Singapore Airlines has announced that members of its frequent flyer program, KrisFlyer, will be able to book award seats with all Star Alliance partner airlines online at singaporeair.com from 7 December 2017.
Until now, KrisFlyer members could only book Singapore Airlines award seats online. To access the global partner network, you had to call the KrisFlyer call centre.
This is a welcome change and will make it easier to access Star Alliance award seats.
Now that it’s possible to book online, using the call centre will incur a fee of 25USD or 2,500 KrisFlyer miles (this will be waived where a booking can’t be made online).
Unfortunately, Singapore Airlines has also announced that it is increasing the cost of many Star Alliance award bookings.
Here is the current price chart (effective to 6 December 2017):
And here is the new chart from 7 December 2017.
Most of the changes are in premium cabins, though not all routes are affected.
Australia is in the South West Pacific zone and you can see most long-haul routes are increasing in price – for example, it will cost about 20% more to fly to North America.
It’s not surprising that Singapore Airlines has increased these costs, as it comes on the back of unfavourable changes to its own award chart earlier this year and similar moves by competitors.
The KrisFlyer program remains one of the best options for Australians to access the Star Alliance network.
Singapore Airlines serves Australia well, has a partnership with Virgin Australia (which sadly isn’t a member of the alliance … yet) and Australians can earn KrisFlyer miles through credit cards, like my personal favourite, the American Express Explorer Card.
If you’ve been thinking about using your KrisFlyer miles for a Star Alliance booking, you may want to act before the changes kick on 7 December!
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