Scoot gets closer integration with KrisFlyer- here’s what you need to know

Scoot and Singapore Airlines may be worlds apart in terms of onground and inflight experience (although SQ’s recent behavior [imposing seat selection charges on economy lite tickets, levying credit card surcharges and sneakily including travel insurance without the customer’s consent] is arguably more in line with an LCC), but it looks like Scoot is seeking closer integration with KrisFlyer going forward.

The news broke a couple days ago that passengers on Scoot could now earn and redeem miles with KrisFlyer. That’s technically not correct, insofar as Scoot passengers could already earn  KrisFlyer miles on their tickets- they’d just have buy a Scoot Plus Perks package at a price that made no sense at all . They could also redeem KrisFlyer miles for Scoot vouchers, but the rate was, well, bad.

What has happened is that Scoot passengers no longer need to pay for the privilege of accruing KrisFlyer miles, and Scoot vouchers are being phased out in favor of miles and cash redemptions.

How does this affect you? Read on.

You now earn 1 Krisflyer Mile per S$1 spent on Scoot

Remember the old “Plus Perks” packages that Scoot sold? Here’s how many miles you earned with each one.

No, don’t adjust your screens, that’s the actual mileage you get. Of course the Plus Perks packages came with a few other benefits like priority boarding and preferred seat selection, and on the whole you’d be silly to buy one just for the benefit of accuring miles.

As of 26 April 2018 Plus Perks packages are no longer available. Instead, you earn 1 KrisFlyermile per S$1 spent with Scoot on base fare and add ons (except e-Visa, travel insurance/Scoot Protect). You don’t earn miles for taxes, insurance, miscellaneous fees (including the credit card surcharge). If you use a Scoot voucher as partial payment for your fare, you earn KrisFlyer miles only on the amount you pay in cash.

You might have seen so called “mixed itineraries” on the SQ website that include a leg with Scoot, like the one below.

In such cases, you earn miles from the SQ/MI flight based on the relevant fare bucket for the SQ/MI ticket, and you earn miles from the Scoot flight based on the fare bucket of your Scoot ticket. You can see the full mileage earning table for Scoot flights for mixed itineraries here, but the possibilities are summarized below. You won’t be rolling in miles, safe to say.

FYI, when you connect to your final destination on Scoot via any SQ/MI flight, you enjoy more of a full service carrier experience on Scoot (eg your bags are checked through without charge, you get a FlyBagEat bundle, you get a  complimentary blanket for flights of over four hours (now you’re really spoiling us!) and rebooking in the event of a flight disruption)

You can spend KrisFlyer miles for Scoot flights via the Pay with Miles option

Currently, you’re able to spend KrisFlyer miles on Scoot vouchers in the following denominations:

• 3,200 KrisFlyer miles — SGD 30 voucher
• 5,300 KrisFlyer miles — SGD 50 voucher
• 10,500 KrisFlyer miles — SGD 100 voucher

Scoot vouchers will still be available until 25 May 2018, with validity from 6 months of the date of issue.

Going forward, the “Pay with Miles” function that is already available on the SQ site will be extended to Scoot.  You can use this to offset the cost of airfare, selected add-ons and tax. Other fees such as credit card surcharges and travel insurance must be paid with cash. You need a minimum of 1,050 KrisFlyer miles to make use of this option.

You’re only allowed to use the Pay with Miles option to offset the cost of the airfare, add-ons and tax components of the ticket. Other fees such as the credit card surcharge and travel insurance purchased from Scoot still must be paid with real money. Pay with Miles is not available for itineraries which involve mixed carrier flights i.e mixing SQ and Scoot.

A dummy booking found that you get roughly 0.95 cents per KrisFlyer mile, which is about the same value you’d get booking on the SQ site.

Needless to say, this is a terrible value for your KrisFlyer miles (you’d get ~2 cents even if you redeemed them for economy class tickets) and should only be a last resort if your miles are expiring.

If you opt for partial payment using miles + cash, you’ll still be eligible to earn KrisFlyer miles for your flights based on the amount paid in cash. So if you’ve used 10,000 KrisFlyer miles + S$100 in cash, you’ll earn 100 KrisFlyer miles from the payment of the ticket on the cash portion.

You can now link your Scoot Insider account to your KrisFlyer account

Scoot Insider is a recently-launched Scoot program that gives the following benefits for free.

You’ll now be able to sync your KrisFlyer account with your Scoot Insider account to share your details across platforms. This means your existing KrisFlyer data (name, passport number etc) will be ported over.

Conclusion

SQ’s move to bring Scoot into the KrisFlyer fold is in line with what other full service carriers have done with their LCC arms. For example, you can earn Qantas points when you fly Jetstar and you can earn Miles and More points when you fly Eurowings. This is certainly a welcome move (as it made no sense at all to have to pay money for the privilege of accruing miles when you flew Scoot), insofar as it does not mean that SQ intends to further explore “miles as money” in the future.