How much have KrisFlyer award prices increased since 1999?

Singapore Airlines launched KrisFlyer in February 1999 to replace Passages — its short-lived, yet intriguing joint frequent flyer programme with Cathay Pacific and Malaysia Airlines.

A quarter of a century later, KrisFlyer looks radically different from its humble beginnings. It now generates S$1.4 billion in annual revenue for Singapore Airlines and boasts over 10 million members, with more than 1,700 partners worldwide. 

A lot has changed over that time. But for most members, one question matters more than any other: how much have award costs increased? 

I’m pretty sure everyone has an inkling that the prices today aren’t what they were 27 years ago, but are we talking modest growth, or Weimar Republic?

Answering this requires data —  lots of data — and after hours of trawling through the Wayback Machine, I finally managed to assemble every single KrisFlyer chart for the last 27 years (please, hold your applause).

✈️ KrisFlyer Award Charts  (For travel on Singapore Airlines)
Validity	Link
1 Feb 1999 to 26 Oct 2003	Download
27 Oct 2003 to 31 Jan 2007	Download
1 Feb 2007 to 29 Feb 2012	Download
1 Mar 2012 to 23 May 2016	Download
24 May 2016 to 22 Mar 2017	Download
23 Mar 2017 to 23 Jan 2019	Download
24 Jan 2019 to 4 Jul 2022	Download
5 Jul 2022 to 31 Oct 2025	Download
1 Nov 2025 to Present Day	Download

Here’s what I found…

How have KrisFlyer prices changed from 1999 to 2026?

All in all, KrisFlyer has updated its award chart seven times from its inception in 1999 till today, which works out to roughly one devaluation every four years.

You can find links to each announcement below (fun game: do a shot every time you spot the word “enhancement”):

• October 2003
• February 2007
• March 2012
• March 2017
• January 2019
• July 2022
• November 2025

To give you an idea of how prices have evolved, I put together the round-trip award prices across 15 destinations in the Singapore Airlines network: Jakarta, Bangkok, Hong Kong, Shanghai, Mumbai, Tokyo, Perth, Sydney, Johannesburg, Dubai, Amsterdam, Paris, London, San Francisco, and New York.

These all are or were part of different award zones over the years, so collectively we should get a good sense of the overall picture.

A few points to note:

• SIA’s First Class network has evolved over time, and not all of the featured cities may have offered First Class service throughout the period
• When comparing prices between periods, we need to remember that from June 2004 to March 2017, KrisFlyer members would have to pay fuel surcharges on SIA redemptions. These have since been eliminated
• Prices from 2003 to 2017 reflect the 15% online redemption discount that SIA offered at the time
• As Premium Economy is a relatively new product (introduced in 2015) I’ve not included it in the analysis

The table below provides an overview of how prices have changed for Economy, Business and First Class awards during each of the seven award chart updates.

What might surprise you is that contrary to popular belief, not every award chart update means a devaluation. In fact, there have been cases where the cost of awards actually fell, such as in October 2003 because of the 15% discount introduced for online redemptions. 

Moreover, price inflation in Economy Class has been extremely muted. There are six destinations for which annualised award price growth is 0.5% or less, including Jakarta, Bangkok, Hong Kong, Shanghai, Mumbai and Perth. In fact, Economy Class redemptions to Mumbai and South Asia in general are actually cheaper today (38,000 miles) than they were in 1999 (50,000 miles)!

It’s in Business Class where the price increases have been more acute. While Mumbai and the rest of South Asia saw a very modest 0.4% annualised growth, flights to Japan and Australia have increased by ~2% (resulting in a 70% increase over the period). Worse still are flights to Europe and North America, some of which have almost doubled in cost!

As for First Class, it’s pretty much the same story. Mumbai and South Asia have only grown by 0.8% p.a., but those wanting to travel to Europe or North America now need to pay more than double the miles compared to 1999. 

That said, it’s not as simple as looking at the absolute increase in award prices, because changes in earning power and award space availability can moderate or exacerbate the increases. Moreover, qualitative changes to redemption policies can hurt just as much as price increases!

Changes in earning power

Award price inflation only tells half the story, because even if redemption rates have risen, the impact may be offset by how much easier it is to earn miles. 

