Singapore Airlines Krisflyer is a great alternative to Qantas Frequent Flyer for Australians who want to fly in the front of the plane.
While lots of Australians are focussed on increasing their Qantas Frequent Flyer balance, the ability to redeem them in a meaningful way is not easy. I am a big fan of having two programs in play to provide flexibility with bookings. Singapore Airlines KrisFlyer is currently my go to alternative to Qantas Frequent Flyer.
In this post:
How Easy Is It To Redeem Krisflyer Points
Singapore Airlines flies out of Sydney and Melbourne four times a day compared to Qantas’s two flights.
They then connect from Singapore Changi Airport to eleven cities in Europe such as Zurich, London, Paris, Milan and Munich which means that they usually have very good redemption availability.
Wikipedia is a great tool to find out where Singapore Airlines flies to.
Free Stopover in Singapore with Krisflyer
Most frequent flyer programs only offer a stopover of less than 24 hours. We have tried this hack in Dubai and Abu Dhabi. KrisFlyer allows you to get a longer free stopover in Singapore as part of your booking. That means you can spend some time in Singapore or do a cheeky side trip to Penang and stay at the Eastern and Oriental Hotel Penang.
How To Increase My KrisFlyer Points Balance
There are five easy ways to increase your Krisflyer points balance:
- Through credit card applications sign on bonus. Both the NAB Signature or Amex Express Explorer Card
- Choose a card that maximises points on purchases including ATO payments. Amex provides 1 Krisflyer point per $1 spend vs NAB $2.40 spend per point earned.
- Transferring from Velocity frequent flyer and using the family pooling feature.
- Transfer points from hotel eg Bonvoy Marriot to Krisflyer.
- Fly with business class with Singapore eg Sydney to Stockholm can provide great deals.
Are Qantas Points And Krisflyer Points Worth the Same?
You could think that Qantas and Krisflyuer points are worth the same. However if you look at a simple Sydney to London flight you need less flights with Krisflyer.
| Singapore Airlines Krisflyer | 116,000 |
| Qantas Frequent Flyer | 159,000 |
Put simply you need 37% more points to fly with Qantas than Singapore Airlines
How Many Points Do I Need To Fly With Singapore Airlines
I did a quick check for one One Way redemptions on the Krisflyer program and found the initial bonus offer is enough to get you a one way economy flight from Melbourne to Singapore.
- Melbourne to Singapore economy 28,000
- Sydney to Singapore business 62,000
- Melbourne to Singapore First 85,000
- Sydney to Zurich business class 116,000 points
I have just opened a NAB Signanture Creidt Card and will soon open an AMEX Explorer card to give my points a boost. I will then put all my spend including any tax bills through the card which should give my balance a real boost.You will need to spend nearly $280k to get a business class flight to Europe from Australia.
Summary
While it is a lot easier to get Qantas frequent flyer points in Australia, Krisflyer is a great alternative. You need less points and they have much better availability to key destinations around the world.
