Transferring Ultimate Rewards Points to Singapore Airlines

Update: Some offers mentioned below are no longer available. View the current offers here.

All award travelers should earn transferable points, as they give you great flexibility in your redemptions. They also shield you from any potential devaluations, since the ability to transfer to other programs means you’re not locked into one currency. Chase Ultimate Rewards are some of the best transferable points out there, and TPG Senior Points & Miles Contributor Nick Ewen explains how you can transfer them to Singapore Airlines.

In order to even think about redeeming these points for maximum value, you first need to know the actual process for transferring them to partners. Today, I’ll continue our series that looks closely at the process for transferring points to each Ultimate Rewards partner. I’ve already covered Hyatt Gold Passport, United MileagePlus, Southwest Rapid Rewards, Marriott Rewards and British Airways Executive Club. Today I’ll take a look at another one of the program’s airline partners: the Singapore Airlines KrisFlyer program.

General Set-Up

Before you can transfer Ultimate Rewards points to Singapore, you’ll need to complete a few basic steps. For starters, you need to set up online access for your Ultimate Rewards-accruing credit card (like the Ink Plus Business Card or Chase Sapphire Preferred). To do this, simply go to Chase.com and look for the “Not enrolled? Sign-up now” link on the right-hand side:

Then, simply enter in the required information to complete your online enrollment.

If you already have an online credit card account with Chase, you can add a new card to it by clicking Manage Accounts in the Customer Center and then selecting Add Accounts at the top.

The other important thing to do is to sign up for Singapore’s KrisFlyer program (though if you’ve read my points and miles mistakes post, hopefully you’ve already done this). To do this, just visit the page to join the program and enter your information.

Once these two things are complete, you’re ready to start transferring!

Transferring to Singapore

The actual process for transferring Ultimate Rewards points to all partners starts the exact same way:

1. Log in to your Chase account and click on the Go to Ultimate Rewards link at the top right.

(1a. If you have more than one card account, choose your desired one from the next page.)

2. Hover over the Use Points drop-down menu and select Transfer to Travel Partners.

3. Scroll down the list of airline partners and click Transfer Points next to Singapore Airlines KrisFlyer.

4. Enter the required information and click Add Member ID to add a new account.

5. Enter the number of points you want to transfer (must be in increments of 1,000) and click Continue.

6. Review your details on the next page and then click Confirm & Submit.

The next screen should confirm that the transfer was successful.

We recently tested how long Ultimate Rewards transfers take for each of the program’s 11 partners, and while Singapore doesn’t show up immediately, you should still see the points post to your account the same day.

There are a few important things to keep in mind with these transfers:

• The transfers are nonrefundable, so be certain you want to make the transfer before you click Submit.
• You can only transfer to yourself or an authorized user.
• You can combine points from your different cards. For complete details, check out my post on combining Ultimate Rewards points.

Booking with Singapore

Now that you’ve made the transfer, it’s time to actually book with Singapore. The carrier is a bit interesting when it comes to redemptions (especially first and business class), as it only makes certain awards available to members of its own frequent flyer program. You’ll also receive a 15% discount on the mileage required when you book online, so if a flight usually costs 67,500 miles (like flying the A380 in Suites Class from Frankfurt to New York-JFK), you’ll only pay 57,375 miles by booking online.

Unfortunately, Singapore’s website is only good for booking flights on the carrier’s own metal (and that of SilkAir, its regional subsidiary in Southeast Asia). For award flights on partner airlines, you’ll need to call, thus negating the 15% discount for booking online.

Here’s a step-by-step process of how to actually book award flights with Singapore Airlines:

1. Start by visiting Singapore’s homepage and clicking on Redeem Flights:

2. Enter your itinerary details and click Search:

3. Enter your KrisFlyer login details when prompted and click Log In:

4. Choose the flight you want, then click Continue:

5. Review the details and complete the booking process! (Note that you must have enough miles for the redemption to continue past this page.)

Note that there are a couple of nice features of the award-booking process online. For starters, you can actually search for stopover options when booking flights. You’ll see this option from the homepage:

When you click the Stopover link, it’ll take you to a search page that will automatically populate with available stopover options. Just be aware that stopovers are not valid on one-way saver award tickets, so you must be traveling round-trip to take advantage of it. I’ve also found that it’s much easier to search availability segment-by-segment if you’re planning to utilize a stopover. Here’s a sample of a stopover in Frankfurt en route to Singapore:

I found availability for the JFK-FRA and FRA-SIN legs separately and then put in the specific dates on the stopover booking page.

In addition, if your desired flight isn’t available at the mileage level, you may be given the option to waitlist for an award seat. For example, the nonstop JFK-Frankfurt flight on Saturday November 21st wasn’t available at the saver level at the time of writing. Instead, I see the Waitlist option:

From here, the award booking process is identical. You still need sufficient miles in your account to cover the redemption. The only difference is that the miles aren’t immediately taken out of your account. Instead, you’ll be notified if an award seat opens up leading up to the flight (which could happen at any time). You’ll then have the opportunity to ticket the award and enjoy the bliss of Singapore Airlines’ premium cabins.

Keep in mind that the KrisFlyer program is one of just two loyalty programs that partners with all four transferable point currencies: Ultimate Rewards, Starwood Preferred Guest, Citi ThankYou Rewards and American Express Membership Rewards. This gives you a wealth of ways to top off your account from cards like the Citi Premier Card for incredible redemptions and see if you agree with TPG’s 8 reasons to love Singapore Airlines first class.

Bottom Line

Ultimate Rewards points regularly appear near the top of TPG’s monthly valuations (and for good reason). With a number of valuable transfer partners, you can get a ton of value and flexibility by collecting these points and then putting them toward a variety of different redemptions. I’ve yet to transfer points to KrisFlyer for a redemption on Singapore, but I’m looking hard at snagging a couple of seats (or suites) on the A380 for my next trip to Europe or Asia.

For additional information about Ultimate Rewards and redeeming Singapore Airlines KrisFlyer miles, check out the following posts:

• How to Fly Singapore Airlines First Class for (Almost) Free!
• How to Book Singapore Airlines First Class Awards
• Maximizing Singapore Airlines KrisFlyer Partner Awards
• Maximizing Ultimate Rewards with Chase Freedom, Sapphire and Ink Plus

What are your experiences transferring Ultimate Rewards points to Singapore?