When KrisFlyer first started in 1999, opportunities to earn miles outside of flying were few and far between, limited to selected hotel chains, car rental agencies, and a handful of premium credit cards (though it could have been worse, if not for Tharman!).

Today, the landscape is completely different. KrisFlyer miles can be earned across almost every facet of daily life, whether its groceries, enrichment classes, tours and activities, petrol, electricity plans, or even renovating your house. Anyone earning at least S$30,000 a year can access credit cards offering up to 4 mpd (or 6 mpd sometimes!), with additional avenues to buy miles through services like CardUp and Citi PayAll. 

The problem is: while it’s relatively easy to measure award price inflation, it’s much harder to measure the growth in earning power.

That said, my gut tells me that Economy Class awards today are much cheaper than they were in 1999.  Even at their most extreme (Europe), prices have only gone from 60,000 to 88,000 miles, and if you manage to snag an award during Spontaneous Escapes at 30% off, the price drops to 61,600 miles— pretty much unchanged!

For Business and First Class, it’s harder to say. Paying 225,000 miles for a round-trip Business Class ticket to San Francisco is certainly a big increase from 115,000 miles, but then again, we didn’t have 100,000 miles welcome offers in 1999.

Award space availability

Another factor this analysis can’t fully capture is award space availability. Only Singapore Airlines knows how many Saver seats are available today versus 1999, and that will obviously affect how we view award price increases. 

What I can say, however, is that KrisFlyer members now face significantly more competition for award seats. Not only has the programme grown in size, but Singapore Airlines award seats have gradually become more accessible to members of other frequent flyer programmes.

Singapore Airlines joined Star Alliance in 2000, but for many years, only KrisFlyer members were allowed to book its long-haul First and Business Class products. That restriction has been eased over time, with Alaska Mileage Plan and Air Canada Aeroplan members gaining access to the “forbidden seats”— sometimes even seeing inventory that wasn’t available to KrisFlyer members!

Can’t find Singapore Airlines award space? Try looking outside KrisFlyer

Every time there’s a release of Singapore Airlines award space to and from the USA, you can bet the US blogs and social media community will pick it up and spark a feeding frenzy (and for the record, I don’t begrudge them that; I’d do the same if I were in their position).

Since there are only so many seats on a plane, every seat redeemed by a partner programme is one less seat available to KrisFlyer members.

Qualitative changes

Merely looking at award price increases also masks the impact of qualitative changes to the programme, which can make it easier or more difficult to redeem miles.

A great example are fuel surcharges. Back in June 2004, Singapore Airlines introduced fuel surcharges on all its routes. This started at a very tame US$5, but over time eventually added hundreds of dollars to a so-called “free” ticket. 

But as the carrot to the March 2017 devaluation, Singapore Airlines removed fuel surcharges from all its flights. Therefore, even though award prices rose, the cash payment fell, and whether you were better or worse off boiled down to how much you valued a mile. 

Another example is upgrades. In March 2016, KrisFlyer stopped allowing Economy to Business Class upgrades on aircraft where Premium Economy was available. This remained the policy until the January 2019 devaluation, where KrisFlyer published a new award chart allowing two-cabin upgrades from Economy to Business Class, albeit at a higher price.

So all in all, even though award prices have risen, the true impact is tempered by these other factors, the exact weight of each is hard to quantify.

Other fun KrisFlyer tidbits

When digging through a quarter century of history, I found some interesting tidbits that if nothing else, would come in useful for trivia night. 

KrisFlyer once had 23 (!) award zones

In October 2003, KrisFlyer expanded its original 12 award zones into 23 award zones. Yes, 23. 

Said Singapore Airlines at the time:

Our improved award charts will include more flight zones — 23 instead of the earlier 12. This will ensure that each region is more accurately represented — and make redemption travel much easier to understand and more transparent.

-Singapore Airlines

Easier to understand? This thing?

It was truly a work of art. Indonesia was split into three zones; Japan and India into two (and yet the cost of travel was exactly the same regardless of which sub-zone you flew to).  Philippines, Thailand and Vietnam were each given their own zone (which, again, had no impact on pricing). Adelaide was inexplicably grouped together with Perth. Goodness me, what a mess.

