Points Panda has partnered with a variety of financial companies including CreditCards.com for our coverage of credit card products. Points Panda and CreditCards.com may receive a commission from card issuers. Opinions, reviews, analyses & recommendations are the author’s alone, and have not been reviewed, endorsed or approved by any of these entities. Terms apply to American Express benefits and offers. Enrollment may be required for select American Express benefits and offers. Visit americanexpress.com to learn more.
The content on this page is accurate as of the posting date; however, some of the offers mentioned may have expired. For more information please read our full Advertiser Disclosure.
Redeeming rewards is faster than ever as Singapore KrisFlyer adds family pooling to its program. The newly launched program is called the KrisFlyer for Families and it allows KrisFlyer members, who belong to the same household, to share miles with each other for a minimal fee.
The new program took effect on Aug. 18, 2021, and it delighted most flyers especially those with big families. Typically, frequent flyer programs do not allow the transferring of miles from one account to another even if the account owners are family members.
Read More: Flight Review – Singapore Airlines 777 Business Class
Singapore KrisFlyer Adds Family Pooling: How it works!
The KrisFlyer for Families program allows parents or legal guardians, who own adult KrisFlyer accounts, to link to their children’s KrisFlyer accounts and transfer miles with one another. However, the transfer of miles doesn’t work both ways because only the child account can transfer miles to the adult account.
Each adult account is limited to 5 linked child accounts, and each child account can only transfer up to 50,000 KrisFlyer miles per calendar year. There’s a fee of $5 or 500 miles for every 5,000 KrisFlyer miles (or a fraction) transferred.
Take note that only children who are at least two years old can get KrisFlyer accounts. All child accounts will automatically be unlinked to any adult account if the owner of the child account turns sixteen.
Linking Accounts And Transfering Miles
Linking your child’s KrisFlyer account to yours is very beneficial. You don’t have to hold onto your miles for a long time because pooling lets you earn miles faster and also redeem rewards faster. If you haven’t linked your accounts or transferred miles yet, here are two easy steps on how to do it.
1. Setting Up A Parental Link – You need to make sure that you’re the listed parent or guardian in your child’s account. Log in to your child’s KrisFlyer account and turn on the Parental Link. After that, you will receive an automated email that contains instructions on how to link your accounts.
2. Transferring Miles – After linking the accounts, you can now transfer your child’s KrisFlyer miles to your account by clicking Miles → Transfer child’s miles. Remember, all child accounts will automatically unlink once the owner turns 16.
Take note that the program requires child accounts to earn at least 1 mile from flights taken within the last three years of the date of transfer. Child accounts must not also earn miles from credit card transfers and co-branded card spending within the last three years of the date of transfer.
Program Features The Should Be Changed
The KrisFlyer for Families program provides two major benefits for loyalty members – faster mile earning and faster award redemptions. However, the program does have a few features that are too restrictive, and here’s a list of what we think the program should change:
- Each adult account is only limited to 5 children accounts. The rule is pretty restrictive as it disqualifies rare cases where a single-parent household has 6 or more children.
- A child account cannot be unlinked from a parent account and linked to another parent account. For a family with 5 children and below, you need to choose one parent account to pool all your miles if you want to save up for an expensive award redemption.
- Only children can transfer miles to their parents. For bigger families who have 6 children or more, it might be a good idea to allow spouse-to-spouse transfers to be able to afford expensive award redemptions.
- A child account must earn at least 1 KrisFlyer mile from a SA flight in the last 3 years to be able to use the KrisFlyer for Families program. This means that only families who always fly Singapore Airlines are the ones who will most likely benefit from the program. The 1 mile has to be earned through flying and NOT through credit card points transfers to your children’s accounts (See next bullet point to know why).
- Miles earned from credit card points transfers and co-brand card spending disqualifies the child account from using the family pooling feature. The co-brand card spending is unlikely to happen since it’s rare that kids under 18 can be approved for a credit card. However, parents should avoid transferring credit card points to their children’s KrisFlyer accounts.
- Every 5,000 miles transferred comes with a $5 fee. You’ll incur a $50 fee if you transfer a maximum of 50,000 miles from 1 child account, and a $250 fee if you transfer 50,000 miles each from 5 child accounts. The fees add up, especially if you transfer multiple times a year. A one-time transfer fee is preferable instead of a $50 fee for every 5000-mile increment, or better yet, make all transfers FREE.
