How to Convert Credit Card Points to Miles

Air miles credit cards are an excellent way to 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. As a plus, no minimum monthly spend is required to earn air miles, and there is no limit to how many miles you can earn from your spending. Some miles earned also do not expire.

However, it’s important to note that you do not always 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. As such, reviewing different credit cards’ reward mechanisms is recommended.
 
If you are using a co-branded air miles credit card – identifiable via “Singapore Airlines” or “KrisFlyer” in the name – eligible transactions will earn KrisFlyer points directly and will be automatically deposited into your KrisFlyer account.

Looking for the best credit cards to complement your spending patterns and expenditures in 2025? Check out our Ultimate Credit Card Guide that covers all things credit cards in Singapore – from choosing between a cashback, miles, or rewards credit card to planning your credit card strategy.

If you’re new to airline miles, they are a type of loyalty reward airlines offer to encourage customers to use their services. Typically, you earn miles whenever you book a flight with a specific airline or its partners.

Many credit cards also allow you to earn miles by converting points earned from your eligible transactions charged to the card. Once you’ve collected enough miles, you can use them to redeem benefits like discounted or free flights and other travel-related perks. 

However, the flexibility of how you can use your miles and the number of miles you can earn depends on the airline’s programme.

In Singapore, there are several airline miles programmes that tie up with credit card companies, making it easy for cardholders to earn points through their daily transactions for conversion into miles. Among the most popular are KrisFlyer and Asia Miles.

KrisFlyer: This is Singapore Airlines’ signature frequent flyer programme and the most widely recognised in Singapore. Members can earn and redeem miles with Singapore Airlines and its subsidiary airlines, such as SilkAir and Scoot. You can also use your miles with partner airlines in the Star Alliance network.

Asia Miles: Managed by Cathay Pacific, Asia Miles is another popular choice. This programme offers miles-earning and redemption opportunities across the Oneworld alliance, which includes airlines like British Airways, Japan Airlines, Qantas, Qatar Airways, American Airlines, and Malaysia Airlines.

While choosing a miles card, it’s worth noting that not all air miles cards will give you access to the same set of frequent programme partner miles.

Instead, it will depend on the tie-ups your credit 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 how they support that programme and if they offer the air miles you desire.

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

Besides evaluating what airlines you can redeem your miles with, it’s also important to understand how many miles you can earn with your air miles credit card and convert each time. 

To find out the number of miles you can earn from eligible credit card transactions, simply look 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 mpd rates, each with a qualifying condition, and SingSaver has summarised them as follows.

• Mpd for local spends – These are 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 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. The availability varies by credit 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.

While many credit cards offer the convenience of direct dollar-to-miles conversion, the process is more hands-on if you do not own a Singapore Airlines or KrisFlyer co-branded card. In such cases, 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 are worth 25,000 miles. Hence, you will first need to have the minimum number of reward 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. Log in 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 also 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 is no real reason to, as banks usually do not limit how much you can convert at once).

Regardless of your needs, it is worth comparing your options and you can see below for a summary of the differences between cards:

*Subject to GST 

After accruing points over time, you will likely want to check how many credit card points you have earned. This can be done 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.

Understanding the value of your accumulated miles is crucial for maximising the benefits of your rewards program. By calculating the value of your miles, you can make informed decisions about how to redeem them, ensuring you get the most out of your rewards and travel aspirations.

Maximising travel rewards involves understanding the value of each reward currency. Accumulating 10,000 miles may seem impressive, but a key question is how that translates into actual monetary value.

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 the SIA Saver Awards, which have limited seats available for redemption. There is also the Advantage Awards, a higher tier of miles-redeemable flights with 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.

Nonetheless, it is still worth comparing the amount you need to spend to accumulate a specific amount of miles for your desired trip. To help you visualise, below is a breakdown of how much you will need to spend on your credit card to earn 5,000 KrisFlyer miles for different credit cards in Singapore.

Similarly, the approximate amount of accumulated spend to obtain 1,000 KrisFlyer would be as follows.

Besides this, it is also a good idea to consider other aspects of the credit card that can also affect the overall value of your rewards. For instance, some credit cards may come with higher minimum spend requirements, annual fees or charges for miles conversion that can increase the total cost of accumulating the same amount of miles.