Final week: Don’t let your KrisFlyer miles expire on 31 July!

During the COVID-19 pandemic Singapore Airlines continually extended both membership tiers for those holding elite status in its KrisFlyer and PPS Club programmes and KrisFlyer miles for all members, in view of the inability to travel while borders were shuttered both in Singapore and globally.

Back in April 2020, when the first miles validity extension was announced, even the airline must never have imagined that a total of seven separate reprieves would be necessary, as the pandemic dragged on and overseas trips remained impractical for most members.

Validity extension is ending

All good things come to an end, and back in October 2022 Singapore Airlines announced that the January 2022 extension of its KrisFlyer miles was to be its last, with relatively hassle-free travel opportunities restored to and from most countries, meaning expiry would take effect again from January 2023.

It seems likely there was some backlash from members over this policy, with both China and Hong Kong closed to visitors at the time – and both Japan and Taiwan having only just announced their reopening to tourists, but with hoops to jump through.

Whatever transpired, this led to SIA doing an about-face and launching one final last minute reprieve for members, announcing in mid-December 2022 that miles expiring from January 2023 through to June 2023 would be automatically extended by six months.

If you have KrisFlyer miles in your account expiring between January to June 2023, they are eligible for a final 6-month extension.

This extension will be processed automatically, and no action is required on your part.

This means that miles in your account will only begin expiring from July 2023.

Singapore Airlines

That means if you have miles expiring in July 2023, there are only a few more days left to get the best value from your hard-earned stash.

Even if you’re not affected until the end of August 2023 or in the months ahead, now’s a good time to review your options and come up with a solid plan.

In a nutshell there are four principal options:

• Use them to redeem a flight before they expire (your trip can be up to a year away).
• Pay a fee to extend them for 6 or 12 months (you can only do this once).
• Sacrifice around half of them, but keep the rest for another 3 years.
• Cash them out against flight tickets, hotel stays, or by converting to a partner programme’s loyalty points.

Which option is best for you will depend on your upcoming travel plans, the number of miles you have expiring and the number of miles you have in total.

How KrisFlyer miles expiry works

First a quick rundown on how your KrisFlyer miles may end up expiring. In common with many airlines (but to be fair not in common with many others!), Singapore Airlines applies a fixed validity period on your KrisFlyer miles.

No matter how you earn your KrisFlyer miles (from revenue flights to credit card spend, from Kris+ earning to Quandoo restaurant bookings) they will expire on the last day of the month 36 months following the month in which they were first credited to your account.

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 July 2019 will expire on 31st July 2022.

Expiry happens at 23:59 Singapore Time on the last day of the calendar month of validity. For our international readers, here’s the current local time and date in Singapore for reference.

🇸🇬 Singapore Date and Time

The ‘oldest’ miles in your account are used up first when you make any kind of redemption. For most of us that means there’s no need to worry about miles expiry. We churn through what we earn more frequently than once every 3 years.

Your KrisFlyer account page on the SIA website or mobile app will show you how many miles you have expiring in the next six months (listed by month).

Your KrisFlyer account statement, which should arrive by email each month, also shows these details:

If you thought you could circumvent the miles expiry issue by making a flight redemption several months into the future with miles that are just about to expire, then later cancel the ticket and redeposit the miles, that won’t work unfortunately.

Every KrisFlyer mile in your account has a ‘memory’ – it knows exactly when it was earned, including miles redeemed for a flight you haven’t travelled on yet.

If any of the miles you used for a flight redemption would have expired at the time of cancellation / redeposit request you won’t get those miles back.

For example, if 10,000 of your KrisFlyer miles are expiring on 31st July, then in June you redeem a total of 52,000 KrisFlyer miles for a Saver Business Class award from Singapore to Tokyo, for a flight departing in September:

• If you cancel the award flight on 25th July, 52,000 KrisFlyer miles will be refunded to your account, but 10,000 of them will still expire on 31st July, just six days later.
• If you cancel the award flight on 15th August, only 42,000 KrisFlyer miles will be refunded to your account. The 10,000 that expired on 31st July are history.

