Singapore Airlines has extended its bonus offer for 15-20% additional miles from credit card points conversions by almost three weeks, with the deal originally set to end on Sunday 27th December but now valid for successful transfers completed by Saturday 16th January 2021.
Thats’s good news if you’ve missed out and were worried about the miles not crediting in time this week, with plenty of opportunity now left to take advantage of this rare offer.
While there are some drawbacks, many of our readers have already taken at least partial advantage with some of their points, given some of the inevitably high balances accrued while flight redemptions have been close to impossible over the last nine months.
Transfers made after 1st January 2021 will also benefit from an additional month of validity (until 31st January 2024), so hold off converting until the new year if you can. There is no upper cap on the number of miles you can transfer.
The offer
Simply make a transfer of at least 10,000 KrisFlyer miles (per individual conversion) between 16th November 2020 and 16th January 2021 and KrisFlyer will add a 15% or 20% bonus to your usual transfer amount.
Don’t forget the lead time! Transfers must be successfully completed by 16th January 2021 to be eligible, so remember to factor in the lead time for bank points to miles conversions. Typically this can take up to one week, though some banks are faster.Before you get too excited, For most of our readers transferring points from a Singapore credit card account, the bonus is set at 15%.
All members are eligible, even if you’re brand new to the KrisFlyer programme. There is no upper cap, and the offer applies to points transferred from the following banks in Singapore:
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The exception is for automatic transfers from KrisFlyer co-brand cards including the KrisFlyer UOB credit card and Singapore Airlines American Express credit cards, which will not receive a bonus.
That’s a shame but it’s not a huge deal as these transfers are only for your month-by-month spend anyway, whereas you’re much more likely to have a large credit cards points stash accumulated with a card account in one of the above banks.
The bonus is applicable for all your eligible card transfers, so you could make several separate transfers (of at least 10,000 KrisFlyer miles each) from different card accounts and still receive the applicable bonus credit for all of them.
Bonus miles will be credited at the same time as your regular miles deposit (or within a day or two), which varies depending on the bank’s lead time. The bonus is shown as a separate credit from your main transfer bonus.
It probably goes without saying, but past transfers credited to your KrisFlyer account on or before 23:59 on 15th November 2020, prior to the start of this promotion, won’t be eligible for the offer.
Kris+ is included
A 15% bonus also applies when transferring any valid number of miles instantly through Kris+ from its bank partners DBS or UOB (unfortunately you can’t transfer other KrisPay miles to KrisFlyer through the Kris+ app, even with this promo).
Bear in mind, however, this method already came at a 15% disadvantage anyway. That means unless you need the miles instantly, or have a small level of ‘orphan’ points, it’s still better to make a regular transfer from these banks.
Minimum transfer volumes via Kris+:
- DBS Points KrisFlyer: 100 DBS Points >
170196 miles - UOB UNI$ KrisFlyer: 1,000 UNI$ >
1,7001,955 miles
Note how you aren’t quite outweighing the usual 15% hit on these transfers by using Kris+ with this promotion (a 15% bonus only brings you back to 97.8% of something that was initially 15% worse). You’d need a 17.6% bonus to overcome the original impact.
The only other benefit of Kris+, apart from the instant nature of the transfer and no minimum, is that it’s fee-free, though that shouldn’t outweigh the poorer transfer ratio in the first place for a decent transfer quantity.
Overseas banks (some with 20% bonus)
For our overseas readers, do note that transfers from credit card points like Capital One in the USA and Westpac in Australia are also included in the offer. Click here for a full list of participating partner banks.
If you’re in Brunei, Hong Kong or Indonesia, there’s a 20% bonus offer when you transfer from specific banks:
- Baiduri Bank (Brunei)
- Bank Danamon (Indonesia)
- Bank Central Asia (Indonesia)
- DBS Bank* (Hong Kong)
- Maybank (Indonesia)
* First 10,000 DBS Points transferred only, thereafter a 15% bonus applies.
Other popular participating banks for our overseas readers include:
Malaysia
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Australia
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Remember the bonus is added by KrisFlyer (not your bank) and is usually credited concurrently with the main transfer, or within a day or two, as a separate credit amount.
If you don’t see the bonus added within a few days, contact KrisFlyer on +65 6789 8188 to check.
You won’t see a separate bonus for Kris+ transfers
You won’t receive or see a separate bonus at your KrisFlyer account side when you transfer from UOB or DBS via Kris+ during this promotion.
That’s because you already got the 15% bonus “on the way in”, when you transferred from bank points to KrisPay miles in the first place. KrisPay to KrisFlyer miles transfers continue to be 1:1.
In the following example with 86,484 DBS Points I can already transfer 85,000 of those into KrisFlyer miles through the normal means with a better ratio (in 5,000 DBS Points blocks), but let’s say I want to ‘cash out’ of the DBS programme or simply need all the miles I can get.
In that case I’ll need to extract the additional 1,400 DBS Points balance through Kris+.
Notice how the 15% bonus is already applied, giving me 2,744 KrisPay miles (1:1.96) instead of the usual 2,380 KrisPay miles (1:1.7).
When I transfer these 2,744 miles to KrisFlyer (ideally immediately, but it must be within 7 days), I’ll get 2,744 KrisFlyer miles (no additional bonus).
