Singapore Airlines and Alaska Airlines announced their new partnership not long ago, and already Singapore’s KrisFlyer loyalty program has published its award chart for redeeming miles on Alaska flights. The rates are surprisingly good in some cases.
Like Singapore’s own flights, award travel is broken into zones. You’ll need to look up which zones your origin and destination are located in before you can properly read the chart. If you’re staying within the West Coast, you’re traveling from Zone 1 to Zone 1. If you’re traveling from the West Coast to Hawaii, you’re traveling from Zone 1 to Zone 5.
Example of a Great Value to Hawaii
For example, you can fly from the West Coast to Hawaii for just 12,000 miles each way! That’s great for an airline that offers more flights from California, Oregon, and Washington than any other carrier. Travel from the East Coast would be Zone 4 to Zone 5, and that’s blank, suggesting you would need two separate awards. But even Zone 3 (Texas, Illinois, Louisiana, etc.) is still only 25,000 miles round-trip to Hawaii.
UPDATE: Tonei helpfully reminded me in the comments that Singapore Airlines does not allow connecting flights with this award chart. That would explain some of the very cheap award prices, as well as the absence of some awards that require a connection (such as Zone 4 to Zone 5). While this eliminates a few options unless you book two awards, I still believe that KrisFlyer miles can be a very cheap option on some routes.
If you were to use British Airways Avios to book this award, which I previously considered the best deal, that would be 12,500 points one-way to Hawaii. KrisFlyer is slightly less from the West Coast and substantially less from the Midwest.
KrisFlyer miles are worth more than Avios, however. If you already have some miles in each account, you might want to use the Avios first for travel on Alaska. If you are going to be transferring them from a place like Chase Ultimate Rewards or Amex Membership Rewards, only then would I recommend transferring to KrisFlyer for this kind of award. However, first class awards are pricey across the board. Avoid those if you can or try to use your Alaska Airlines miles instead.
I wasn’t exactly expecting Alaska and Singapore to pair up since Alaska already has a good partnership with Cathay Pacific, but I wasn’t surprised either. Singapore Airlines was already a partner of Virgin America Elevate, which is being replaced by Alaska Mileage Plan, and is one of the only partners that wouldn’t conflict with an existing Alaska partner.
I’m more impressed that the award chart was published so quickly, and that the rates seem to be much better than they were for travel on Virgin America. Here you can see that some travel on Virgin America was significantly more expensive, with most economy class fares starting at 16,000 miles each way. Every economy class award for travel on the new Alaska Airlines chart is 12,500 miles or less.
I just checked and Alaska Airlines still has not published an award chart for using Mileage Plan to travel on Singapore Airlines. When that happens, I’ll be sure to share.