PPS Club

There’s one bit of good news – if you’re a PPS Club or Solitaire PPS Club member, you can stop reading this article.

Your KrisFlyer miles never expire.

Any KrisFlyer miles in your account stop having a ‘memory’ expiration countdown once you become a PPS Club member (sadly this does not extend to Solitaire PPS Club supplementary cardholders, unless they already hold their own PPS Club status).

If you fail to re-qualify for PPS Club in future, all the KrisFlyer miles in your account are reset with a full three-year validity period from the month you drop back into a KrisFlyer tier.

For example, if you drop from PPS Club to being a KrisFlyer Elite Gold member on 1st June 2023, all the KrisFlyer miles in your account at that time will now expire at 23:59 hours Singapore time on 30th June 2026.

Don’t miss our full guide to all PPS Club and Solitaire PPS Club benefits, if you’re interested in the other perks of these exclusive status tiers.

Expiring miles: Your options

Before we get into the details, here’s a summary of the options for your expiring KrisFlyer miles from best to worst value by our reckoning (your personal valuations may differ).

Where necessary, we’re assuming a redemption value for your miles for a Singapore Airlines flight at 1.9 cents, so you may have to adjust the value per mile for some of these options to your own valuation if different.

Option		Min. Expiring Miles	Value per mile
①	Redeem an SIA or partner award flight	8,500	1.90¢+
②	Extend your miles for a fee	1**	1.74¢
③	Transfer to Velocity points	5,000	1.03¢
④	Offset an SIA or Scoot cash fare	1,050	0.95¢
⑤	Redeem a Pelago experience	1,050	0.95¢
⑥	Redeem a vRooms hotel stay	1,200	0.80¢*
⑦	Offset a KrisShop purchase	~600	0.80¢
⑧	Transfer to Velocity points then back to KrisFlyer	7,750	0.79¢
⑨	Transfer to Shangri-La points	20,000	0.74¢
⑩	Transfer to CapitaStar	3,000	0.70¢
⑪	Transfer to Kris+	1	0.67¢
⑫	Transfer to LinkPoints then back to KrisFlyer	3,076	0.66¢
⑬	Transfer to LinkPoints	3,000	0.65¢
⑭	Transfer to Esso Smiles	3,000	0.33¢ to 0.67¢
⑮	Transfer to Marriott Bonvoy	3,000	0.50¢

* Can be better value in some cases.
** Or the miles quantity you have expiring in a single calendar month, if greater

Here are all the options in more detail.

①	Redeem an SIA or partner award flight
Value:	1.90+ cents per mile
Minimum expiring miles:	8,500

Pros	Cons
Best value for your miles. Ability to book a year in advance.	You must have travel plans. Award availability must match your travel dates. If you cancel the ticket after date the miles would have expired, you’ll lose them.

This one might seem a bit obvious to include, after all if you could have used your expiring miles to book a redemption ticket surely you would have done so by now?

However, what many people don’t necessarily appreciate is just how far in advance you can lock in an award ticket using KrisFlyer miles, and the breadth of Star Alliance and partner airline award options out there, which might help you use them.

Fresh availability of KrisFlyer award seats on Singapore Airlines flights is loaded at 8am, 12pm, 1pm or 3pm SGT each day (GMT+8), depending on the origin city for your booking.

Here’s our article outlining how it works, including a handy calculator to let you see exactly when award space should appear for your preferred route and date.

This is often a great time to jump on a pair of Business Class Saver awards a year out, assuming you have relatively firm travel plans, and even on the last day of miles validity for some members (31st July 2023), you’ll be able to lock in an award flight departing as late as 20th July 2024!

We’ve also spoken to people who think you must redeem and have travelled on an award flight before your miles expire – that’s not the case. You must have booked the award ticket, but as mentioned above it can be locked in close to a year in advance.

The fact you’ll be travelling on a flight using miles which would have expired up to a year before doesn’t matter.

With this option you’re looking at trying to lock in a redemption ticket or upgrade (where permitted):

• On a Singapore Airlines flight.
• On a Star Alliance member airline flight (most are now searchable and bookable online through KrisFlyer).
• On a partner airline flight, like Alaska Airlines (tricky, but possible) or Virgin Australia.

