The Singapore Airlines KrisFlyer programme launched Access awards on 1st November 2025, alongside the mostly modest Saver and Advantage award rate increases first announced in late August this year. If you’ve searched for redemptions over the weekend, you’ve probably already seen them – sometimes at eye-watering miles levels!
Don’t panic. Access isn’t a stealth devaluation – yet – it’s the new dynamic pricing layer that gives KrisFlyer members “last-seat” availability on SIA flights, and is only something you should ever need to consider when no fixed-price award space is available at Saver or Advantage rates.
In this article, we break down exactly how it works, where it fits in the redemption ecosystem, and whether it ever makes sense to actually book an Access award.
How Access compares to existing awards
Singapore Airlines positions Access as a middle ground between traditional awards and cash fares, with terms mirroring Advantage awards:
| KrisFlyer Award Type Comparison | |||
| Feature | Saver Award |
Advantage Award |
 AccessAward |
| Pricing | Fixed miles (award chart) |
Dynamic (availability-based) |
|
| Availability | Limited inventory | Commercial inventory (last seat) |
|
| Waitlist | Yes | No | |
| Date changes | US$25 | Free | Free |
| Cancellation | US$75 | US$50 | US$50 |
| Stopovers | R/t: 1 O/w: 0 |
R/t: 2 O/w: 1 |
R/t: 2 O/w: 1 |
Terms and conditions for Access awards can be found here.
As with Saver and Advantage awards, Access redemptions cannot be upgraded using miles or cash, and Advance Upgrade Vouchers are also not applicable. Taxes and fees must also be paid separately in cash.
Waitlist is not applicable to Access awards – there are either seats for sale on that specific flight, or there aren’t. That said, sold-out flights do sometimes reappear for sale, in which case Access awards will also reappear.
Because Singapore Airlines does not offer Advantage awards in Premium Economy, Access offers the only redemption option in this cabin that includes free date changes, more complimentary stopovers and reduced cancellation fees.
The big promise: Last-seat availability
Access guarantees a confirmed award seat as long as the flight has a revenue bucket open – even if only one First Class, Business, Premium Economy, or Economy seat remains.
“With Access, you will be able to use your miles to secure available seats on your preferred flights even if award seats are fully redeemed.”
Singapore Airlines
That includes:
- Same-day departures (up to two hours before)
- Peak holiday periods
- Flights with only the highest cash fares remaining
- Flights where awards are usually almost impossible to come by, including Suites to London, or Business Class to Sapporo
(Photo: Chung ChengYen)
How Access awards appear in searches
Singapore Airlines said that Access awards would be “displayed within the booking flow” on both its website and mobile app, and that’s exactly what we now see, with the new option shown alongside regular award rates.
In this example, all three award types are available
- Desktop & App: Access prices show alongside Saver and Advantage when all three are available.
- Only Access? If Saver / Advantage inventory is zero, you’ll only see Access – which can look alarming on popular routes (e.g., 467,000 miles one-way in Suites SIN–LHR). Reality: Those flights simply had zero award seats before today. Access didn’t really hike anything, it created a redemption option where none previously existed.
Not really – just an extreme example very few would dream of actually booking!
How Access pricing looks: Four fixed “steps”
Singapore Airlines says that Access award pricing is dynamic, based on availability, but in fact during early searches we found that the required mileage is rounded into nice fixed 1,000 or 500-mile levels, and based on one of up to four fixed increments above the baseline Saver or Advantage award chart rate.
Which of the increments is charged appears to be tied to the lowest commercial fare bucket available for sale (S, J, etc.), based on our extensive searches.
