Rapid Travel Chai

Singapore Airlines KrisFlyer has announced new Star Alliance partner award prices effective December 7, 2017.

• New chart here
• Old chart here

(no change to non-Star Alliance airline partners, so those charts here.)

Changes are biggest to first class, then business class, then economy. Some region pairs hit harder than others. If you have imminent travel to book, take a look to see if it makes sense to lock it in by December 6, 2017.

This is the companion to various award chart changes earlier this year, the left oddities such as way to reduce costs of awards on Singapore Airlines by adding Star Alliance partner segments to itineraries, book these by December 6, 2017.

Miles Still Expire

KrisFlyer miles still expire 3 years from date earned, regardless of account activity.

Some people shrug this off. I hate it.

Another thing to track and remember to deal with. We recently had 25,000 expiring JAL Mileage Bank miles soon to expire under similar forced expiration and I spent an inordinate amount of time trying to find a use for them.

Really Online Booking for All Partners?

The Singapore Airlines announcement breezily suggests there will be online award booking for all airline partners. Not just Star Alliance, too. The other partner airline page claims:

With effect from 7 December 2017, award redemptions can be done on singaporeair.com for all our partner airlines. These include Alaska Airlines, Juneyao Airlines, Virgin America, Virgin Atlantic, Virgin Australia and Vistara.

Will the KrisFlyer website really go from being only able to search their own flights to a great online award availability tool? We will get our first look on December 7. Already announced is a carveout to waive the new $25 or 2,500 mile telephone booking fee for itineraries not bookable online.

A new Star Alliance award search tool will be welcome. United has its issues with a number of partners. Avianca lurches from one website issue to another. ANA is so over-engineered you need a degree to use it.

Note that by KrisFlyer policy will limit results on ANA and Swiss:

Award redemption on ANA domestic flights may only be made between two months and four days prior to departure, unless there’s an international stopover or connection within the same booking. Award redemption in First Class on SWISS is not available.

Readers, what KrisFlyer awards will you be booking by December 6, 2017? What alternate programs will you be using from December 7, 2017?