Since these options represent by far the best value you can extract from KrisFlyer miles, you should absolutely exhaust them first in our opinion, before moving on to any of the following steps in this article.

Here are some important things to consider:

• If you cancel your award ticket, any miles that would have expired on the cancellation date will not be re-credited to your account
• Routing and cabin class changes will not be possible for bookings using expiring miles, if those changes are made after their expiry date
• Date changes are still possible, up to one year from your booking date (e.g. booked 1st July, you can push the flight out to 30th June the following year, if there is award space)

②	Extend your miles for a fee
Value:	1.74 cents per mile*
Minimum expiring miles:	1**

Pros	Cons
Some breathing room. An opportunity to still get top value for your miles, for a small fee.	If you don’t then use the miles for a flight redemption, it could be wasted money.

* Assuming you pay cash to extend your miles, then redeem the extended miles for a flight award and achieve 1.9 cents per mile in value.
** Or the miles quantity you have expiring in a single calendar month, if greater

One option for your expiring miles is to extend their validity by 6 months. You can choose to pay US$12 (around S$16) per block of 10,000 expiring miles, or sacrifice 1,200 miles per 10,000-mile block to achieve the same extension.

KrisFlyer Elite Silver and Elite Gold members get 12 months additional miles validity for the same fee or miles cost (and remember miles never expire for PPS Club members).

First point to note here if you are considering this option is that it’s probably better to use cash to extend your miles than sacrifice a portion of the miles themselves.

If you’re extending the miles ideally you want them all to still be there for one thing, and as you should ideally not be redeeming then at less than 1.9 Singapore cents of value per mile, 1,200 miles (implied value ~S$23) is a bigger price to pay than the cash equivalent (S$16).

Before you go ahead with this though, remember that paying to extend your KrisFlyer miles is only useful if you are fairly certain it will help you use them.

It’s also a one-time offer, you can only extend expiring miles once.

③	Transfer to Velocity Points
Value:	1.03 cents per mile*
Minimum expiring miles:	5,000

Pros	Cons
Velocity points are valid for at least 2 years. Flight redemptions with Virgin Australia and a host of partner airlines, including Singapore Airlines, provided you have enough miles. Transfers between KrisFlyer and Velocity are instant.	You may not be eligible for a Velocity account. You may not have enough miles to convert for a useful redemption in the Velocity scheme, or you may have no use for such a redemption.

* Based on the approximate value of a Velocity point at 1.8 Australian cents when used to redeem domestic flights on Virgin Australia, as assessed by Point Hacks (= 1.60 Singapore Cents per mile), then the 1.55:1 transfer ratio is accounted for.

If you’re a member of Virgin Australia’s Velocity frequent flyer program there are two ways you can extend the life of your KrisFlyer miles. This is the first one, a simple transfer to Velocity with the intention to use your miles in that scheme instead of KrisFlyer.

Before we get into the details you’ll have to be a member of the Velocity scheme and that’s unfortunately not open to everyone. To be eligible you need to have a residential address in one of their key markets – basically in Australia or New Zealand (some Pacific Ocean islands are also included).

For most of our readers in Singapore that’s not possible, however there’s always the option of registering your Velocity account at the address of a friend or family member in one of those countries.

If you’re eligible none of your Velocity points will expire provided you transact in the scheme at least once every 24 months (2 years), so even if transferring miles from KrisFlyer is the only activity you make in the scheme those points will still be good to use for another 24 months.

Points can be used to redeem Virgin Australia flights and upgrades or Singapore Airlines tickets, plus flights with a number of other partner airlines (click here for the current list).

Unlike the points you might hold in other Star Alliance airline frequent flyer schemes (e.g. Lifemiles), Velocity points can be used to redeem long-haul Business Class and First Class seats on Singapore Airlines flights, though the required number of miles is quite a bit higher than using KrisFlyer.

Velocity points can also be used against hotel bookings directly with selected hotel partners portal, offsetting hotel costs by using as few as 2,000 points, however you will get much poorer value per point compared to a flight redemption or upgrade.

