Well that didn’t take long.
In January this year, Grab launched a new partnership with Accor that allowed for the conversion of GrabRewards points into Accor Live Limitless (ALL) points. At the time of announcement, the conversion rate was 1,900 GrabRewards points: 160 ALL points.
It appears that Grab has quietly repriced this conversion option, and the new rate is now 1,600 GrabRewards points: 100 ALL points.
They’ve also, rather misleadingly, backdated the effective date to 7 January 2020. I am 100% sure the rate was not 1,600 GrabRewards points: 100 ALL points on 7 January (for one thing, the partnership was only announced on 20 January)
Sadly, it doesn’t seem like the ALL folks got the message, as their website still quotes the old conversion rate of 1,900: 160
Grab is chasing the magical 0.2 cents per point figure
ALL points can be redeemed for hotel stay credit at a rate of 2,000 ALL points= โฌ40 (~S$64). This means 1 ALL point is worth roughly 3.2 cents.ย
With that in mind, here’s how the value you get when converting GrabRewards points to ALLย has declined:
| Old Ratio | New Ratio | |
| 1 ALL point | 11.875 Grab points | 16 Grab points |
| Value per Grab point | 0.27 cents | 0.2 cents |
Does that 0.2 cent per point figure sound familiar? It should.
During the GrabRewards devaluation, the cost of Grab vouchers was harmonized across tiers. Out went the discounted redemptions for elite members, and in came a standard value of 0.2 cents per point- 2,500 points for a S$5 voucher, 5,000 points for a S$10 voucher.
| Award Cost Before | From 2 March 2020 | |||
| S$1 | S$5 | S$10 | |
| Member | 500 | 550 (+10%) | 2,200 | 2,500 (+14%) | 4,200 | 5,000 (+19%) |
| Silver | 500 | 550 (+10%) | 2,100 | 2,500 (+19%) | 4,000 | 5,000 (+25%) |
| Gold | 500 | 550 (+10%) | 2,000 | 2,500 (+25%) | 3,800 | 5,000 (+32%) |
| Platinum | 500 | 550 (+10%) | 1,900 |ย 2,500 (+32%) | 3,600 | 5,000ย (+39%) |
Similarly, the cost of KrisFlyer miles was also adjusted to this 0.2 cents per point threshold. Grab quietly devalued KrisFlyer miles transfers by taking away the 1,400/1,500 points: 160 miles rate and leaving only the 10 points: 1 mile options.
The revised rate of 10 points to 1 mile approximates a 0.2 cent per point valuation, assuming you value a mile at 2 cents.
So it seems like Grab is hell-bent on harmonizing the value of a GrabRewards point towards this magical 0.2 cents figure. My guess is they saw the Euro appreciating against the SGD (1 Euro= S$1.50 in January, now S$1.59), and adjusted the cost of the redemptions accordingly.
Conclusion
The fact that Grab is so on-the-ball about adjusting its catalogue prices means you can forget about getting any outsized value from the GrabRewards program. Any potential sweet spots are quickly removed, and a 0.2 cents per point valuation is what you should be using in all your trade-off calculations.
In any case, I wouldn’t really consider transferring GrabRewards points to ALL. SCB’s current transfer bonus represents a much more attractive proposition.