Perhaps realising the folly of their previous decision, KrisFlyer consolidated its 23 award zones into 14 award zones during the very next devaluation in February 2007!

To simplify the award charts, the number of zones will be reduced from the current 23 to 14.

-Singapore Airlines

One-way redemptions weren’t always possible

We take one-way redemptions for granted these days, but that wasn’t the case when KrisFlyer first launched. While it was possible to redeem open jaw round-trips, e.g. SIN-LAX/SFO-SIN, the original KrisFlyer programme did not permit one-way redemptions. 

It was only in October 2003 that the feature was added — but even then, it was a very poor deal at 70% the cost of a round-trip award. KrisFlyer members would have to wait until September 2008 before the current 50% pricing came into effect. 

But hey, Asia Miles members had it worse. One-way awards cost 55-75% of round-trip prices all the way till 2018. And ANA Mileage Club only added one-way awards in June 2025!

The cost of miles top-ups has remained the same for 20+ years

In October 2003, Singapore Airlines introduced the option of buying additional KrisFlyer miles to redeem an award, provided you had at least 30% of the required amount.

Amazingly, the price of US$40 per 1,000 miles has remained the same till today (though you can now buy up to 50% of the required amount). Obviously, it’s not the best option at your disposal, and there’s many just as fast and much cheaper ways of getting yourself over the finish line. 

Instant and quick ways to top-up a KrisFlyer miles balance

2006’s new cabin product fiasco

In October 2006, Singapore Airlines unveiled its new First and Business Class cabin products for its B777-300ER aircraft. 

They were, quite simply, amazing— especially Business Class, which was wider than many airlines’ First Class, offered a full flat bed, and was in every way a quantum leap forward from the old angled-flat Spacebeds. 

But before the new cabin products could even enter service, KrisFlyer announced that they could only be booked with Unrestricted awards (which we know today as Advantage awards).

“Members can continue to redeem award tickets in Economy Class (for both Saver and Unrestricted awards) on the B777-300 ER aircraft. Only Unrestricted awards will be available for redemption in First and Business Class”

-Singapore Airlines

When the A380-800 debuted with same Business Class seat and the first-of-its-kind Suites, the award chart was updated accordingly to block Saver redemptions. 

KrisFlyer members were understandably outraged. SIA was dangling an incredible carrot, only to yank it back and say it was “too good” for Saver awards.

It was only in March 2012 that members could make Saver award bookings on the no-longer-new cabin products.

We appreciate your invaluable feedback and are pleased to announce that we will also be enhancing our seat award redemption offerings. Currently Saver Award is only available for selected First and Business Class flights. With this improvement, you will be able to redeem Saver Award for First and Business Class on most flights, including First and Business Class on our B777-300ER flights; and Business Class on our A380 and A340-500 flights

-Singapore Airlines

Suite Saver awards were also added in November 2012, five years after the product debuted. 

Thankfully, this wasn’t repeated in 2013 when the current generation First and Business Class seats were launched, and I certainly hope it won’t repeat when the new First and Business Class seats arrive with the Boeing 777X!

KrisFlyer’s 14-year online redemption discount

KrisFlyer launched online award redemptions in 2003, and to mark the occasion, offered a 25% discount on all tickets redeemed online. This was later scaled back to 15%, but what’s amazing to me is how long the discount lasted. 

KrisFlyer members enjoyed the online redemption discount for 14 years, well after internet penetration became widespread. Moreover, because of the many shortcomings of the SIA website — no mixed cabin awards, no adding a stopover of more than 30 days, no waitlisting for upgrades — the discount ended up being offered on many phone bookings too.

In March 2017, Singapore Airlines decided to finally nix it, which led to a double-whammy of both an award chart devaluation and a removal of the discount. As much as I missed it, I always thought that SIA worked it into their pricing anyway, giving the illusion of a discount where none really existed.

A Full and his money…

Hands up, who remembers the infamous Full awards? These were introduced in September 2008 as a third type of award that provided last-seat availability. So long as a seat was available for sale, you could redeem it for a Full award.