You can even use Velocity points to book First Class awards on Etihad Airways (not possible with KrisFlyer miles), but if you have enough expiring miles to make that work after accounting for the 35% transfer loss you’ve either seriously mismanaged your KrisFlyer spending or you earn far more miles than you know what to do with!

④	Offset an SIA or Scoot cash fare
Value:	0.95 cents per mile
Minimum expiring miles:	1,050

Pros	Cons
Excellent flexibility. Ability to book a year in advance.	Poor value compared to a saver award. Only reflects a real saving if you would truly book the flight with cash anyway – other airlines are often cheaper.

Using your miles as ‘cashback’ against any Singapore Airlines or Scoot flight gets you a fixed value of 0.95 cents per mile.

This comes with great flexibility, since you no longer need award space to be available for your chosen flight, plus you will earn miles and status credits as usual based on the fare type.

However, this is only ‘true’ value if you book an SIA / SilkAir flight you would have chosen to pay for anyway.

If you’re heading to Bali or Phuket for example there are many other options you’d probably tolerate at much lower cash cost (e.g. Jetstar Economy or KLM Business), so spending your miles to reduce the cost of an expensive SIA ticket might not actually be “saving” you anything.

In many ways, it’s actually the cheaper Scoot fares that might help you achieve better value here.

When offsetting a Singapore Airlines or Scoot cash fare with your KrisFlyer miles, you can pay as little as 1,050 miles right up to the number required to secure the entire fare including taxes and fees, with no cash component to pay.

Ideally – use the sliding scale to exhaust your expiring miles, then stop there and pay cash after that.

⑤	Redeem a Pelago experience
Value:	0.95 cents per mile
Minimum expiring miles:	1,050

Pros	Cons
An ongoing promotion increases the usual value per mile.	Limited activities list. Partial payment with miles is not supported – it’s all or nothing.

Pelago is Singapore Airlines’ experiences platform, like Klook and KKday.

Since May 2021 it’s been possible to redeem KrisFlyer miles for Pelago experience bookings (earning was always an option – and the only one you should usually stick to).

Year-round, you’ll pay 150 KrisFlyer miles for every S$1 spend (minimum 1,050 KrisFlyer miles), which makes the rate 0.67 cents per mile, but between now and 31st August 2023 Pelago is offering an enhanced redemption rate of S$1 off for every 105 KrisFlyer miles redeemed – a value of 0.95 cents per mile.

This elevates it to the 5th best spot on this list, assuming there is an activity on the site you are interested in.

Unfortunately you can only redeem in full for an experience with KrisFlyer miles – there is no part miles / part cash option, so you may not be able to cover your expiring miles precisely with a Pelago redemption.

⑥	Redeem a vRooms hotel stay
Value:	0.80 cents per mile*
Minimum expiring miles:	1,200

Pros	Cons
Good choice of hotels. Smaller KrisFlyer redemptions (part-pay) can achieve superior value.	Mostly poor value, with some exceptions. You won’t earn hotel points for your stay and your status may not be recognised.

We examined KrisFlyer’s vRooms when it launched in May 2018. On the face of it this was just another poor value redemption, valuing your miles at 0.8 cents each, which is less than half what you should be aiming to achieve.

With closer examination though we found it was possible to get outsized value from your KrisFlyer miles on a vRooms redemption by using the minimum miles level to offset the cost of a hotel stay.

It didn’t work for all hotels but we found some examples where you can achieve a value of 2 cents per mile by using a small number of KrisFlyer miles against a hotel stay.

Arguably if you can find something similar which works for you and you only have a small number of miles expiring, that could elevate this option to first or second best value on our list, so it’s probably worth checking before committing to any other method for your expiring miles.

You could even ‘cash out’ only some of your expiring miles this way, leaving the rest for another method, or use a small number of miles multiple times through vRooms if you have several hotel stays coming up.

As we mentioned in our vRooms article you won’t get any hotel loyalty points with these bookings and your status benefits may or may not be applied, depending on the hotel chain, so even if the miles rate makes sense for you these bookings work best with independent or small-scale hotel properties.

