Singapore Airlines has announced a new rewards programme specially for its KrisFlyer Elite Gold members. To recap, KrisFlyer members will require 50000 Elite qualifying miles in order to renew their Elite Gold tier for another membership year.
As a KrisFlyer Elite Gold member, you will enjoy priority check-in, baggage, and boarding, as well as seat selection privileges. In addition, you will entitled to an extra 20kg of check-in baggage, or an additional piece of up to 32kg for flights to and from the United States.
KrisFlyer Elite Gold members will also enjoy lounge access according to the entitlements below:
For most people, unless you fly often enough in Suites, First or Business Class to qualify for PPS, the Elite Gold tier is perhaps the highest attainable membership level. Hence, it makes perfect sense for Singapore Airlines to provide additional benefits for KrisFlyer Elite Gold members who fly beyond 50000 miles per membership year.
At a glance, the new KrisFlyer Elite Gold Rewards offers additional perks such as accelerated KrisFlyer miles accrual and cabin class upgrades, all in the form of vouchers. The details are shown in the table below:
These benefits help to address one issue with the KrisFlyer programme, and that is you are not allowed to roll over any excess Elite qualifying miles to the next membership year for the purpose of requalification. So you may experience a surge in flying on one year well in excess of 50000 miles, but yet not receive any reward or recognition for your loyalty. The new KrisFlyer Elite Gold Rewards programme should help to address this issue.
This is definitely a move in a positive direction, although I’m not sure if it will influence the travel patterns of Elite Gold members significantly. In other words, I don’t see Elite Gold members choosing to travel significantly more just to obtain the reward vouchers. At the very least, those who do travel more than what is required to renew their membership tier for another year will get something back in return.