EVA Air Infinity MileageLands: An underrated programme with great sweet spots

EVA Air’s frequent flyer programme, Infinity MileageLands, is an underrated gem that offers some excellent redemption opportunities. While I’ve mentioned it before in passing, I think it’s time to write a more comprehensive guide on maximising its value.

Let me warn you upfront that this programme isn’t for the faint of heart. The website is confusing, the UX is clunky, and booking award tickets for more than one person is a convoluted process that will raise your blood pressure.

All that said, those who persevere will find the rewards well worth the effort. With Business Class awards from Singapore to Europe or North America starting from just 75,000 miles — about 40% less than KrisFlyer — I think we can forgive a lot of things!

How does Infinity MileageLands price awards?

Infinity MileageLands has two different zone-based award charts: one for EVA Air/UNI Air, the other for Star Alliance partners.

Award flights on EVA Air/UNI Air

EVA Air awards can be booked via this link. 

The following award chart reflects round-trip pricing for redemptions on EVA Air/UNI Air. One-way awards cost 50% of a round-trip.

If you’re redeeming a round-trip long-haul international ticket (defined as itineraries featuring Europe, America or Oceania) operated by EVA Air, you can add a maximum of one free stopover.

Stopovers cannot be booked online, so you’ll need to call up membership services to get it done.

Award flights on Star Alliance partners

Star Alliance awards can be booked via this link. 

The following award chart reflects round-trip pricing for redemptions on Star Alliance partners. One-way awards cost 50% of a round-trip.

If you’re redeeming a round-trip international ticket operated by Star Alliance partners, you can add a maximum of two free stopovers.

Stopovers cannot be booked online, so you’ll need to call up membership services to get it done.

Award sales

Infinity MileageLands has occasional award sales, though it’s not a monthly promotion like Spontaneous Escapes, so there’s no knowing when the next one will be.

The most recent sale offered 50% off Economy Class award tickets between Taipei, Bangkok, Manila, Ho Chi Minh City or Hong Kong, and Los Angeles or San Francisco, reducing the cost from 50,000 miles to 25,000 miles.

I don’t know whether these sales have ever featured Business Class awards, so if you’ve spotted them do let me know.

What are the sweet spots?

Star Alliance

The Star Alliance chart might not offer any sensational sweet spots, but it’s worth noting that the cost of redeeming Singapore Airlines awards through Infinity MileageLands is cheaper than redeeming awards through KrisFlyer. 

You’ll also find that there are situations where KrisFlyer members can’t see any award seats…

…but Infinity MileageLands members can. 

A word of caution here. Infinity MileageLands’ search engine has been known to show phantom SQ space. What this means is that awards are shown, but when you complete the booking, you find that your seats are only waitlisted instead of confirmed (yes, Infinity MileageLands allows you to waitlist for SQ seats, strange as it sounds).

Unfortunately, it’s a chicken and egg situation, as there’s no knowing whether the awards are actually available unless you have sufficient miles in your account to complete the booking. 

So transferring miles to this programme purely to book Singapore Airlines awards is a gamble. I’ve seen data points of people who managed to successfully book them, and others who ended up frustrated. 

In any case, Star Alliance award tickets booked through Infinity MileageLands do have generous routing rules, including:

• Up to two stopovers on a round-trip itinerary 
• Maximum of six sectors in a round-trip itinerary
• Open jaws permitted

So you could, theoretically, visit up to five cities in one itinerary at the cost of a regular round-trip ticket. An example would be SIN-TPE-NRT / ICN-BKK-KUL, with a stopover in Taipei and Bangkok.

EVA Air

If you’re worried about phantom space, then just stick to booking EVA Air redemptions. Infinity MileageLand members have access to the best EVA award space, seeing additional seats that Star Alliance partners do not.

Award pricing is very competitive compared to KrisFlyer, though there’s two caveats I want to highlight.

Fuel surcharges

As you can see from the table above, the cash payment required when redeeming awards through Infinity MileageLands is higher than through KrisFlyer. That’s because:

1. EVA Air imposes fuel surcharges on its flights
2. EVA Air flights route through Taipei, adding an additional airport fee of about S$21

Thankfully, the fuel surcharges are rather modest, maxing out at around S$100 on a one-way long-haul flight to the USA. These should be more than offset by the substantial savings in terms of miles (approximately 30,000 between Singapore and the USA).

