Back in April 2020, Singapore Airlines announced that in view of the COVID-19 situation, with international air travel nearly grinding to a halt, KrisFlyer members with elite tier memberships due to expire anytime from Mar 2020 to Feb 2021 would be automatically renewed for another 12 months.
However, since that announcement, it seems that air travel isn’t picking up as fast as we would have liked. As such, in order to assist KrisFlyer members to requalify for another year of membership once this extension ends, Singapore Airlines has announced another slew of measures, termed the Renewal Support Scheme, to help KrisFlyer members with their membership renewal requirements.
First, existing KrisFlyer Elite Silver and Gold members will only require 50% of the usual number of miles required for requalification. For example, KrisFlyer Elite Gold members usually require 50000 elite qualifying miles in order to renew their status for another year. But with this new scheme, KrisFlyer will credit 25000 elite qualifying miles to members’ accounts to effectively reduce the requalification requirement by half.
Depending on when your existing membership is due to expire, you’ll be receiving your miles according to the following schedule (for KrisFlyer Elite Gold members):
For KrisFlyer Elite Gold members, this means that you’ll only need to earn 25000 miles to requalify for another year of elite membership. But even then, it is anticipated that it might be difficult to accumulate this amount of miles given the uncertainty that lies ahead with regard to air travel. Therefore, Singapore Airlines has also announced several ways in which KrisFlyer members can earn elite qualifying miles on the ground.
From now until 15 Oct 2020, you can use the following ways to earn elite qualifying miles on the ground:
Note that for most miles chasers, the most convenient way would be to transfer your credit card points to your KrisFlyer account. However, note that 50000 miles converted from your credit card points would only give you 4000 elite qualifying miles. Moreover, this is subject to a cap of 20000 elite qualifying miles (from 250000 miles converted over from your credit card points) accumulated through this method. Together with the 25000 elite qualifying miles which is to be credited to your KrisFlyer account, this means that the maximum you can earn (for KrisFlyer Elite Gold members) is 45000 elite qualifying miles, which is still 5000 short of requalifying another year of elite tier membership.
Some other means include shopping on KrisShop using a co-brand card, or transferring your KrisFlyer miles into KrisPay (but try not to do this because of the poor value you’ll be getting out of it).
This is overall a welcome move by Singapore Airlines to provide assistance to its most loyal customers when it comes to membership renewal requirements. Hopefully, these measures will be sufficient for KrisFlyer members to tide over this period of uncertainty when it comes to air travel and frequent flyer membership.
The full details of the Renewal Support Scheme can be found here.