Note that vRooms also has a car hire option, however we’ve never been able to find value better than 0.7 to 0.8 cents per mile using this method during our searches.

⑦	Offset a KrisShop purchase
Value:	0.80 cents per mile
Minimum expiring miles:	~600

Pros	Cons
A relatively wide range of products to choose from.	KrisShop is rarely the cheapest place to buy an item, and delivery charges may apply, so the realistic miles valuation is often less than ‘advertised’.

Using your KrisFlyer miles to redeem a purchase in the KrisShop gets you a fixed (but poor) value of 0.8 cents per mile.

Aside from the low return, another issue with the KrisShop is that the miles valuation is against their own pricing, but it’s by no means necessarily the cheapest place to obtain an item.

Last time we looked, a 50ml Mont Blanc Legend EDT was selling for S$98.28 or 12,285 miles through the KrisShop (0.8 cents per mile valuation), including taxes and delivery. The exact same product was S$82.14 on Amazon with free delivery. That means for that particular item your KrisFlyer miles are actually being valued at just 0.67 cents each.

That’s not to say that all KrisShop items are highly priced relative to what you can pay elsewhere for the same product, just bear in mind that 0.8 cents value per mile is likely the best you’ll do here, in some cases you’ll achieve less.

Do remember that because KrisShop is a duty free store, items that you wish to have delivered to your home will attract GST only at the confirmation page, so don’t be misled by a lower price in the search results, which don’t include GST.

⑧	Transfer to Velocity points then back to KrisFlyer
Value:	0.79 cents per mile
Minimum expiring miles:	7,750

Pros	Cons
Get another fresh 3-year validity period for just under half of your miles. Transfers between KrisFlyer and Velocity are instant.	58% of your miles are lost, the equivalent of reducing the value of the original expiring balance from 1.9 cents each to 0.8 cents each.

The second Velocity option might have crossed your mind while reading the first one!

It’s to transfer your miles to Velocity and then straight back to KrisFlyer again. This will reset their 3-year expiry clock. If that sounds too good to be true – it is. The 1.55:1 conversion ratio from KrisFlyer miles to Velocity points works both ways. That’s right – you lose out in both directions!

That means if you have 10,000 KrisFlyer miles (worth ~S$190) expiring and follow this ‘out-in’ process you’ll only have 4,162 of them left (about 42%) once they are back in KrisFlyer. Considering a KrisFlyer mile is worth around 1.9 cents, you’ve lost 58% of their value here, as your 4,162 miles are now worth around S$79.

They will now last for 3 years though.

Remember although the minimum number of KrisFlyer miles you can transfer to Velocity is 5,000 (as in option 3 above) you will need to have a minimum of 5,000 Velocity points in order to transfer back to KrisFlyer, so to successfully complete this process you must transfer at least 7,750 KrisFlyer miles.

If you transfer less than that you won’t be able to transfer back, assuming your Velocity account has a zero balance at the start of this process.

Example 7,750 KrisFlyer miles > 5,000 Velocity points > 3,226 KrisFlyer miles.

Note: This valuation assumes you will achieve at least 1.9 cents of value per mile when redeeming the miles you have transferred back to KrisFlyer (that are then valid for a fresh 3 years). If your usual redemption is poorer value than this – the value of this method is less in your case (and vice-versa if your personal redemption pattern always achieves a higher value than this).

⑨	Transfer to Shangri La Points
Value:	0.74 cents per mile
Minimum expiring miles:	20,000

Pros	Cons
Shangri-La Golden Circle Awards points are valid for 3 years. Redeem for hotel stays or to offset dining at a fixed 15 Points to 1 USD.	High minimum transfer quantity. You may have no use for Shangri-La Points since you would need a hotel stay or restaurant dining bill to pay.

Transfers from KrisFlyer to Shangri-La Circle (SLC) points are subject to a minimum transfer quantity of 20,000 miles, the highest of all the options for your expiring miles.

