A Brief Introduction to Frequent Flyer Programs

Frequent Flyer Programs or FFP are customer loyalty programs setup by each individual airlines to encourage travellers to fly more frequently through them.  For Singapore Airlines, their FFP is called Krisflyer.

The most basic away to earn miles on FFPs is by actually flying the airlines, actual butt in seat. A  full-fare SIA return economy class ticket from Singapore to Hong Kong will earn 3188 miles. Some discounted/on-sale tickets do not earn miles, so take note of that. This method of earning miles benefits mainly business travellers, where their company pays for the ticket but the person travelling earns the miles. Common folk, like myself do not benefit from this method of earning miles, as SIA and other non-budget airlines tickets are usually more expensive and their on-sale fares usually do not earn the traveller any miles.

The second method is to earn miles via credit card reward programs offered by various Banks. I got my first credit card, Citibank Premiermiles(PM) card 4 years back. Back then, being a Citibank customer, I signed up by a phone call and the card came with an application to Priority Pass to airport lounge.(More on the PP later). Any spending on the card would be converted to miles which is be stored in your premiermiles card account and updated in your monthly statement. The exchange rate is:

S$1 local spending = 1.2 miles
S$1 foreign spending = 2 miles

Miles in your premiermiles do not expire and can be transferred to the major airlines FFP for a transfer fee of 25 dollars.(details). A minimum of 2000 miles have to be transferred each time, in multiples of 1000. Ratio of miles transfer differ with each FFP. For Krisflyer(KF), the exchange rate is 1 PM miles to 1KF miles. It makes sense to wait til you have tons of miles or when you are ready to make a redemption before transferring, as once transferred to the KF account, the miles would expire in 3 years.

The second method is the bulk of which my miles come from, as I almost use credit card exclusively to maximise the number of miles I can earn. Different cards have different perks when you use them in different ways. I shall talk about them in more detail in my later posts.