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Note: This post was published on January 10, 2023. Card details and benefits may have changed since then.
You may have heard that you can now transfer KrisFlyer miles to Marriott Bonvoy points at a 2:1 ratio (minimum of 3,000 miles; max 180,000 per year), while you can exchange Bonvoy to KrisFlyer at the standard 3:1 ratio. They say the transfer can take up to 8 weeks (we don’t know in practice how long it really takes just yet).
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Yes, this means that 3,000 KrisFlyer miles would become 1,500 Bonvoy points and 3,000 Bonvoy points would become just 1,000 KrisFlyer miles. That’s not unusual – airline to hotel and vice versa transfers are generally not equal both ways.
On the surface, you would never want to convert KrisFlyer miles to Bonvoy at such a poor ratio (KrisFlyer miles are worth 2-2.5x that of a Bonvoy point), but I can think of one big reason: Cashing out KrisFlyer miles.
Many of you may have KrisFlyer miles orphaned from cancelled flights during COVID.
Singapore Airlines has graciously continued to extend the expiry of miles during COVID, with miles set to expire Jan 1 – June 30th, 2023 expected to receive the last expiry extension of 6 more months.
But let’s say you transferred over a boatload of points for one redemption, had that cancelled, and wound up booking something else for less miles. Maybe you only have 21,000 miles left and don’t see a practical way to use them. After all, while KrisFlyer is great for booking 1st Class on Singapore, their Star Alliance award chart is pretty lousy compared to the alternatives.
In this scenario, you could at least get *something* from your orphaned KrisFlyer miles – in this example of 21,000 expiring KrisFlyer miles, you’d get 7,000 Marriott Bonvoy points.
Beats a stick in the eye, doesn’t it?
Thoughts?
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