Here are the four Access pricing “steps” we observed so far.
| Economy Class Access Award Pricing |
||
| Step | Award multiplier | Commercial buckets |
| 1 | Advantage x 1.3 | All |
| Premium Economy Class Access Award Pricing |
||
| Step | Award multiplier | Commercial buckets |
| 1 | Saver x 1.3 | Lite: R Standard: L, P Flexi: T |
| 2 | Saver x 1.6 | Flexi: S |
| Business Class Access Award Pricing |
||
| Step | Award multiplier | Commercial buckets |
| 1 | Advantage x 1.25 | Lite: D Standard: U |
| 2 | Advantage x 1.5 | Flexi: J |
| 3 | Advantage x 1.8 | Flexi: C |
| 4 | Advantage x 2 | Flexi: Z |
| First Class / Suites Access Award Pricing |
||
| Step | Award multiplier | Commercial buckets |
| 1 | Advantage x 1.8 | All |
For example, the award rate for Economy Advantage awards from Singapore to Hong Kong is 33,000 miles, so the current Economy Access award rate we’re seeing is 43,000 miles (1.3 times, or 30% more).
Only the most expensive Premium Economy Fares (S, the higher subset of the PY Flexi fare) attracts a 60% increment on the Saver rate, otherwise the rates pick up a “reasonable” 30% hike on the Saver Economy level.
It’s Business Class where the most iterations are seen, with four different Access rates based on 25%, 50%, 80% or 100% multiples of current Advantage levels.
(Photo: MainlyMiles)
However, Singapore Airlines could change this structure whenever they want, because there is no official published Access award chart as such.
Dynamic award pricing could move in either direction, and probably will do so in time once the airline assesses the uptake and revenue metrics. Until then though, while the pricing appears to remain “fixed” under these multiples, you could argue that Access awards aren’t actually dynamic at all!
Important: The Miles calculator on singaporeair.com does not apply for Access awards. Exact miles only display at the online search portal.At least Access beats Cash + Miles, right…?
Dynamic award pricing is really nothing new for Singapore Airlines, since KrisFlyer members have long had the option to offset any portion of their fare (including taxes, if desired) with miles instead – but at a dreadful rate of 1 cent discount per mile redeemed – less than half what most Saver redemptions will achieve.
Access awards must beat that, to be rational… right?
Well the good news is that most of the time – they do. Access awards in this case give you a redemption option that lies somewhere between the Advantage rate and the lousy 1 cent per mile fixed offset option on any SIA fare.
Take this example, for a last-minute Business Class award to Sydney this week.
Last-minute Business Class
| SIN–SYD, 5th November 2025, SQ231 | ||||
| Top 1 | Cash | Miles | Taxes | Value per mile |
| Cash fare | S$5,504.80 | – | – | – |
| Saver | – | Not available | ||
| Advantage | – | Not available | ||
| Access (Step 4 rate) |
– | 207,000 | S$104.80 | 2.61¢ |
| Cash + Miles | – | 550,480 | S$0.00 | 1.00¢ |
Access wins big here at 2.61 cents per mile, but the use case is extremely limited – you need to really have to go to Sydney on Tuesday night and it really has to be on this flight with SIA direct, i.e. you would part with your own cash if you had to.
It’s therefore not realistic for 99.9% of our readers, but it is better than the only previous option that would have existed before 1st November 2025 – offsetting the cash fare with miles at 1 cent a piece.
But is Access always better than Cash + Miles? Sadly not.
Here’s an example for a Bangkok flight about a month from now, in early December, where all four “redemption” options are available – Saver, Advantage, Access and Cash + Miles.
Short-haul Economy
| SIN–BKK, 2nd December 2025, SQ720 | ||||
| Top 1 | Cash | Miles | Taxes | Value per mile |
| Cash fare | S$263.20 | – | – | – |
| Saver | – | 13,000 | S$67.20 | 1.51¢ |
| Advantage | – | 27,500 | S$67.20 | 0.71¢ |
| Access (Step 1 rate) |
– | 36,000 | S$67.20 | 0.54¢ |
| Cash + Miles | – | 26,320 | S$0.00 | 1.00¢ |
In this example, Access is absolutely the worst option you could pick, a just 0.54 cents value per mile. Even Advantage is awful, poorer than the “any flight, any time” Cash + Miles option, with a value of 1 cent per mile, and of course with Saver available that’s the only one that makes some sense at 1.51 cents per mile (but even then, it’s lousy!).