Regular transfer example
Here’s an example of how the bonus would work for some popularly held Citi credit cards in Singapore, with a 15% bonus applicable, per transfer block converted into KrisFlyer:
| Cards | Transfer Ratio | ||
 Citi Miles |
10,000 | 11,500 |
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   Citi ThankYou Points |
25,000 | 11,500 |
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Transfers from each of your Citi credit cards to KrisFlyer cost S$26.75, regardless of the number of blocks you are converting.
Bear in mind though that if you are holding multiple cards, for example the PremierMiles and one of the Citi Rewards cards, you’ll be hit with the conversion fee for each one, as the points balances do not pool between your card accounts.
Transfer times
As we mentioned above, it’s important to factor in a comfortable lead time to ensure the bonus will credit before the promotion ends, especially when converting a significant quantity of points into miles.
Recent transfer times for our own Singapore credit card points and those of our readers (since late November 2020 through to mid-December 2020) have been:
- Amex SG: 48h
- Amex UK: 24h
- Citi Singapore: 24h – 48h
- DBS SG: 48h
- HSBC SG: 1-7 days (weekly batch transfer)
- Maybank: 24h
- OCBC: 24h (weekends included)
- Standard Chartered: 6-7 days
- UOB: 48h
Citi used to reliably credit to KrisFlyer within 24 hours whatever day you transferred, but based on our two transfers this month those initiated on Sunday morning (6th Dec) and Monday morning (7th Dec) both credited on Tuesday afternoon (8th Dec).
Citi seems to now take the weekend off when it comes to transfers, so bear that in mind!
For HSBC and Standard Chartered, we would definitely not recommend pushing your luck with a transfer after around 8th January 2021.
You may lose flexibility
Transfers from bank points to miles are strictly one-way, so by taking advantage of this bonus you will be restricting yourself to the KrisFlyer programme for future redemptions using the miles transferred under this offer.
With some banks that’s less of a big deal than for others (OCBC, for example, only allows transfers into KrisFlyer, so why not right?).
If you’re a Citi customer for example, with a large volume of Citi Miles or ThankYou Points, it’s a different story. You can transfer those into 11 different frequent flyer programmes, with options across all three major alliances plus Etihad Guest, which has a good ‘mini-alliance’ of its own.
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By transferring a large volume of your miles into KrisFlyer, you may also be exposing yourself to any potential future devaluations in the programme before you get chance to use them.
Keeping your miles at the bank side, especially with Citi, protects you against this since you can then opt to transfer into a range of other programmes instead if you wish (on the basis they won’t all devalue at the same time!).
That said, the vast majority of our readers still only earn and burn KrisFlyer miles given SIA’s extensive point-to-point flying network from Changi, and any future devaluation probably wouldn’t exceed 15-20% anyway (don’t hold us to that though!).
The expiry clock will start ticking
One major concern for many of our readers, especially during these uncertain times, will be the potential expiry of miles. Once you’ve transferred into KrisFlyer, the miles will be set to expire three years later.
KrisFlyer Miles Expiry A member’s KrisFlyer miles will expire after three years at the end of the equivalent month in which they were earned. For example, miles credited to a member’s KrisFlyer account in January 2021 will expire on 31st January 2024.Since this offer runs until 16th January 2021 (23:59 Singapore Time), there’s almost no sense in converting your points now. Do so on or after 1st January 2021 and you’ll get an extra month of validity, which doesn’t sound much but could make all the difference three years from now.
Note that PPS Club members don’t need to worry about KrisFlyer miles expiry, since their miles never expire as long as they retain PPS Club status.
An Asia Miles bonus is coming
Before you jump the gun with a KrisFlyer transfer, if you’re an Asia Miles member you’ll find out on 28th December 2020 whether you have been targeted for a 10% or 15% bonus on credit card transfers into that programme (they may have emailed you already about it).
The Asia Miles bonus will run from 28th December 2020 to 31st January 2021.
That might be a good way to spread the risk with your miles, rather than have all your eggs in the KrisFlyer basket, and we’ll personally be transferring some points across to this programme too.
Asia Miles has great ‘sweet spots’ to Europe with Cathay Pacific, including Business Class from Singapore to Frankfurt for 65,000 miles, as we outline in the article above.
Summary
A generous extension to this rare offer for those of you who’ve been accumulating miles on your credit cards but have been holding off making a frequent flyer programme transfer, with 15% (and for some readers up to 20%) more miles than usual when converting to KrisFlyer.
This does commit you to the programme somewhat, with a potential risk of future devaluation and the 3-year fixed miles expiry window to consider before you commit.
There’s also an Asia Miles transfer bonus coming up, for those preferring to spread the risk and open up some future oneworld redemption options as travel returns.
Personally we have already taken the opportunity to move some of our credit card points into the KrisFlyer programme to benefit from the bonus, but we retained most of our Citi points (the most flexible) at the bank side too, so all is not lost in a doomsday scenario.
Remember if you are going to transfer (either again or for the first time under this promotion), do so on or after 1st January 2021 to give yourself an extra expiry month, but don’t leave it too late since you’ll have to account for the bank to KrisFlyer lead time too (deadline 16th January 2021).
Our personal recommendation is to allow a one-week buffer, initiating your transfers no later than 8th January 2021.
Full terms and conditions plus a list of frequently asked questions relating to this promotion are available at the offer page here.
(Cover Image: Singapore Airlines)