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Singapore Airlines is one of my favorite airlines to fly. So, it's only natural that for me to walk you through the booking process and teach you how to enjoy one of the best onboard experiences. Additionally, we'll look at some of the best ways to accrue Singapore Airlines KrisFlyer miles, which are often the key to booking Singapore award tickets at the lowest rates.
Without further ado, let's dig in how to book a Singapore Airlines award ticket with KrisFlyer miles.
Page Contents
Best Ways To Earn Singapore Airlines KrisFlyer Miles
Leverage credit card sign-up bonuses and transfer points to KrisFlyer
One of the easiest ways to earn a lot of airline miles is to sign up for a co-branded credit card. Unfortunately, Singapore Airlines doesn't offer dedicated co-branded cards for U.S. applicants. But that doesn't mean you don't have a wealth of options to earn KrisFlyer miles through credit cards.
That's because most major transferrable point currencies offer point transfers to Singapore Airlines. You can find the complete list of Singapore Airlines transfer partners below:
You might recognize rewards programs from American Express, Capital One, Chase, Citi, and more. In other words, you can leverage credit card sign-up bonuses from several issuers to stock up on KrisFlyer miles. Some of the top welcome offers right now include:
- American Express® Gold Card: Earn 60,000 Membership Rewards® Points after you spend $6,000 on eligible purchases on your new Card in your first 6 months of Card Membership.
- Capital One Venture Rewards Credit Card: 75,000 Miles once you spend $4,000 on purchases within 3 months from account opening.
- Chase Sapphire Preferred® Card (Rates & Fees): Earn 60,000 bonus points after you spend $5,000 on purchases in the first 3 months from account opening.
- Citi Strata Premier℠ Card: Earn 60,000 bonus ThankYou® Points after spending $4,000 in the first 3 months of account opening, redeemable for $600 in gift cards or travel rewards at thankyou.com.
Another way to bank KrisFlyer miles is to transfer Marriott Bonvoy points to your Singapore Airlines frequent flyer account. Transfers happen at a 3:1 ratio, and you'll get a 5,000-KrisFlyer mile bonus for every 60,000 Marriott points you transfer in one transaction.
If you don't fancy redeeming your hotel points for free nights at Marriott properties worldwide, you can earn sign-up bonuses on several Marriott cards and put your points towards flying Singapore Airlines.
Fly Singapore Airlines or Star Alliance partners
Singapore Airlines is a member of Star Alliance. This means you can credit any flight you take with a Star Alliance partner, such as United or Air Canada, to your KrisFlyer account and earn miles. Singapore Airlines also has a handful of non-alliance partners you can earn miles on — such as Alaska Airlines and JetBlue.
How many miles you'll earn on your flight depends on the cabin you're flying in and the fare class you booked. Singapore Airlines has a handy calculator on its website that you can use to investigate your earnings. Or, you can parse through Singapore Airlines' mileage accrual tables (caution: PDF link).
How To Search and Book Singapore Airlines Award Tickets
Singapore Airlines has an extensive route map. And if you want to fly in its best seats, you can do so from several gateways in the United States — six at the time of writing! Even better, you don't need to fly all the way to Singapore to enjoy the airline's offerings, as it operates several fifth-freedom flights — such as New York (JFK) to Frankfurt (FRA) and Los Angeles (LAX) to Tokyo (NRT).
Singapore Airlines award charts
It's a growing rarity in award travel nowadays, but Singapore Airlines publishes an award chart. Prospective travelers can refer to this three-page document (caution: PDF link) to determine what awards cost. Singapore breaks the world into 13 zones, with the United States falling into zones 12 and 13.
With rare exceptions, you'll find the best value by booking saver awards. Unless you need to be somewhere on a certain date or your Singapore miles are at risk of expiring, you're better off looking around for the lowest-priced award.
Related: Singapore KrisFlyer award sweet spots
Singapore Airlines award booking process
Wondering how to redeem your hard-earned KrisFlyer miles? Let's go through the process step-by-step. To make a redemption, you'll first need to log in to your KrisFlyer account. You can find the log-in button at the top right corner of Singapore Airlines' website.