When does Access ever make sense?
Despite the wild pricing, there are some limited use cases for Access awards.
Urgent travel
Picture this: You’re miles-rich but cash-poor, and due to a family emergency you must fly to New York ASAP.
It’s 9am, and the fastest route, SQ24, Singapore Airlines’ nonstop to JFK, wheels up at 12.10pm – just three hours from now.
Old reality (pre-Access):
- Revenue ticket in Premium Economy: S$2,921 cash; or
- Cash + Miles: 292,070 miles (fixed 1¢ per mile offset) + S$0 cash.
A brutal choice: drain your bank account or torch nearly 300,000 miles!
New reality (with Access):
- 110,000 miles + S$88.90 (taxes and fees)
- That’s only 30% more than the Premium Economy 84,500-mile Saver rate
- Effective savings: S$2,831.80 (S$2,920.70 – S$88.90)
- Value per mile: 2.57¢
It’s not a redemption we’d ever recommend for leisure. But in a true emergency, when every minute counts and SIA is your only shot, an Access award can save the day.
For the first time, KrisFlyer gives miles-rich travellers a realistic last-minute option that far exceeds the 1 cent per mile value benchmark.
Peak travel periods
Access awards can sometimes provide a cost-effective backup redemption option during peak travel periods, like Chinese New Year, Christmas, Golden Week in Japan, etc.
During these periods, Saver and Advantage award space can be very limited or even non-existent, but provided there are seats available for sale – Access will be there. That doesn’t automatically make it good value – much of the time it won’t be – but it does offer a redemption option that you might be comfortable with against high cash costs.
Premium Economy Access awards can be good value on some routes during these periods too.
For example, between Singapore and Hong Kong during peak travel periods many dates only have Economy Advantage award space available on SIA, at 33,000 KrisFlyer miles one-way.
However, Premium Economy Access awards are only 36,500 miles (the regular 28,000-mile Saver rate x 1.3).
The added benefit here, as we mentioned earlier in the article, is that this is the only redemption option in Premium Economy cabin that includes free date changes and reduced cancellation fees, because Advantage awards don’t exist for PY.
Expiring miles
If you have expiring KrisFlyer miles, you can usually extract the maximum value from them with Business Class or First Class Saver award redemptions, and failing that perhaps even an Advantage award can make sense.
Access awards should, of course, be your last choice, but if that’s the only available option for your upcoming travel plans, they will generally net you more than 1 cent per mile in value, which is now technically the baseline ‘cash-out’ rate for most Singapore-based members, with a variety of flight and non-flight options available.
Other things to know
- No extra space for elites
PPS Club members do not see additional Access award space, like they sometimes do with Saver and Advantage, because it simply relates to remaining commercial inventory. Same “Access” for all! - Any Access awards on partner airlines?
Not yet – Access is only for award redemption on Singapore Airlines flights at the moment, not Scoot, Star Alliance or partner carriers. - Spontaneous Escapes
Will still run monthly with a discount on fixed Saver rates, marketed as non-refundable Promo awards. Access prices are unlikely to be discounted.
Summary
KrisFlyer’s new Access awards have introduced some wild-looking pricing into the SIA award search, which can be alarming at first, but just think of these a way of letting you burn miles on flights that wouldn’t have offered Saver or Advantage award space anyway, or aren’t likely to offer any more now.
It probably goes without saying, but as always prioritise Saver awards, then Advantage awards, and only then consider Access – with a careful value per mile calculation before committing.
We’ll keep an eye on Access award pricing and update the four-step matrix as more data rolls in, or if SIA rolls out future changes. For now, happy searching – and may the Saver award odds be ever in your favour!
(Cover Photo: Shutterstock)