North Asia connections are not ideal

EVA Air’s flights are banked in such a way that connections to North Asia destinations beyond Taipei (like Tokyo or Osaka) are not ideal. 

You will almost always have to do an overnight layover in TPE, since the North Asia flights depart before inbound flight from Singapore. 

There’s no issue with connections to Europe and North America, thankfully, as layovers are much more reasonable.

How can you earn Infinity MileageLands miles?

Infinity MileageLands miles can be earned from the following credit cards in Singapore. 

Issuer	Rewards Points	EVA Miles
	450 MR points	250 miles
	400 MR points	250 miles
	25,000 TY points	10,000 miles
	10,000 Citi Miles	10,000 miles
	25,000 HSBC points	10,000 miles

If you’re short of miles, the programme allows you to top-up the remaining balance so long as you have at least 50% of the requirement. However, the cost is steep at US$40 per 1,000 miles (similar to Singapore Airlines KrisFlyer, incidentally).

Alternatively, EVA Air Infinity MileageLands also runs occasional mileage sales. The most recent sale offered a 40% bonus, which reduces the cost per mile to around 3.9 SG cents apiece- still frighteningly expensive!

If you need more EVA miles, my advice would be buying them through Citi PayAll whenever there’s a promotion. The current promotion, which ends on 28 February 2025, reduces the cost per mile to 1.49 SG cents apiece, which is a lot more palatable.

How much are changes and cancellations?

Infinity MileageLand award tickets can be refunded for a US$50 fee (waived for Silver, Gold or Diamond members). There is no fee for making date changes.

No changes or refunds can be made for partially-used EVA Air/UNI Air award tickets.

When do miles expire?

Miles in this programme have a hard expiry date of 36 months.

Members can buy back any expired miles within six months of the expiry date, but at a cost of US$10 per 1,000 miles and with a limit of 150,000 miles per calendar year.

What about infants?

If you’re booking an award flight and travelling with an infant, you’ll need to call up Infinity MileageLands to add the infant manually.

This will cost 10% of the best available fare for the cabin you’re in. 

How do you book tickets for companions? 

While booking Infinity MileageLands awards for a single passenger is fairly straightforward, booking for two or more passengers gets messy.

This warrants a separate article in itself, but the tl;dr version is:

1. Fill out an Enable Online Service form and email to sininfinity@evaair.com (you must have earned at least one mile from qualifying activities like flights or credit card transfers to do this)
2. Once online service is enabled, add a nominee to your account via the Nominee List Management page
3. Transfer miles to your nominee’s account 
4. Enter nominee’s frequent flyer number and password when searching for awards
5. Make award ticket bookings

Step (3) and (4) are particularly confusing, so I’ll explain it in more detail.

In order to book award tickets for yourself and a companion, Infinity MileageLands requires you to transfer your own miles to that companion. That’s why step (3) is necessary. 

But the companion doesn’t make the booking; you do, through your account. That’s where step (4) comes in. During the search process, you will literally enter your companion’s Infinity MileageLands account number and password in the search box.

Miles will then be deducted from your account and your companion’s account to complete the booking.

To make matters even more complicated, the miles you transfer to your companion cannot be pooled with the companion’s own miles. For example, suppose I want to book 2x Business Class award tickets from SIN-TPE-SFO, which cost 75,000 miles each. Even if my nominee already has 10,000 miles, I must still transfer the full 75,000 miles to them; transferring 65,000 miles will not be sufficient.

So yes, it’s an extremely convoluted process, almost as if they don’t want you to be booking awards for anyone else. Given the hassle, it might be better for your travel companion to simply open their own account, transfer their own points and make their own booking.

I’ll be doing a separate guide on this, so stay tuned. 

Conclusion

EVA Air Infinity MileageLands is an oft overlooked programme, but packs some great value sweet spots between Singapore and Europe/North America.

The cost of booking Business Class awards on these routes with Singapore Airlines is lower through Infinity MileageLands than KrisFlyer, and it’s even cheaper if you can find award space with EVA Air itself.

However, the website interface is clunky, and booking tickets for more than one person has a bit of a learning curve.

Assuming those aren’t deal breakers, it’s definitely a programme worth further exploration.

Any other sweet spots or use cases for EVA Air Infinity MileageLands?