If you do have enough expiring miles to warrant this option your KrisFlyer miles will transfer to SLGC points at a 12:1 ratio.

15 SLC points gives you US$1 off your hotel bill or dining bill (even when not staying overnight), subject to a minimum redemption of 500 points. That makes each SLC worth 6.66 US cents, which is 8.86 Singapore cents.

That means a transfer of 20,000 KrisFlyer miles into 1,666 SLC points will net you a saving of S$147.61, giving you a value per KrisFlyer mile of 0.74 cents.

Remember the value here assumes you would actually consider a Shangri-La stay, or will dine at one of the hotel chain’s restaurants, even without having to do so to use up your miles.

⑩	Transfer to CapitaStar
Value:	0.70 cents per mile
Minimum expiring miles:	3,000

Pros	Cons
Offset transactions at CapitaStar STAR$ retailers in 18 malls across Singapore. Special offers at some retailers can give you slightly better value.	Poor value. Some merchants only accept payment in denominations of $5 (5,000 STAR$).

Every KrisFlyer mile will net you 7 STAR$ (1:7 ratio), with a minimum transfer of 3,000 KrisFlyer miles enforced per conversion.

A maximum of 30,000 KrisFlyer miles can be transferred to STAR$ per calendar year.

10 STAR$ are worth 1 Singapore cent, so the 21,000 STAR$ accrued for a minimum conversion from 3,000 KrisFlyer miles will be worth S$21, which is 0.7 cents per mile.

You can redeem STAR$ to offset payments at CapitaLand mall retailers, but do note that some merchants only accept payment in denominations of $5 (5,000 STAR$).

⑪	Transfer to Kris+
Value:	0.67 cents per mile
Minimum expiring miles:	1

Pros	Cons
No minimum expiring miles level, miles can be used for part-payment if necessary. Occasional partner redemption promotions can increase the value per KrisPay mile.	Once your KrisFlyer miles are transferred to KrisPay miles they are only valid for 6 months. Only useful for Singapore-based members. Limited merchant list.

We covered the launch of KrisPay (now Kris+) in detail when it launched in mid-2018. This offers redemption options at nearly 400 merchants across Singapore at exactly 0.67 cents.

To label that valuation as ‘awful’ is no understatement. Paying a merchant S$348.40 for example using KrisPay will cost you 52,000 KrisPay miles. That same number of miles would get you a Business Class award ticket from Singapore to Tokyo. Last time I checked you couldn’t even get a Business Class flight to KL for S$348!

You can transfer as little as 1 KrisFlyer mile to 1 KrisPay mile.

The minimum cost of a transaction at a Kris+ merchant is S$0.10, equivalent to 15 KrisPay miles, but you can use as few as 2 KrisPay miles to reduce the cost and pay the remainder in-app via your credit card.

Technically you can also use 1 KrisPay mile, but due to rounding this does not offset the cost of your purchase at all (whereas 2 KrisPay miles will get you 1 cent off).

Pro Tip: Once you’ve transferred your KrisFlyer miles into KrisPay miles they are stuck there forever, you can’t then transfer them back and renew their validity (that would be too easy!), or even retain their previous validity in KrisFlyer. Don’t experiment with this!

⑫	Transfer to LinkPoints then back to KrisFlyer
Value:	0.66 cents per mile
Minimum expiring miles:	3,076

Pros	Cons
Get another fresh 3-year validity period for about a third of your miles. Transfers between KrisFlyer and LinkPoints are instant.	65% of your miles are lost, the equivalent of reducing the value of the original expiring balance from 1.9 cents each to 0.66 cents each.

Since April 2022, KrisFlyer has a two-way transfer partnership with NTUC LinkPoints, and for the most part this hasn’t become a particularly exciting way to redeem your KrisFlyer miles due to the usual low value on offer (0.65 cents per mile).

There’s an interesting workaround, however, which is to transfer into LinkPoints then straight back out to KrisFlyer again, retaining 35% of your miles in the process, which will then be valid for 3 years.

Example 3,076 KrisFlyer miles > 2,000 LinkPoints > 1,070 KrisFlyer miles.

