In a move that is very similar to Air Canada Aeroplan's Travel at Home campaign from spring 2020, Singapore Airlines has revealed a new promotion where you can earn elite status with their KrisFlyer program without even setting foot on a plane. With this promotion you have the ability to get yourself KrisFlyer Silver or Gold Elite status which translate to Star Alliance Silver or Gold status respectively.
This promotion runs until February 28, 2022 so there is a quite a bit of time to achieve it and it awards elite qualifying miles for many non-flying activities within the KrisFlyer program. This includes such items like shopping online via the KrisShop, converting bank/credit card points and even converting hotel loyalty points.
Here's a breakdown of how you can earn those elite status qualifying miles:
| Ways to earn1 | PPS Club members will earn2 | KrisFlyer Elite and KrisFlyer members will earn2 |
|---|
KrisShop
|
Every SGD 1 spent3 on KrisShop purchases with credit or debit card |
|
| 1 PPS Value for every SGD 1 spent4 |
|
| 3 Elite miles for every SGD 1 spent4 |
|
Kris+
|
Every SGD 1 spent5 at Kris+ partners where KrisPay miles are earned |
|
| 1 PPS Value for every SGD 1 spent |
|
| 3 Elite miles for every SGD 1 spent |
|
Conversion of Bank Points to KrisFlyer miles
|
Minimum of 10,000 KrisFlyer miles converted from reward points issued by any of our global bank partners ("Bank Points") |
|
| 1 PPS Value for every 10 KrisFlyer miles converted |
|
| 1 Elite mile for every 5 KrisFlyer miles converted |
|
Conversion of Bank Points to KrisPay miles
|
KrisPay miles converted6 from Bank Points issued by bank partners on Kris+ app |
|
| 1 PPS Value for every 10 KrisPay miles converted |
|
| 1 Elite mile for every 5 KrisPay miles converted |
|
Co-brand Cards
|
Minimum of 100 KrisFlyer miles earned on spend with a co-brand card |
|
| 1 PPS Value for every 10 KrisFlyer miles earned |
|
| 1 Elite mile for every 5 KrisFlyer miles earned |
|
Spend or Conversion with Non-Air Partners7
|
Minimum of 500 KrisFlyer miles earned with our non-air
partners or a conversion of a non-air partner's loyalty points into a
minimum of 500 KrisFlyer miles |
|
| 1 PPS Value for every 10 KrisFlyer miles earned or converted |
|
| 1 Elite mile for every 5 KrisFlyer miles earned or converted | |
Now with the numbers in front of you, you can start to develop a plan on how you could earn 25,000 elite status miles to receive KrisFlyer Silver status or 50,000 miles to receive Gold. Ideally you'd want to strive for Gold as that provides beneficial and tangible benefits with Star Alliance - think Air Canada here as those benefits extend to AC. And for us here in Canada there are really only two of the above earning options that really make sense for us. That is conversion of bank points to KrisFlyer miles and spend or conversion with non-air partners.
Conversion of bank points
There is one route for conversion of bank points for us Canadians and that is converting points from HSBC Rewards to Singapore Airlines KrisFlyer. This means the points earned on cards like the HSBC World Elite Mastercard, HSBC Premier World Elite Mastercard and HSBC Jade World Elite Mastercard. The conversion rate is 25,000 HSBC Rewards points to 9,000 KrisFlyer miles. By looking the table above you can see that you would receive one elite status mile for 5 miles converted. That means to reach Gold status with just the HSBC card you would need to convert enough points so that you would have 250,000 KrisFlyer miles deposited to your account. This means 694,445 HSBC Rewards points - that is a lot of points which many cardholders probably don't have even with this past fall's 100K offer on the card.
Spend or Conversion with Non-Air Points
You can also earn status miles for miles that post to your account for hotel stays and car rentals. Again it is one status miles for every five miles earned so when a hotel stay may earn 500 KrisFlyer miles you'll earn 100 status miles for it. You can also earn status miles when you convert hotel points to KrisFlyer and as we all know to only really valuable hotel points to convert to airline miles are Marriott Bonvoy points. Those are easily earned here in Canada with the Marriott Bonvoy American Express Card and the Marriott Bonvoy Business American Express Card. When you convert 60,000 Bonvoy points to Singapore Airlines you'll receive 25,000 KrisFlyer miles which means you'd earn 5,000 status miles. Multiply that by 10 to get to that magical number of 50,000 for Gold Status and you'll see you have to convert 600,000 Marriott points.
Should you do it?
The question that you need to ask now is should you do it? While there can be a lot of value in Star Alliance Gold status you'll need to ask yourself will you be able to take full advantage of it? You'll have the status for 12 months so you'll want to time your conversions right. For example you probably wouldn't want to convert right now if you don't have many flights planned for 2021 but if 2022 is shaping up to be different you'd want to convert closer to the end date of this promotion in February of next year.
Another question to ask is will you be able to use up the 250,000 KrisFlyer miles you now have in your account? You should be aware that Singapore Airlines KrisFlyer miles expire after three years even with activity in the program. This means no matter what you need to use them up in the three period from the time they post. Granted, having miles in KrisFlyer account gives you access to seats on Singapore Airlines flights that you do not have access to from other Star Alliance programs including Aeroplan.
Wrapping it up
All in all it is great to see Singapore Airlines follow in Air Canada's footsteps in allowing members the opportunity to earn status without flying. However the promotion is definitely better suited for members based in Asia, Europe and even the U.S.. For us here in Canada there will be some of you that this promotion totally makes sense to take part in and if it is right up your alley then jump on it! The ability to redeem for some of those business and first class seats will make some people's dreams come true. Just make sure it can work for you before transferring such large amounts of points that can provide a ton of value in their own right.
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