Standard Chartered no longer pools points for KrisFlyer miles transfers

While Standard Chartered may not have the most exciting cards on the market, one thing in their favour is that 360° Rewards Points pool.

This means that those with multiple StanChart cards pay only one conversion fee when cashing out their points. Even better- if one of those StanChart cards is a Visa Infinite, the entire balance can be cashed out for KrisFlyer miles at the more favourable ratio. 

Well, until now.

Standard Chartered recently launched a new rewards portal, and it’s created an almighty mess. It’s unclear if this was the actual intended effect, but as things stand:

• If you are converting points to any programme other than KrisFlyer, 360° Rewards Points pool, end of story
• If you are converting points to KrisFlyer:
  • Points earned Visa Infinite cards and the Journey card pool
  • Points earned on non-Visa Infinite cards pool

This is bad news for those who signed up for a StanChart X Card in the hope of “upsizing” their earn rates on the StanChart Rewards+ or StanChart Smart Card (luckily the first year’s fee is waived!), and if not rectified, could nudge it back towards paperweight territory again. 

Brief recap: StanChart’s rewards system

Before we talk about pooling, it’s helpful to do a quick recap on StanChart’s very confusing rewards portals (yes, plural).

360° Rewards Points can be transferred to a total of 10 different partners, as illustrated in the table below.

Frequent Flyer Programme	Conversion Ratio (SC Points: Partner)
	2,500: 1,000 (Visa Infinite)
	3,500 : 1,015 (non-Visa Infinite)
	2,500: 1,000
	2,500: 1,000
	2,500: 1,000
	2,500: 1,000
	3,000: 1,000
	3,500: 1,000
	3,500: 1,000
	3,500: 1,000
	5,000: 1,000

However, they can’t all be redeemed in the same place:

• KrisFlyer miles can only be redeemed through SC 360° Rewards (desktop online banking only)
• All other partners can be redeemed through SC EasyRewards (desktop online banking or mobile app)

If you’re using the desktop online banking, here’s how you differentiate between the 360° Rewards and the EasyRewards options.

No more pooling for KrisFlyer miles conversions

New SC 360° Rewards Portal

Standard Chartered has retired its legacy 360° Rewards Portal and replaced it with a shiny new one. 

Unfortunately, the UX is a dumpster fire, even by StanChart’s IT standards. The home page shows three different options: Shopping Mall e-Vouchers, Travel, and Points to Cash.

Clicking on Travel, confusingly, shows you eCapitaVoucher redemption options. You need to further click on the Points to Miles banner at the top to start a conversion.

You’ll be brought to a new page to convert 360° Rewards Points to KrisFlyer miles- which is where the problem starts.

I have two different StanChart cards:

• StanChart X Card (Visa Infinite) with 755 points
• StanChart Smart Card (non-Visa Infinite) with 16 points

There is no option to combine 360° Rewards Points across both cards when redeeming KrisFlyer miles.

Either I choose the StanChart X Card with its 755 points and rate of 2,500 points = 1,000 miles…

…or the StanChart Smart Card with its 16 points and rate of 3,500 points = 1,015 miles (let’s ignore the fact that in either case I don’t have sufficient points to redeem a block of miles; that’s besides the point). 

Compare this to the legacy system, where you had one pooled figure consisting of points from all your StanChart cards. 

The tl;dr is that pooling 360° Rewards Points for KrisFlyer miles redemptions is now dead, barring any further updates.

Sadly, this means that the “hack” of getting a first-year-free StanChart X Card to upsize the value of your non-Visa Infinite points no longer works. And if you already hold a StanChart X Card or StanChart Visa Infinite Card, this is a de facto devaluation of all your non-Visa Infinite points. 

Pooling continues for conversions to other programmes

If it’s any silver lining, SC EasyRewards is unaffected. In other words, you can still pool 360° Rewards Points for conversions to StanChart’s nine other transfer partners. 

But unlike KrisFlyer, there is no preferred ratio for Visa Infinite cards when converting points to other loyalty programmes. Therefore the main benefit of pooling is the avoidance of multiple transfer fees, rather than an “upsizing” of your points.

Conclusion

Given how abjectly bad StanChart’s IT setup is, it’s impossible to rule out this being a bug. For all we know, tweaks will be made in the weeks or months to come that restore pooling. In the meantime, however, it’s safest to assume that pooling for KrisFlyer miles transfers is dead.

I really don’t understand StanChart’s insistence on having two different conversion rates for Visa Infinite and non-Visa Infinite cards; if the intention is to reward the former, couldn’t you just build that differential into the earn rate? 

I would also consider this to be a big blow to the StanChart X Card, since one of its main use cases would be upsizing StanChart Smart or Rewards+ earn rates. 

Ah, StanChart. One step forward, ten steps back.