Once a child turns two, they graduate from your lap to a seat of their own. On the one hand, this spells the end of highly-discounted infant fares. On the other, this means they can start earning their own frequent flyer miles.
But here’s the problem: it’s hard for kids to accrue a critical mass of miles for redemption — it’s not like they have access to credit cards, after all. Unless your kids are little road warriors, they’re liable to end up with orphan miles (very poor choice of words), which either get cashed out at poor value, or expire unused.
Historically speaking, KrisFlyer accounts were strictly individual, with no option for families to pool miles together. That changed in August 2021, when Singapore Airlines launched KrisFlyer for Families, a feature which allows parents to transfer up to 50,000 KrisFlyer miles per year from a child’s account to their own.
What is KrisFlyer for Families?
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| KrisFlyer for Families |
KrisFlyer for Families allows children (up to age 16) to transfer the KrisFlyer miles they earn to a nominated parent, subject to the following conditions:
- A maximum of 50,000 miles per calendar year can be transferred
- All transfers are one-way only, and cannot be reversed
- For every 5,000 miles transferred, a fee of US$5 (~S$6.40) or 500 miles applies
There is no minimum transfer amount, but the fee is charged per block, so transferring 100 miles will cost the same as 5,000 miles. Given a value of 1.5 cents per mile, it would probably be better to pay the fee in cash instead of miles— not to mention you can earn credit card miles on the fee. Unlike certain other Singapore Airlines service fees, this isn’t waived for elite members.
Each child’s KrisFlyer account can only be linked to one parent’s KrisFlyer account (good time to see which parent they prefer), but one parent account can be linked to up to five children’s accounts.
As a safeguard against mileage brokers, a few restrictions have been put in place. The child’s account:
- Must have at least one mileage accrual from a flight (Singapore Airlines, Scoot, or any other airline partner) in the past 36 months
- Must not have accrued any miles from credit card spend in the past 36 months
- Must have been linked for at least 24 hours
These restrictions make sense, if you think about it, since the only real way for a child to earn miles is through flying.
| ⚠️Transferring does not extend miles validity! |
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If your child has KrisFlyer miles that are going to expire, you might think it’s cheaper to transfer them to a parent than pay the extension fee (US$12 or 1,200 miles per 10,000 miles). Unfortunately, the expiration date stays the same, unless:
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How do you link a child’s account?
To transfer miles from a child to a parent, you’ll need to set up a Parental Link, which can be done during the KrisFlyer account creation process.
Alternatively, you can log in to your child’s KrisFlyer account and initiate the Parental Link via the Profile → Personal Details section.
This will trigger an email to the parent, who then logs in to their own KrisFlyer account to confirm the linkage. Accounts will be linked until the child turns 16.
Once the linkage is established, you can transfer miles by logging in to the parent’s KrisFlyer account and go to Miles → Transfer Miles.
All transfers are processed instantly.
How many miles do children earn?
Children aged 2–11 typically pay 75–80% of the adult fare, but they still earn the same number of miles as an adult.
The exact number of miles earned depends on the fare class, which I’ve summarised in the table below.
| Y | PY | J | F | |
| Lite | 50% (V, K) |
100% (R) |
125% (D) |
– |
| Value | 50% (Q, N) |
– | – | – |
| Standard | 75% (M, H, W) |
100% (L, P) |
125% (U) |
– |
| Flexi | 100% (Y, B, E) |
125% (S, T) |
150% (Z, C, J) |
200% (F, A) |
| Y= Economy, PY= Premium Economy, J= Business, F= First |
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Should you just use the redemption nominee feature?
As KrisFlyer members will already know, it’s possible to redeem miles for someone else using the redemption nominee system.
So if you control your child’s KrisFlyer account, you can already use their miles for yourself or any other nominee. Why would you want to incur the transfer fee?
It all boils down to the problem I mentioned at the start. Since children can only really earn miles from flying, it may be difficult to accumulate the critical mass needed for a redemption. For example, flying Economy Class from Singapore to San Francisco would earn only 8,440 miles in a Lite/Value bucket; still 60 miles shy of the cheapest Economy Saver award (8,500 miles to Malaysia, Indonesia and Brunei).
Therefore, it would usually make more sense to pool the child’s miles with an adult— who has many more avenues for earning miles such as credit cards — and having the adult redeem the tickets.
In that sense, the 50,000 mile annual transfer limit shouldn’t be that big a deal. If the child has more than that in his/her account, you’re better off using the redemption nominee function instead.
Other ways of cashing out
If you dislike the idea of paying a fee to access miles that are already “yours”, then the only practical option for spending your child’s miles would be to cash them out at 1 cent each on:
- Singapore Airlines or Scoot tickets
- Pelago experiences
- KrisShop merchandise
- Kris+ merchants
Kris+ is probably the easiest option, and you can use your own referral code for your child’s account to get an extra 500 KrisPay miles for both.
Mind you, this will be far inferior value to redeeming an award flight, but it’s still better than letting them expire unused!
How are KrisFlyer accounts different for children?
A child’s KrisFlyer account works much the same as an adult’s, with the same rules and 3-year expiry for miles.
However, there are some restrictions when it comes to redeeming award tickets:
- A KrisFlyer member aged below 12 cannot redeem KrisFlyer miles for award tickets online, unless a redemption nominee 18 years and above is travelling on the same flight
- A KrisFlyer member aged 12-17 can redeem KrisFlyer miles for award tickets online for themselves and redemption nominees 18 years and above, but cannot do so for redemption nominees <18 years old
Conclusion
KrisFlyer for Families allows parents to transfer up to 50,000 miles from their child’s account to their own each year, and is currently the only way of transferring miles between two individual accounts.
While it’s a bit of a bummer that transfers aren’t free, keep in mind that without this feature, children’s miles would usually be wasted, or be redeemed at sub-optimal value.
However, if your child flies enough to earn a significant number of miles, it might still be better to use the redemption nominee system instead and avoid the fees altogether.
Are you using KrisFlyer for Families?
Ah, of course there’s a fee. SIA knows exactly how to extract maximum $ from its customers to provide them with minimum value. I won’t be bothering with this, or with earning a single Krisflyer mile.
Hopefully this opens an avenue for spouse pooling eventually. There will always be one accruing more than the other.
Honestly, underwhelming and unappealing.
Compared to others, why would SQ rolls out something which pales in comparison to competitor’s offering. It’s just providing another avenue for negativity; Something SQ should avoid.
Paying usd50 to get access to 50,000 miles that may otherwise have been wasted. not ideal, but most parents will take it.
Hey guys,
I want to book a ticket for my 6 year old child by redeeming my Krisflyer miles and my ticket as a regular revenue ticket. We will be traveling together (same flight) but on separate tickets / separate booking reference numbers. The SQ website, however, does not allow me to book a child only ticket. Does anyone know if there is a way around it?
Will the accompany Elite Miles be transferred to the parent as well, or just the miles?