How to Convert Credit Card Points to Miles

Air miles credit cards reward your spending with air miles. You will earn a certain amount of air miles for every dollar spent on eligible transactions charged to the credit card. No minimum monthly spend is required to earn air miles, and there is no limit to how many miles you can earn. Some miles earned also do not expire. 

Note that you do not earn air miles directly. Rather, you will be awarded reward points by your card issuer, which you can then convert to air miles at a frequent flyer programme offered by your credit card issuer with airline transfer partners. 

If you have a co-branded air miles credit card – identifiable via “Singapore Airlines” or “KrisFlyer” in the name – eligible transactions will earn KrisFlyer points directly and automatically deposited into your KrisFlyer account. 

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You find out the number of miles you can earn by looking up the “miles per dollar” (mpd) metric – this indicates how many miles you will be awarded per S$1 spent. 

Note that there are usually different mpds available, each with a qualifying condition. 

• Mpd for local spends – This is the miles earned per dollar for card transactions in SGD.

• Mpd for foreign currency spends – The miles earned per dollar for transactions denominated in foreign currencies or using your card while overseas. This is higher than the mpd for local spends.

• Bonus mpd – Using your card at participating merchants and brands lets you earn more miles per dollar. Availability varies by card issuer. 

Besides paying with your air miles card, you can also receive air miles in other ways. 

• Welcome gift – When you sign up for a new air miles credit card, you may be offered a substantial amount of bonus air miles as a welcome gift. These bonus miles will be awarded as long as you fulfil the qualifying actions, which usually include charging a certain amount to your card within a specific time frame. 

• For paying the annual fee – You can also receive extra air miles when you pay the annual fee for your air miles credit card. This perk is only available at selected card issuers.

There are several air miles credit cards available in Singapore, offered by different banks. Here’s a summary of every air mile card’s earn rate for local and foreign spends and bonus categories.

If you do not own a Singapore Airlines or KrisFlyer co-branded card, you will need to convert your reward credit card points into air miles yourself before you can redeem them for plane tickets, flight upgrades and other perks on-board. 

In general, here are the steps to follow:

1. Ensure you have sufficient reward points. Conversions can only be carried out in blocks, i.e., 10,000 points for 25,000 miles. Hence, you will first need to have the minimum number of rewards points necessary for a conversion. 

2. Register for the relevant frequent flyer programme. For instance, if you want to redeem KrisFlyer miles, you will need to register for a KrisFlyer account and provide your account number when requesting your conversion. 

3. Login to your bank’s rewards portal and select the number of points you want to convert, and the type of air miles you want. You may select any frequent flyer programme offered by your card issuer. 

4. Pay the conversion fee. You will be required to pay a points conversion fee for every conversion, which will be automatically charged to your credit card.

5. Wait to receive your air miles. When your request has been processed, you will receive your air miles in your frequent flyer programme account. You can then use the air miles to book your flights. 

The conversion rate from card rewards points to air miles varies according to the credit card you are using. 

Depending on the credit card and/or card issuer, you may be subject to a conversion fee. This is charged on a per-conversion basis.

However, certain banks offer an annual fee that covers multiple conversions within the year. This may be a more cost-efficient option for those who foresee themselves making multiple conversions in a year (although there’s no real reason to, as banks usually do not limit how many points you can convert at once).  

See below for a summary: 

*Subject to GST 

You can check how many credit card points you have earned by logging into your card issuer’s rewards portal via online banking or on your mobile banking app. 

Another way is to check your credit card statement; you may be able to see how many credit card points you have accrued listed somewhere in there.

Not all air miles cards will give you access to the same set of frequent program partner miles. Instead, it will depend on the tie-ups your card issuer has managed to establish. Hence, if you aim to accrue air miles on a particular frequent flyer programme, it may be prudent to check with your card issuer to see if they offer the air miles you desire. 

Having said that, bear in mind that you can often make use of air miles in one frequent flyer programme for flights operated by other partner alliance airlines. For example, you can use your KrisFlyer miles to redeem any flight flown by Star Alliance partners, which include All Nippon Airways (ANA), Thai Airways, EVA Air, etc. 

On the surface, you may think of the value of 10,000 miles as equivalent to how much you spent on your credit card to earn it. So, for example, if we earn 2 miles per S$1, we might think of 10,000 miles as having a value of S$5,000.

However, this is not accurate, as 10,000 air miles are insufficient to redeem a flight ticket worth S$5,000. Instead, the true value of an air mile depends on how many miles are needed to redeem a particular flight route or itinerary, and this is up to the airline’s discretion. 

Here are some examples we found from Singapore Airlines.

As you can see, the value of one air mile changes according to the flight itinerary. However, this is a highly simplistic way of valuing air miles, as there are several other factors to consider. 

For one, the examples quoted were for SIA Saver Awards, which have limited seats available for redemption. There is also the Advantage Awards, which is a higher tier of miles-redeemable flights that have more seats available but cost more miles. 

By comparison, Saver Awards start from 8,500 KrisFlyer miles, but Advantage Awards start from 15,000 KrisFlyer miles for the same destination. Clearly, this would cause a drastic drop in the value of one KrisFlyer mile.

To redeem a certain flight itinerary, you must have sufficient air miles. You can look up the airline’s flight redemption chart online to determine how many miles you need to fly to a particular destination. 

Flights are organised according to zones, with airports roughly the same distance from your origin grouped together. The further away your destination, the more air miles it would cost to redeem your flight. 

Note that you can top up the remaining in cash if you do not have sufficient air miles. Air miles may only be allowed to cover the cost of the flight, not for taxes and fees (such as those imposed by airports and tourism authorities).