Then, select “Book Trip” from the booking widget on the front page of your account. Click on “Redeem flights” and fill in your details.
You’ll be redirected to a results page showing the award availability for Saver and Standard Awards. Here, you can make your selection and then proceed to seat selection, stopover options, and payment of taxes and fees.
One downside of the Singapore website is that it doesn’t allow you to search a calendar of dates via the award search, which can make finding availability at the pointy end of the plane a labor-intensive process. If there is no award space available, you can opt to waitlist the flight.
Waitlisting a flight doesn’t obligate you to take the award if it clears; it simply puts you on the waitlist in case Singapore clears the waitlist and opens up more award space. And the chance of your waitlist clearing? Don’t bank on the flight if you have to be somewhere on a particular date.
Best ways to redeem KrisFlyer miles for Singapore Airlines flights
Part of what makes Singapore Airlines special is its onboard product. And there can be significant differences in seats offered between different Singapore Airlines aircraft. Business class can especially vary between aircraft types. The Airbus A380 has the airline's newest cabin configuration and seats available but offers a different experience than the Airbus A350, Boeing 777, or Boeing 737 aircraft.
If you're after a premium cabin experience, you'd be wise to book an award on Singapore Airlines' A380. Especially in Suites Class, it's a fantastic way to fly. These awards are often pricey but more than worth the miles, in my opinion.
For a more economical use of KrisFlyer miles, keep tabs on Singapore Airlines Spontaneous Escapes. For the unfamiliar, each month, the airline discounts select awards by 30%. And sometimes, you'll have stellar options, such as New York to Frankfurt for 56,700 miles in business class or 17,500 in economy.
How To Search and Book Partner Awards With KrisFlyer Miles
You can also use your KrisFlyer miles to book award tickets on other Star Alliance member airlines and non-alliance partners like Virgin Atlantic, Virgin Australia, Alaska Airlines, and JetBlue. Each airline has its own unique award chart. Click here to visit Singapore's partner webpage to explore each chart.
You can search and book Star Alliance awards on the Singapore website, making booking awards on partners like United, Lufthansa, and more pretty easy.
The other thing to note is that all partner awards are priced at the Standard award rate, not Saver. In other words, partner awards don’t always provide good value. The exception to that rule is economy tickets to Hawaii on Alaska Airlines (one of our favorite sweet spots for free flights to Hawaii) or domestic flights within the lower 48 states.
Partner airline award booking process
To book a Star Alliance partner award with KrisFlyer, search Singapore's site or another Star Alliance partner site, such as United or ANA, to find award availability and then book directly on the KrisFlyer site.
If you need to call the Singapore Reservations Office, dial 1-833-727-0118 to book with an agent. However, note that there is a $50 fee (or equivalent in local currency) to book over the phone.
Singapore does not hold award fares on partners or its own flights, so timing is critical. If award space is open, be aware that it could disappear while you wait for transferred miles to arrive in your account. If you're concerned about an award disappearing, check out AwardWallet's tool for the average transfer times you can expect before initiating your transfer.
Related: How To Find Airline Partner Award Flight Availability
Final Thoughts
Singapore KrisFlyer is a fantastic program offering one of the world's best premium cabin award experiences and an abundance of methods to accumulate miles. Premium cabin award fares into and out of the U.S. are competitively priced and, with the reduction in fuel surcharges from semi-recent program changes, can now be purchased with a minimal out-of-pocket expense.
One of the only downsides to having several major flexible rewards currencies as transfer partners is that competition for award space is hotter than it's ever been on Singapore Airlines. So, if you see an award you like, snag it before it flies away.
For rates and fees of the cards mentioned in this post, please visit the following links: Chase Sapphire Preferred® Card (Rates & Fees)
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Read the zillion complaints about Singapore Air on their Facebook page.
Would not fly them, even if free!
