Two years ago, the Singapore Airlines KrisFlyer programme teamed up with NTUC’s LinkPoints scheme, allowing two-way transfers for KrisFlyer members, replacing a longstanding partnership with the Dairy Farm Group’s TapForMore points, that ended in mid-2021.
This allows you to convert loyalty points accrued from your shopping at outlets including NTUC FairPrice, Unity Pharmacy and Caltex petrol stations into KrisFlyer miles, and in the other direction you can also ‘cash out’ your KrisFlyer miles into LinkPoints, to redeem against future shopping spend.
KrisFlyer to LinkPoints transfers devalued
The poorer side of this deal was always a transfer from your hard-earned KrisFlyer miles into LinkPoints, which like most options to ‘cash out’ of the programme results in lousy value.
Until 31st March 2024, you could convert KrisFlyer miles into LinkPoints at a rate of 3,000 miles to 1,950 points.
LinkPoints are worth S$0.01 (1 cent) at retailers like FairPrice, so this was already very poor, valuing your KrisFlyer miles at just 0.65 cents each (S$19.50 future rebate for 3,000 miles).
The bad news is that even if you were considering a transfer like this (which you shouldn’t have been – there are better options), the transfer ratio has been devalued from 1st April 2024, with no prior notice provided.
| Transfer Ratio
KrisFlyer miles LinkPoints 3,000 : |
Effectively, every KrisFlyer mile will now net you 0.59 LinkPoints at this new 3,000 : 1,770 ratio, with a minimum transfer of 3,000 KrisFlyer miles enforced per conversion.
It effectively means netting just 0.59 cents of value for every KrisFlyer mile converted.
Cash-out value for KrisFlyer miles
April 2024
| Option | Min. Miles | Value per mile |
| Redeem an SIA or partner award flight | 8,500 | 1.90¢+ |
| Transfer to Velocity points | 5,000 | 1.03¢ |
| Offset an SIA or Scoot cash fare | 1,050 | 0.95¢ |
| Redeem a vRooms hotel stay | 1,200 | 0.80¢* |
| Offset a KrisShop purchase | ~600 | 0.80¢ |
| Transfer to Shangri-La points | 20,000 | 0.74¢ |
| Transfer to CapitaStar | 3,000 | 0.70¢ |
| Transfer to Kris+ | 1 | 0.67¢ |
| Redeem a Pelago experience | 1,050 | 0.67¢ |
| Transfer to LinkPoints | 3,000 | 0.59¢ |
| Transfer to Esso Smiles | 3,000 | 0.47¢ to 0.67¢ |
| Transfer to Marriott Bonvoy | 3,000 | 0.50¢ |
* Can be better value in some cases.
As you can see this transfer option is now almost on a par with the worst thing you can do with your KrisFlyer miles, short of letting them expire, since it even comes in at 12% poorer value than a transfer to Kris+ (KrisPay miles), which can be redeemed at over 400 merchants across Singapore.
Indeed you can actually redeem Kris+ miles for FairPrice Finest or FairPrice Xtra vouchers at the better 0.67 cents per mile rate, 14% more than you’ll get for a cash offset at the checkout using miles transferred directly from KrisFlyer to LinkPoints!
Even if some of your KrisFlyer miles are expiring in the coming months, do be sure to check out our full updated guide to getting the best value out of them before committing to a poor option like a LinkPoints transfer.
If you do go down the KrisFlyer to LinkPoints transfer route, even having seen the above table, note that a maximum of 80,000 KrisFlyer miles can be transferred to LinkPoints per calendar year.
If you are a member of Link Rewards programme, your account will be linked to your KrisFlyer account automatically upon the first successful conversion of KrisFlyer miles to LinkPoints, through the ‘Miles > How To Use > Link Rewards’ section of your KrisFlyer account at singaporeair.com.
LinkPoints to KrisFlyer transfers
The good news is that the conversion rate for transfers from LinkPoints to KrisFlyer miles has not changed, though this only offers mediocre value, outside a conversion bonus offer.
LinkPoints can be redeemed at 1 cent each against future purchases (e.g. 100 LinkPoints = S$1 rebate), in-store at NTUC FairPrice for example, so you’re effectively paying a cost per mile when transferring to KrisFlyer by losing out on this cashback opportunity.
Here’s how the effective cost per mile looks for the various denomination levels.
LinkPoints to KrisFlyer
Conversion denominations
| LinkPoints | KrisFlyer miles | Effective Cost per mile* |
| 100 | 50 | 2.00¢ |
| 200 | 100 | |
| 1,000 | 500 | |
| 2,000 | 1,070 | 1.87¢ |
| 5,000 | 2,680 |
* Based on the cashback opportunity you are losing out on
At the very basic level, if you accrue just 100 LinkPoints from S$200 of spend, that can be converted to 50 KrisFlyer miles.
100 LinkPoints = S$1 rebate, so in this case you’d have to consider KrisFlyer miles worth 2 cents or more each to make the transfer, which isn’t very attractive unless you just need a small top-up.
Once you move to the 2,000 and 5,000 LinkPoints conversion levels, however, the equation does shift slightly with a 7% bonus added, meaning you’d have to consider KrisFlyer miles to be worth 1.87 cents or more to make a transfer.
This still isn’t great (converting TapForMore points to KrisFlyer was effectively costing you only 1.54 cents per mile), but it’s close to where we think you should still get good value from, assuming a Saver Business Class or First Class redemption at current award rates.
There is no limit on the number of LinkPoints you can transfer to KrisFlyer miles per year.
Transfer bonuses are where the value improves here – a 20% bonus in June 2023 and a 25% bonus in February 2024 meant a cost per mile of 1.67 cents and 1.49 cents respectively – definitely worth considering.
Summary
KrisFlyer has quietly cut its transfer ratio from miles to NTUC LinkPoints by 10% this month, meaning a conversion of 3,000 miles will only net you 1,770 LinkPoints, worth S$17.70 against future purchases.
At a value per mile of 0.59 cents each, this is almost a new low for cash-out value – only transfers to Marriott Bonvoy and potentially Esso Smiles can come out worse than this, short of letting your miles expire.
With a value of 0.95 cents per mile for offsetting an SIA or Scoot cash fare, 0.80 cents for a KrisShop purchase or even 0.67 cents for spend at a Kris+ merchant, there are far better ways to use up expiring miles than this, even if you can’t lock in a future flight redemption – which remains the most valuable option of the lot.