlyer miles.
• GrabRewards non-Platinum members can convert 12,000 points to 1,000 KrisFlyer miles.

A promotion running for all members until 31 October 2017 will net you twice as many KrisFlyer miles (2,000 instead of 1,000 per ‘batch’ converted), before reverting to the standard rates above.

Platinum members can convert their points to KrisFlyer already (it started on Friday), and non-Platinum members will be able to do so from Friday 20 October.

How does GrabRewards work?

As loyalty schemes go, GrabRewards is about as simple as they come. For every Singapore dollar you spend, you earn one point. Points ‘boosters’ are common and currently for the majority of Grab bookings there is an 8x points multiplier for cash payments (e.g. 80 points for a S$10 ride) and a 16x booster if you use GrabPay (e.g. 160 points for a S$10 ride).

GrabPay is as simple adding your credit or debit card details to your account so that any ride charges are automatically debited and no cash is required, so it makes a lot of sense.

Regular ride-hailing users in Singapore would find it easy to rack up quite a substantial points balance using Grab. By our calculations just three S$15 trips a week using GrabPay would net you over 37,000 points a year at current rates.

Is it worth converting the points to KrisFlyer?

First off – you’ll notice the points requirement for converting each ‘batch’ of GrabRewards points to KrisFlyer miles is quite high – 11,000 or 12,000 points depending on your status level in the scheme.

Many people with points balances this high or greater may have already redeemed them for other rewards. Unfortunately there are no smaller reward ‘batches’ available in the KrisFlyer category (e.g. conversion for 500 KF miles).

Obviously you’ll only be able to take advantage of the conversion if you have a sufficient GrabRewards points balance, or allow enough points to accumulate.

Grab points can be redeemed for money off Grab rides, and for discounts (or as vouchers) with a number of other partner retailers in Singapore. This gives Grab points an intrinsic “value” from the outset.

We conservatively value a KrisFlyer mile at about S$0.02 (2 cents). It’s important therefore to determine whether converting your GrabRewards points to KrisFlyer miles is good value or not, given that there are many other options with a known value.

As shown in the table below, converting 3,350 Grab points for a S$10 Deliveroo voucher represents one of the best value options for conversion, achieving a value of about 0.299 cents per Grab point.

Even if you don’t use Deliveroo (and you should in our opinion – it’s awesome!), you can almost certainly benefit from using Grab points for money off future Grab rides. At the best rate – 9,000 points will get you S$25 off (0.278 cents per Grab point).

Assuming a value of 2 cents per KrisFlyer mile, at the standard (ongoing) conversion rate you are getting S$20 worth of KrisFlyer miles for either 11,000 or 12,000 points. At best it is valuing your Grab points at 0.182 cents each, a lot less than we have shown they can achieve in real terms.

We would not recommend conversion at these rates and would instead suggest Deliveroo credits or cash off future Grab rides as these represent much better value.

However, during the promotion period (until 31 October), where double KrisFlyer miles are awarded, you are getting S$40 worth of KrisFlyer miles for either 11,000 or 12,000 points. This does look like a decent conversion now, valuing your Grab points at 0.333 or 0.364 cents each, depending on your GrabRewards status level.

GrabRewards Value by Partner (Value per point, descending)

Table is not a complete list – only a selection of what we consider the best value partner conversions
* – Applicable only to GrabRewards Platinum Status Members

In summary

If you have the points in your account now, or before 31 October, take advantage of the promotional rate to KrisFlyer miles as it does represent the best value for Grab points in our opinion. Remember that unless you hold Platinum status in the GrabRewards scheme you’ll have to wait until Friday 20 October to convert to KrisFlyer.

Once the promotion period is over, the rate is very poor compared with the  demonstrated value of Grab points when converted in other ways, so don’t bother after that unless another promotional rate appears.

A final thought, regarding the “value” of KrisFlyer miles

As we mentioned, all of this analysis is based on the assumption that KrisFlyer miles are worth about 2 cents. It’s a conservative level, and you certainly won’t lose out by assuming this valuation. There’s no doubt there are ways to achieve a higher value from KrisFlyer miles (look out for our upcoming article on this).

You may personally know that you can achieve a higher value from each KrisFlyer mile, or you may currently fall just short of the miles needed for a particular redemption you have in mind. In these cases the Grab points conversion to KrisFlyer may still make sense for you, even after the promo period has ended. After all, KrisFlyer miles aren’t always easy to come by and this is a really low-effort way of topping up your points. All we’re saying is that we won’t be converting at the standard rates. Deliveroo it is for us… after 31 October.