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The most recent sign-up bonus for the Singapore Airlines KrisFlyer American Express co-brand cards ended on 30th June, with both cards previously offering a miles bonus for spending in the first three months of card membership, then repeating the same bonus offer if you replicated that minimum spend in the subsequent three months.
The new sign-up bonus, valid until 30th September 2019, does away with that second element of the bonus (in months 4 to 6), and so represents a cut to the maximum accrual of 7,500 miles for the KF Amex (Blue) and 15,000 miles for the KF Amex Ascend card.
Previous offer
Until 30th June 2019 the KF Amex Blue card was offering the regular 5,000 miles welcome bonus plus 7,500 miles if you spent S$5,000 in the first three months then another 7,500 miles if you spent a further S$5,000 in the subsequent three months.
Until 30th June 2019 the KF Amex Ascend card was offering the regular 5,000 miles welcome bonus plus 15,000 miles if you spent S$10,000 in the first three months then another 15,000 miles if you spent a further S$10,000 in the subsequent three months.
New offer
Unfortunately if you did have a large spend to make over the next six months the sign-up bonus just became a lot less sweet for these two cards. Our full reviews of the KrisFlyer Amex Blue and KrisFlyer Amex Ascend have been updated to reflect the changes.
The following deal is now offered effective from 1st July 2019 to 30th September 2019:
Singapore Airlines KrisFlyer American Express (Blue)
CLICK HERE for our full review
- 5,000 KrisFlyer miles welcome bonus on first spend with the card.*
- 7,500 bonus KrisFlyer miles if you spend S$5,000 within 3 months of card approval.
- Total: 12,500 KrisFlyer miles bonus.
* The 5,000 miles welcome bonus is only applicable to first time applicants for any co-branded American Express Singapore Airlines credit card.
Including the miles earned for spending S$5,000 in the first 3 months (5,000 x 1.1 = 5,500), you’ll net a total of 18,000 miles by fulfilling the offer, an equivalent earn rate of 3.6 miles per dollar spent.
Singapore Airlines KrisFlyer American Express Ascend
CLICK HERE for our full review
- 5,000 KrisFlyer miles welcome bonus on first spend with the card.*
- 15,000 bonus KrisFlyer miles if you spend S$10,000 within 3 months of card approval.
- Total: 20,000 KrisFlyer miles bonus.
* The 5,000 miles welcome bonus is only applicable to first time applicants for any co-branded American Express Singapore Airlines credit card.
Including the miles earned for spending S$10,000 in the first 3 months (10,000 x 1.2 = 12,000), you’ll net a total of 32,000 miles by fulfilling the offer, an equivalent earn rate of 3.2 miles per dollar spent.
Don’t believe the headline figures
Be careful because American Express are going down the ‘Citi route’, making their sign-up bonuses sound far better than they are, by including things that are not part of the bonus at all. For example they are advertising a “Welcome bonus of up to 42,500 KrisFlyer miles when you spend in your first 3 months.” for the Ascend card.
Wow, how does 20,000 miles become 42,500 miles?
This actually includes the 1.2 miles per dollar you would earn anyway on the spend of S$10k (+12,000 miles, but you don’t need a bonus to be in force to earn it, and you should be earning at least that for general spend with another card anyway).
It also assumes you will take out two supplementary cards (+3,000 miles) and that you will successfully refer a friend (+7,500 miles). Again, a bonus is unnecessary to earn extra miles doing either of those things.
Previously Amex was including the miles earned for the spend (e.g. 12k) in this ‘advertised’ total, but adding in the extra miles for 2 x supplementary cards and a successful referral seems a bit desperate.
A similar ‘calculation’ is used to reach an advertised headline rate of 26,000 miles for the Blue card.
Top sign-up bonuses
We’ve amended our top sign-up bonuses page today for miles earning credit cards in Singapore. There are still likely to be a few more changes this week, so keep an eye on it as we tend to update that page first and won’t necessarily write an article about every change.
The Citi PremierMiles card offer, extended until 31st July, still looks good with a 21,000 miles sign-up bonus at a cost of 0.92 cents per mile, though you’ll have to spend S$7,500 in the first 3 months for that one.
Click here for our full list of the top sign-up bonuses currently on offer
Summary
For the KrisFlyer Amex blue card, the new sign-up bonus is now worth only 12,500 miles (around S$237, as we value KrisFlyer miles at 1.9 cents each). Remember though this card is fee-free in the first year so the total bonus miles remain technically ‘free’ assuming you have S$5,000 spend to make in the next 3 months.
For the KrisFlyer Ascend card there’s still a reasonable bonus – 20,000 miles for a S$10,000 spend in the first 3 months is worth S$380 off future flight redemptions.
The annual fee of S$337.05 remains payable for the Ascend card meaning you’re effectively ‘buying’ KrisFlyer miles for 1.69 cents each with a S$10,000+ spend in 3 months. That’s rather close to our ‘upper limit to buy’ of 1.9 cents each, so clearly this was much better before and it may be worth holding out for a future bonus.
In the meantime, consider the DBS Altitude (10,000 miles free) and Citi PremierMiles (21,000 miles @ 0.92 cents each) sign-up bonuses as better alternatives if you don’t currently hold those cards.
If you’re really chasing the miles, the Standard Chartered Visa Infinite sign-up bonus gets you 35,000 miles for 1.68 cents each, slightly cheaper per mile than the current Amex Ascend offer, immediately credited and based on payment of the annual fee (S$588.50).
It’s unfortunate to see Amex going down the route of trying to maximise how good their bonus sounds, adding some rather strange categories to the advertised totals this time round. Rest assured we’ll always focus on the bonus itself, so you know what you’re actually getting without the ‘marketing fluff’.
Remember the welcome bonus element (5,000 KrisFlyer miles in each case) is only applicable to first time applicants for any co-branded American Express Singapore Airlines credit card.
(Cover Photo: Jonathan Palombo)
Does that apply to those already holding onto the american express krisflyer cards? Say since May? Does that mean the current cards also get their miles bonus cut?
No don’t worry, if you signed up under the previous offer you will still get the old bonus provided you fulfil the criteria. This is just for new cardholders signing up since yesterday.
You can look for Head of cards Jaime Lee to waive off ascend card fee
Do you have his email?