Last year Singapore Airlines enhanced its KrisFlyer Elite Gold Rewards, rebranding the benefits as KrisFlyer Milestone Rewards while at the same time introducing Elite Miles earning when travelling on paid Scoot flights, to help members climb the status ladder even when flying with SIA’s low-cost subsidiary.
The initiative is designed to reward KrisFlyer members with Elite miles earned from flying on SIA and Scoot flights.
Five new Milestone Rewards were added last year, starting at 5,000 Elite Miles earned during your membership year, but now the airline has announced two new rewards related to travel on Scoot, plus announced an enhanced Elite Miles earning rate when flying on the airline, from 17th January 2022.
There are also some additional perks for Elite members including complimentary seat selection and priority boarding when flying with the budget airline.
This comes after KrisFlyer announced further extensions to KrisFlyer miles validity and an additional year of status at the current tier level for members earlier today.
New Milestone Rewards
Milestone Rewards now start at 1,000 Elite Miles earned, with two new benefits added for taking a Scoot flight, or a discount when booking your next Scoot flight.
Here’s how they look alongside the existing benefits.
| Milestone Rewards (from January 2022) |
|
| Elite miles earned* | Reward |
1,000 |
1,000 Bonus KrisFlyer miles on your next flight with Scoot Receive a reward to earn an additional 1,000 KrisFlyer miles on your next flight with Scoot, in addition to the actual miles earned for a single flight segment. The bonus miles will be automatically credited into your account after your flight, and are applicable for itineraries involving Scoot-operated flights only, or itineraries involving both Scoot and Singapore Airlines-operated flights. |
| 2,500 |
20% Discount Voucher on Scoot Receive a 20% Discount Voucher off your next Scoot booking on selected fare types (applicable to base fare only). Blackout periods apply. Click here to find out how you can redeem your voucher. |
| 5,000 | 1,500 KrisPay miles (S$10) Receive your KrisPay miles reward when you log in to the Kris+ app. This reward must be claimed within 12 months of earning 5,000 Elite miles on flights operated by Singapore Airlines, SilkAir and/or Scoot. As usual with Kris+, these miles are valid for 6 months and are not transferable to KrisFlyer miles. |
| 10,000 | S$20 KrisShop Promo Code Receive a promo code for S$20 off a minimum purchase of S$100 on KrisShop.com (excluding promotional offers and discounted items). The promo code is valid for 12 months, and can only be used once. |
| 20,000 | 25% Bonus KrisFlyer Miles Receive a reward to earn 25% more KrisFlyer miles on top of the actual miles earned for a single flight segment. The reward is valid for 12 months and must be applied before your flight departure. Only one Bonus KrisFlyer Miles reward may be used for one flight segment, and it can only be used by the principal member. |
| 30,000 | 50% Bonus KrisFlyer Miles Receive a reward to earn 50% more KrisFlyer miles on top of the actual miles earned for a single flight segment. The reward is valid for 12 months and must be applied before your flight departure. Only one Bonus KrisFlyer Miles reward may be used for one flight segment, and it can only be used by the principal member. |
| 40,000 | 5,000 KrisFlyer Miles Redemption Discount Receive a reward for a redemption discount of 5,000 KrisFlyer miles when you are redeeming your KrisFlyer miles for an award ticket or a redemption upgrade. Valid for 12 months from the date of issue for redemption bookings (excluding HighFlyer bookings) or for redemption upgrades on eligible flights operated by Singapore Airlines or SilkAir. The reward can be used by the principal member or for his/her redemption nominee. If your booking is refunded, the discount will be credited back to your KrisFlyer account. |
| 60,000 | Double KrisFlyer Miles Reward Receive one voucher which allows you to earn twice the KrisFlyer miles for a single flight segment. If you used KrisFlyer miles to offset any cash element of your booking then you’ll only receive double KrisFlyer miles in relation to the amount you paid in cash. |
| 75,000 |
Short-haul advance upgrade Receive one advance upgrade voucher for a one cabin class upgrade (subject to availability when you apply the reward) on a single flight segment for flights between Zone 1 & Zone 2 or between Zone 1 & Zone 3. Valid for commercial tickets booked under anything except the ‘Lite’ fare buckets. |
| 100,000 | Premium Economy Advance Upgrade Receive one advance upgrade voucher for an upgrade from Economy to Premium Economy (subject to availability when you apply the reward) on a single flight segment. Valid for commercial tickets booked under anything except the Economy Lite fare buckets (i.e. only M, H, W, Y, B, E). |
* Per calendar year (Jan-Dec)
One big caveat of the Milestone Rewards scheme is that the Elite miles earned to achieve the vouchers only considers your accrual on Singapore Airlines and Scoot flights.
Elite miles earned on other Star Alliance airlines and SIA partner airlines continue to count towards your Elite Silver and Elite Gold status qualification, however they are still not included in the calculation for Milestone Rewards.