Read More: Read More: Singapore Airlines First Class Boeing 777-300 Singapore (SIN) to Los Angeles (LAX)
(Image courtesy of Canva Pro)
Earn Singapore KrisFlyer Miles Through Transfer Partners
While the fact that Singapore KrisFlyer Adds Family Pooling is excellent news and means you can capitalize on flights taken by your children. You still have other options for boosting your Singapore Kris Flyer mileage balance, particularly through transfer partners.
Singapore KrisFlyer has one of the most developed relationships with major credit card points currencies around. The airlines is transfer partners are American Express, Chase, Citi, Capital One, and Marriott Bonvoy.
American Express Membership Rewards
American Express Membership Rewards points transfer to Singapore KrisFlyer at a ratio of 1:1 with a minimum transfer of 1,000 points. Typically transfers take up to a couple of days to hit your Singapore account. Now, you can use the points earned from your American Express Gold Card or American Express Platinum Card towards your next redemption aboard Singapore airlines.
Chase Ultimate Rewards
Chase Ultimate Rewards points also transfer to Singapore KrisFlyer at a ratio of 1:1, with a minimum transfer of 1,000 points. Similar to Amex, transfers can take up to 2 days to complete. Again, this provides excellent flexibility, allowing you to use points earned for everyday spending on your Chase branded cards like the Chase Sapphire Preferred or Chase Sapphire Reserve for your next Singapore redemption.
If you also hold the Chase Freedom Flex, you also have a roundabout way of transferring cashback earned from everyday spending to Singapore KrisFlyer Miles. While this is a little complex and requires an additional step of converting the cashback to Ultimate Rewards points first. It can be very lucrative, especially when earning 5% cashback on the rotating quarterly bonus categories.
Citi ThankYou Rewards
Citi ThankYou transfers to Singapore KrisFlyer at a ratio of 1:1 with a minimum transfer ratio of 1,000 points. Like both American Express and Chase, miles will typically take a couple of days to hit your KrisFlyer account.
Singapore KrisFlyer is also a transfer partner for Capital One Miles. Although with a ratio of 2:1, it leaves a lot to be desired and means that awards can be prohibitively expensive. Transfers are a little quicker, taking up to 24 hours, and the minimum transfer is 1,000 points.
The poor transfer ratio means you have much better options for leveraging your Capital One Miles. However, if you are a few thousand miles short of a fantastic redemption with KrisFLyer, then the fast transfer time means Capital One can be a good choice for a quick top-up to hit an award.
Marriott Bonvoy
Marriott Bonvoy is also a transfer partner with Singapore KrisFlyer. Points transfers happen at a ratio of 3:1 with a minimum transfer of 3,000 miles. With Marriott being a hotel program, you can transfer points earned from hotel stays, as well as those earned for everyday spending using your Marriott Bonvoy Brilliant American Express Card or your Marriott Bonvoy Premier Plus Business Card.
One thing worth remembering is that Marriott has an inbuilt transfer bonus when you transfer 60,000 points or more. For every 60,000 points, you transfer you will receive a 5,000-mile bonus. So with a ratio of 3:1, transferring 60,000 points to Singapore KrisFlyer will yield an impressive 25,000 miles.
This makes transfers from Marriott to Singapore worth considering, especially if you consider the very high earning rates when you pay for your Marriott stays with a Marriott co-brand credit card.
Earning Miles With Star Alliance Partners
The Star Alliance consists of 27 airline members, including Singapore Airlines. This means that Singapore KrisFlyer members can earn Krisflyer miles whenever they fly on any of the other 26 airline members. The rates vary per airline so please check the earning chart here.
Aside from earning miles, Krisflyer members can also use their Krisflyer miles to redeem award flights on airline partners. You can check the award redemption chart here.
Thoughts From Points Panda
The KrisFlyer loyalty program has some of the best award redemptions such as long-haul premium flights, and as Singapore KrisFlyer adds family pooling, you can get those awards even faster. Remember that children and adults earn the same number of miles despite the differences in price fares so every time you take your children on a Singapore Airlines flight, you’re multiplying the miles your earn for every child you have.
The transfer fees can be a bit annoying but it’s still a reasonable option if you’re a Singapore Airlines frequent flyer. Just remember that KrisFlyer miles have a 3-year expiration date and transferring the miles doesn’t prolong their lifespan.
Advertiser Disclosure
PointsPanda Deal of the Week!
Looking for the best flight deals? Each week we'll send you updates with the best deals on flights and hotels both using points and cash.
Responses are not provided or commissioned by the bank advertiser. Responses have not been reviewed, approved or otherwise endorsed by the bank advertiser. It is not the bank advertiser’s responsibility to ensure all posts and/or questions are answered.