Hi I would like to know if there is a service I can use to help book/find redemption flights for Singapore airlines?
AwardWallet offers a booking service. You can get started with the process here: https://awardwallet.com/en/awardBooking/add
I found this article interesting but I did encounter a difficulty. I am able to see First/Suites availability if I try to book a cash flight, but when I search using the “redeem flights” option, it shows no award flights. Just wondering if that means that Singapore Airlines doesn’t have any award availability or if it doesn’t show results because I don’t have enough miles to book a First/Suites seat.
It’s likely because Singapore doesn’t have first-class availability on that flight.
Hi, I have points that will be expiring soon, and not enough to use towards tickets and no plans yet either. Any suggestions on how these can be used to redeem for gift rewards at Changi Airport?
I have 350,000 Krisflyer miles and no matter what routing i try to get on several trips to Europe i plan in either business or first i can’t find availability .. any tips ?
It can be tricky. Have you tried waitlisting flights? If you want expert help, you might consider hiring a booking service. You can request a booking here.
Very helpful post! I’ll be booking my first Singapore Airlines partner flight soon and this info will make it so much easier!
For smaller increments, their miles are difficult to redeem. My mother has approximately 7,000 miles expiring and we looked at redeeming them for gifts however the shipping was really high at $28.
If the Online-Reduction is gone – will there ever be anything like that?
Thanks for such a complete guide!
What are the taxes and charges like?
Nice miles but they expire in 36 months no matter the activity?? Very strange..
Love the airline. The mileage expiration, not so much…
All programs with hard expirations should be treated with caution.
And at the moment Singapore is offering 500 miles just for signing up fort he program.
I have heard bunches about Singapore being SO awesome to travel on! Coach or first. However, I do so want to try out their Suites! Would be amazing to treat my husband to this.
Now If I have UR though and the Chase Sapphire card, can I book through UR and get 25%off, that they say you get when using them? Or is it better to say have 500,000(random number, of course! lol!) UR points transferred them to Singapore? I hadn’t seen any limit on a transfer amount from UR to a partner.
in general, if you want to fly any premium cabin (suites included) you’ll get a better value transferring the points to Singapore.
got it. thank you!
This is just the post I needed. I always struggle with krisflyer miles and earning enough, but I finally have a plan!
Useful post as I’m looking to book my first flight with Singapore.
Nice to see the three major transferable points programs all teamed up with KrisFlyer.
Flying SQ KF Suites in July, so looking forwards to it!
I am deeply suspicious of any airline that doesn’t let you make ANY partner transactions online. Just not customer friendly and a sign that they really don’t want you using your miles with a partner. (so why join an airline alliance?)
Honestly, I think it just comes down to technology and investing the resources to make it happen. I don’t think they built the technology to prevent this from happening but rather they don’t want to invest in technology to make it happen.
And I think this is particularly true where the labour cost is quite low.
Thanks for the extra tips, Singapore biz/ first are very good products way above BA.
It really puts me off when you have to phone to book partner awards. I guess though that is the idea. They provide it but make it difficult to use so that you don’t redeem the rewards on other airlines.
The new A380 suite class is going to be amazing. Can’t wait to see that product
Great step-by-step guide – would like to fly the new SQ A350 soon!
can expiring points be extended by transfers / flying ?
Unfortunately, no.
Thank you for this comprehensive presentation. I will bookmark this the “go to” page for Kris Flyer.
I would love to try Singapore Airlines Suite Class!!!
I don’t have enough SQ miles yet, but someday when I have enough, I will fly Suites class to Singapore.
Ah one can keep dreaming.
Thanks for the great post btw.
It’s still amazing to me in 2017 that some things still can’t be booked online, even for partners, etc. Oh well, such is life.
Helpful post! Flying in the Singapore Suites is definitely a bucket-list item of mine!
Thanks for such a comprehensive guide!
1:1 exchange with Amex points isn’t bad at all
Its impossible for me to redeem since I have so few miles on Krisflyer and they just expire on me.