This gives an implied value of 0.66 cents per expiring KrisFlyer mile following this process.

Note: This valuation assumes you will achieve at least 1.9 cents of value per mile when redeeming the miles you have transferred back to KrisFlyer (that are then valid for a fresh 3 years). If your usual redemption is poorer value than this – the value of this method is less in your case (and vice-versa if your personal redemption pattern always achieves a higher value than this).

⑬	Transfer to LinkPoints
Value:	0.65 cents per mile
Minimum expiring miles:	3,000

Pros	Cons
Most people have at least some annual spend at FairPrice or other NTUC partners. Transfers between KrisFlyer and LinkPoints are instant.	Poorer value even than Kris+ (400 merchants). LinkPoints earned in a calendar year expire on 30th June the following year. Kris+ offers marginally better value at FairPrice Finest (0.67 cents).

Transfers from KrisFlyer to LinkPoints, as outlined above, have been available since April 2022.

Every KrisFlyer mile converted will net you 0.65 LinkPoints (3,000 : 1,950 ratio), with a minimum transfer of 3,000 KrisFlyer miles enforced per conversion.

A maximum of 80,000 KrisFlyer miles can be transferred to LinkPoints per calendar year.

You can then use LinkPoints to offset spend at 1 cent per point at retailers like FairPrice, which effectively means netting just 0.65 cents of value for every KrisFlyer mile converted.

⑭	Transfer to Esso Smiles
Value:	0.33 – 0.67 cents per mile
Minimum expiring miles:	3,000

Pros	Cons
Erm…	Only one specific redemption block gives the best value, others are poor. Kris+ offers identical or better value for petrol spend at Esso (0.67 cents).

Two-way transfers between KrisFlyer miles and Esso Smiles points have been possible since February 2021, but this is another poor value way to redeem, yielding a value of between 0.33 and 0.67 cents per mile, based on “Instant Redemption” options using Esso Smiles points.

Even at the best rate here, you’d need to transfer 4,500 KrisFlyer Miles to achieve 750 Esso Smiles points, for a rebate of S$30, which is 0.67 cents per mile.

You can also redeem KrisPay miles via the Kris+ app at 0.67 cents for petrol purchases at Esso, which is the top-end value you’ll get from a conversion to Esso Smiles points, so this is an irrelevant option in our book, especially given that Kris+ miles can be used more flexibly with this partner.

⑮	Transfer to Marriott Bonvoy
Value:	0.50 cents per mile
Minimum expiring miles:	3,000

Pros	Cons
If you can achieve a better return than we’ve assumed (0.5 cents), it could be a good option. Otherwise…	The worst value you can get from your KrisFlyer miles, short of actually letting them expire. Bonvoy Points expire if you have no account activity for 24 months.

Finally we’ve hit rock bottom in value per mile terms – a transfer to Marriott Bonvoy.

Transfers from KrisFlyer to Bonvoy Points became available in January 2023, and based on general consensus for the value of Bonvoy Points the 2:1 transfer ratio from KrisFlyer means getting just 0.5 cents of value per mile once converted.

Even a transfer to KrisPay miles in the Kris+ app will get you 0.67 cents per mile valuation against future purchases at a wide range of stores across Singapore, while on the hotel side a KrisFlyer vRooms hotel redemption stay will net around 0.8 cents of value per mile.

That said, it is possible to get better value than this from Bonvoy points in some circumstances, so a conversion may still make sense for you if the return you can achieve is better than our basic valuation.

Other considerations

Note that the minimum number of expiring miles column doesn’t have to be absolutely limiting. Remember at the start of the article we mentioned that your total balance also comes into play. There is nothing to stop you supplementing the expiring miles with those which aren’t expiring to ‘activate’ a better-value option (though this will adversely affect the average value itself).

For example say you have 20,000 KrisFlyer miles in your account and 5,000 of them are expiring. You have found a vRooms hotel stay redemption where the minimum offset is 6,800 miles against the stay, but will yield a 1.7 cents per mile return based on your calculations.