More perks and more Elite miles when flying Scoot
PPS Club members can already benefit from the following perks when travelling on Scoot flights:
- Priority check-in and boarding
- An additional allowance of 5kg with any baggage purchase
- A one-time complimentary booking change
- Complimentary standard seat selection
- 25% more KrisFlyer miles for every mile earned (1.25 miles per S$1 fare)
From 17th January 2022, these benefits will also be extended to KrisFlyer Elite Silver and Elite Gold members.
It’s still a shame not to see any lounge access included, like Qantas Gold and Platinum members get when flying on Jetstar, right up to First Class lounge access in some cases.
From 17th January 2022, KrisFlyer members will also earn 2.5 Elite miles for every KrisFlyer mile earned when flying with Scoot, up from the existing 1 Elite mile per KrisFlyer mile rate.
From 17 January 2022, earn 2.5 Elite miles for every KrisFlyer mile earned from flying on Scoot. Elite miles are used to track towards the next KrisFlyer membership tier such as Elite Silver and Elite Gold status.
Scoot
Like KrisFlyer miles, Elite miles are only earned on the fare component, excluding taxes.
In the above example, 398 Elite Miles are currently earned for this booking (the base fare of S$398 x 1), however from 17th January 2022 995 Elite miles will be accrued (S$398 x 2.5).
This is a welcome change, helping members to upgrade to higher KrisFlyer membership tiers even when flying with SIA’s low-cost division.
KrisFlyer miles earning on this fare will also increase for Elite Silver and Elite Gold members, from 398 miles now to 497 miles (398 x 1.25) once the enhanced benefits take effect.
“We are very grateful to our PPS Club and KrisFlyer members for their continued loyalty. Extending the membership statuses, as well as continual enhancement of the KrisFlyer programme, provides our members with more recognition and programme benefits. It also offers further opportunities to earn and redeem their miles with both Singapore Airlines and Scoot.
“KrisFlyer will continue to find ways to bolster its position as a leading lifestyle-centric rewards programme, offering a myriad of ground and in-flight benefits for all members.”
Ms JoAnn Tan, SIA Senior Vice President Marketing Planning
For flights that are partially paid with KrisFlyer miles, only the cash portion (i.e. paid by credit or debit card, etc.) are eligible for miles accrual. Flights that are fully paid with miles or Scoot vouchers are not eligible for miles accrual.
If you are travelling on a mixed itinerary containing both a Scoot and partner sector (e.g. Scoot-Singapore Airlines), you earn miles based on a percentage of the actual miles flown on Scoot and your booking class:
| Cabin class | Percentage of total distance/miles travelled on Scoot |
| Scootplus C, D, I, J, U, Z |
25% |
| Economy A, F, P, R, S, Y B, H, M, W N, O, X |
20% 15% 10% |
Remember if you’re aiming for Elite Silver or Elite Gold this way, qualification for Elite membership is tracked based on the number of Elite miles earned within 12 consecutive months.
Requirements to climb the status ladder remain as follows:
- Elite Silver: 25,000 Elite miles in a 12-month period
- Elite Gold: 50,000 Elite miles in a 12-month period
These Elite miles also count towards all the KrisFlyer Milestone Rewards outlined above.
Note that PPS Club members will not accrue PPS Value when flying in any cabin on Scoot, in the same way they do not accrue these when flying in Economy or Premium Economy on SIA.
Earn but don’t burn
While you’ll earn up to 1.25 KrisFlyer miles per S$1 based on the cash fare for your Scoot flight, which is certainly better than nothing, it remains a different matter on the redemption side.
When using miles to offset Scoot fares, KrisFlyer works on a fixed value basis at a terrible 0.95 Singapore cents per mile.
You should therefore always be saving your KrisFlyer miles for their true value – a Singapore Airlines redemption – not a Scoot booking.
Summary
It’s nice to see more Elite Gold Rewards added at the more easily attainable lower level with this pair of new Scoot benefits for KrisFlyer members.
Benefits for PPS Club members flying with the low-cost subsidiary are also being extended to all KrisFlyer Elite members, even those holding only the Silver tier. It’s great to see these members being better recognised when flying with the airline.
They include a 25% increase in KrisFlyer miles accrual to 1.25 miles per S$1 spent on the base fare, plus complimentary seat selection.
Finally, all KrisFlyer members flying on Scoot will soon be eligible for 2.5 Elite miles accrual instead of just 1 for each KrisFlyer mile earned, in addition to the KrisFlyer miles earning itself, which will be very useful for many readers who use the low-cost airline regularly in ‘normal times’.
(Cover Photo: Scoot)
Some good enhancements but I agree w you PPS members flying on Scoot shld at least get the KFG or SKL J lounge when flying out of SIN. Its a handful of pax per day and Scoot flys to a lot of places we can’t reach on SQ like Krabi
I earned the 20,000 and 30,000 elite mile rewards on a recent trip, but wasn’t able to redeem them because of what seemed to be a bug in SQ’s website/app. I sent a message about it over six weeks ago and still haven’t had a response yet. They need to seriously buck up their customer service.