But the prices were ridiculously expensive: one-way Business Class from Singapore to Japan/London/New York for 138,000/300,000/381,000 miles! In fact, this gave us the closest thing we’ll ever see to a million-mile award (I hope): Sydney to Sao Paulo in First Class, for 947,000 miles. It soon became a running joke that only a “Full” (say it aloud) would redeem such awards.

Few tears were shed when Full awards were removed in the devaluation of May 2016. But it’s kind of poetic that almost a decade later, they were revived in the form of Access awards. 

I think it speaks volumes about how overpriced Full awards were that even after 10 years of inflation, Access awards are often cheaper!

A full guide to Access awards can be found below.

Complete Guide: KrisFlyer Access Awards

The good old days of free changes

Once upon a time, KrisFlyer had very generous award change fees. Date changes were completely free of charge, and cancelling an award ticket could cost just US$15 for everyone except regular KrisFlyer members (US$30). 

That all changed in May 2018, when a new fee structure was rolled out— basically the one we have today. Changes and refunds now cost US$25 and US$75 respectively on Saver tickets, with no-show fees also added. Also gone were the discounted service fees for elite members; all members now paid the same fees, differentiated only by the award type. 

You could be waitlisted all the way to the airport

Once upon a time, the KrisFlyer waitlist could clear at any time up to departure. Even, theoretically speaking, while you were on the way to the airport.

In March 2019, Singapore Airlines finally changed its policy, such that all waitlists would now close 21 days before departure, and be filled or killed at least 14 days before the flight. I don’t think the changes go nearly far enough — in fact, I’ve written about some simple changes which would significantly improve the waitlist experience for everyone — but it’s certainly better than before. 

Unrestricted to Standard to Advantage

KrisFlyer originally only had one type of Business and First Class award, but in October 2003, another category was introduced: Unrestricted.

Unrestricted awards required 1.25-2X the miles of the existing Business and First Class awards, which were then renamed Business Saver and First Saver respectively. In return, members would enjoy better seat inventory and two free stopovers per round-trip.

These were later redesignated as Standard awards in September 2008, and then in January 2018 became today’s Advantage awards. I believe the change in nomenclature was to highlight the fact these awards did have certain advantages that Saver awards did not, such as a bigger range of seats for complimentary selection and reduced change/refund fees. 

There used to be companion awards

Prior to 2007, Singapore Airlines offered companion awards. These were discounted award tickets that could be redeemed in conjunction with a paid commercial fare.

This basic idea was that if someone was travelling on a paid ticket, they could redeem their personal miles to bring along a +1. The discount wasn’t amazing — you’d usually save 15-20% off the regular Saver price — but it was still a nice little gesture which acknowledged that +1s do often tag along for business trips. 

Unfortunately, these were removed during the 2007 devaluation.

Online partner redemptions weren’t added until 2017

While online redemptions for Singapore Airlines became possible in 2003, it was a further 14-year wait till similar functionality was added for partners. 

In December 2017, the SIA website added support for Star Alliance and other partner airline redemptions. It was a royal mess at first, with only Air New Zealand and Lufthansa awards available. Thankfully, the situation eventually improved somewhat, but even today, the Star Alliance search function is hit and miss. 

If you’re looking for Star Alliance awards, I highly recommend you start by looking on a tool like Seats.Aero before going to the KrisFlyer website (or calling up customer service) to finalise your booking. 

Conclusion

KrisFlyer’s award pricing has seen a lot of changes since 1999, and mind you, there’s no guarantee that award charts will always exist.

Elsewhere in the world we’ve seen airlines abandoning fixed priced award charts in favour of “dynamic pricing”, which basically turns frequent flyer programmes into glorified cashback programmes. This may have started off as a North American and European phenomenon, but there are hints it might be coming our way too. Access awards were the first shot across the bow, and I don’t think it’ll stop there. 

But I don’t want to end this on too much of a downer, because history shows that some things actually do get better. Compared to before, KrisFlyer members now have more partner redemption options, no more fuel surcharges, Saver space on all types of aircraft (well, maybe not Suites on the A380) and monthly Spontaneous Escapes discounts. Some awards are even cheaper than they were in 1999!

All the same, my advice would be to earn and burn. Miles don’t earn any interest, after all, and devaluations are inevitable!