Converting credit card points to KrisFlyer before the devaluation? Read this

Like us, many of you will now be looking to lock in your Singapore Airlines Business and First Class award tickets for 2019 soon, to take advantage of the current redemption rates before the devaluation hits for bookings made on or after 24th January.

If you’re topping up your account with points from your credit card in order to do this though, be careful. With at least one of the more popular cards issued in Singapore, your miles simply won’t make it in time.

BOC is out

Here’s the first and most important headline. Firstly this assumes you were lucky enough to actually receive the ‘new’ BOC Elite Miles Mastercard last year (lead times from application to issue were horrendous).

If you were one of the lucky ones, and you’ve managed to direct a good chunk of your local and overseas spend onto the card at the 2mpd / 5mpd bonus rates that ran through the end of 2018, you might be tempted to shift miles from this card across to KrisFlyer now.

Be warned, it probably won’t work.

We initiated a transfer in late November and it took over a month for the miles to credit to KrisFlyer (even exceeding their own promise of “14 to 21 working days”). Others we’ve spoken to have had the same experience.

You have to email BOC a form to request the miles transfer, and we can only imagine fax machines and carrier pigeons backwards and forwards from Beijing are then involved in the process.

We would definitely not recommend transferring from BOC to KrisFlyer to make redemptions at the current award rates – the transfer is unlikely to complete in time.

Others are still ok

Luckily other banks in Singapore are more in touch with the 21st century (something we thought we’d never say). These are the approximate transfer times from credit card points to KrisFlyer miles.

We’ve added an approximate deadline to initiate your transfer in view of the expected time it will take to complete, both from our own experience and some online research (thank you FlyerTalk), with a buffer of a couple of days thrown in to give you time to make your redemption bookings.

Bank	Transfer Time	Deadline*
	1 working day	18th Jan
	2 working days	17th Jan
	4 working days	14th Jan
	1 week	11th Jan
	1 week	11th Jan
	1 working day	18th Jan
	3 working days	15th Jan

* Our recommendation only, we can’t be held responsible if your miles still don’t credit in time!

Summary

As you can see you’ll want to be acting by next week at the latest in some cases to ensure the points you transfer will credit to KrisFlyer in time for you to make your redemptions at the existing miles rates.

A transfer from BOC at this stage is very risky, and we would not recommend it if your strategy is to take advantage of the current Singapore Airlines award prices.

(Cover Photo: MainlyMiles)