There’s nothing stopping you from topping up using 1,800 of your non-expiring miles to achieve this option. It does erode the value per mile slightly (since those 1,800 should technically be worth 1.9+ cents if left where they are for future flight redemptions), but provided you’re comfortable with the calculation it’s an option to consider.

Tips to avoid expiry in future

Obviously this article is designed to give recommendations on what to do if your KrisFlyer miles are expiring, however you never really want that to be the case in the first place so here’s our advice on how to prevent it from happening (or happening again, if you’re in that boat already).

Remember – keep points in credit card schemes as long as possible.

Banks in Singapore have different rules on how long your credit card loyalty points last before expiring. Just as an example though if you have the Citi PremierMiles card the Citi Miles earned (which transfer 1:1 into KrisFlyer as well as a number of other frequent flyer programs) never expire. Similarly rewards points earned on the Standard Chartered Visa Infinite card never expire either.

There is therefore no rush to move miles across to KrisFlyer as soon as you earn them, as the 3-year validity clock then starts ticking straight away.

There is also the financial perspective to consider, for most credit cards you’ll pay S$25-S$30 each time you transfer across to KrisFlyer miles no matter how many you are transferring, so you should be waiting for a reasonable balance to accrue each time so as not to ‘dilute’ the value of the miles too much during the process.

Here are some other examples of credit card points expiry in Singapore:

• BOC Elite Miles: 1 to 2 years expiry
• DBS Altitude: No expiry
• DBS Vantage: 3 years expiry
• HSBC Visa Infinite: 3 years expiry
• Maybank Horizon: 12-15 months expiry
• OCBC Voyage / 90°N: No expiry
• SCVI / X Card: No expiry
• UOB PRVI Miles: 2 years expiry

If you have one of the KrisFlyer co-brand cards, like the American Express Singapore Airlines or the KrisFlyer UOB Mastercard, one of the biggest downsides is that your miles will be accumulated and credited automatically into your KrisFlyer account each month, so you’re almost immediately exposed to the 3-year expiry clock starting to tick down.

Finally…

If you have at least 1,000 expiring KrisFlyer miles (up to 100,000 miles) but are not interested in any of the listed options to extract some value from them and simply intend to let them expire, please don’t do that.

Instead you can donate your miles to KidSTART Singapore, a charity that aims to help young children and pregnant mothers from low-income families in Singapore by empowering them to build strong foundations for children and foster positive child development outcomes.

If you have a large quantity of miles to donate, you can make unlimited multiple donations (the cap of 100,000 miles is simply per donation).

The donated miles will be used to redeem flights for the beneficiaries of KidSTART Singapore and/or for redemptions via KrisFlyer’s non-airline partners. These miles will then never expire and will be available for use by the beneficiaries of the charity.

KidSTART Singapore will not be made aware of your personal details when you donate.

Just because you didn’t get any use or value out of your miles, someone very deserving might well do.

Over three years of KrisFlyer miles validity extension is unfortunately coming to an end from 31st July 2023, and for many of our readers that means expiring balances coming up in just a few days’ time.

Obviously a flight redemption locked in up to a year in advance is the best option, but there are no fewer than 14 other things to consider before you resign yourself to simply losing the miles (or ideally if it’s come to that – donate them to Make-A-Wish).

Clearly all the options aren’t open to everyone, it depends how many miles you have expiring, what travel plans you have coming up over the next year, and for some options even your residential address comes into play!

If you find yourself in this situation – start at the top and work your way down through the options. You should then arrive at the best value method which works for you.

Before you rush into a decision, do check KrisFlyer’s vRooms option as the value there is variable, and especially for low quantity redemptions you might even achieve up to 2 cents per mile of value if you have a hotel stay coming up. Our full analysis explains why.

If like us you earn a significant chunk of your KrisFlyer miles through credit card spending, you can try to avoid the KrisFlyer expiry issue in the first place by keeping your points in the credit card loyalty scheme as long as comfortably possible, until you’re likely to need them in KrisFlyer.

Many banks have no expiry at all for certain credit card points, and transfers to KrisFlyer usually take just a few days.

(Cover Photo: TK Kurikawa / Shutterstock)