Singapore Airlines’ Kris Flyer goes miles better

Travelers will get more treats from Singapore Airlines (SIA) aside from its award-winning service onboard its modern fleet of planes. On October 27, SIA’s frequent flyer program KrisFlyer will introduce benefits and enhanced services specially tailored to offer KrisFlyer members greater flexibility, convenience and value.

Among the new features are one-way award redemption and the ability to purchase top-up miles. These are the result of an extensive customer research survey conducted at the end of 2002.

"Its all about choice – we want to offer KrisFlyer members more options and rewards for flying with us. In response to members’ feedback, these latest features provide more ways to redeem miles for meaningful rewards," said SIA senior vice president for marketing Tan Chik Quee.

Members will be able to enjoy one-way award redemption to any destination, for 70 percent of the miles required for the equivalent return journey.

A new category of unrestricted awards for First and Raffles (business) Class travel offer greater award redemption choices, extended validity and two free stopovers per round trip.

Existing First and Business Class awards will be renamed First Saver and Business Saver respectively.

Additional stopovers may also now be redeemed for just 10,000 miles per stopover – irrespective of class of travel – instead of the usual 15,000, 25,000 and 40,000 miles required for Economy, Raffles (business) and First Class awards, respectively.

Improved award charts will include more flight zones to ensure that each region is more accurately represented. For example, with the revamped chart, a Singapore-Adelaide return economy Saver redemption will now cost 20 percent less, at 40,000 miles, compared to the existing 50,000 miles. The revamped award charts will have 23 flight zones, compared to the existing 12 zones.

Members who do not have sufficient KrisFlyer miles to redeem for a particular award ticket can now top-up their accounts by purchasing up to 30 per cent of the required KrisFlyer miles with cash. Each block of 1,000 KrisFlyer miles costs US$40.

KrisFlyer members who wish to change their redemption group nominees can now do so online, at http://www.krisflyer.com or http://www.singaporeair.com at a reduced cost of 60 percent of the miles currently required.

KrisFlyer now has 75 global partners, ranging from airlines, hotels and a travel agency to credit cards, an insurance company and a telecommunications provider. The latest partner to join the KrisFlyer program is Club 21, a luxury fashion distributor based in Singapore.

* * *

Going Nuts Over Peanuts

Young travelers on SIA can now add a new toy from the Peanuts plush toy range to their collection when they travel on the airline. The character Linus now joins Snoopy in this latest set of collectibles.

More than two million Peanuts characters have found homes with young travelers since they were first introduced on SIA in January 2001. Other characters that were previously launched include Snoopy, Charlie Brown, Woodstock and Lucy. Snoopy has been seen in different outfits with the latest being Snoopy in sporty tennis gear.

SIA is currently developing more Peanuts toy designs, and will introduce them in the next two years, each toy’s design is exclusive to SIA.

Linus and Snoopy are available on all SIA flights, except to and from Kuala Lumpur.

For its young travelers, SIA also makes available a host of other amenities such as coloring activity kits, tote bags, baby face towels and sling pouches.

* * *

Sia Flies To Shenzhen Starting January

Starting January 16, Singapore Airlines will add a new destination to its network – Shenzhen. Thrice-weekly service to this southern Chinese city is part of the airline’s northern winter schedule that runs from the end of October 2003 to the end of March 2004. The schedule also reflects a restoration of many of the flights suspended earlier in the year.

Shenzhen will be SIA’s second new destination in the year. A three-time weekly direct service to Bangalore was launched on August 28 this year.

SIA has been progressively reinstating its services across its route network since June. At the end of September SIA restored all of the frequencies to China to pre-SARS levels, with Beijing being served twice daily, Shanghai three times daily, Hong Kong five times daily, and Guangzhou five times weekly.

With the addition of Shenzhen, SIA is offering a total of 43 weekly flights to three cities in the Pearl River Delta, the other two being Hong Kong and Guangzhou. Customers traveling on SIA services to the Pear River Delta will be allowed the flexibility to return to Singapore from any of these cities; for example, they could travel on the outbound flight to Hong Kong and return from Shenzhen.

Other cities that will see more frequencies per week from the Northern Winter season include Mumbai and Auckland (both from 7 times weekly to 10 times weekly), Auckland (from 7 to 10 times weekly), Tokyo (from 14 times to 20 times weekly), Osaka (from 14 to 17 times weekly), Denpasar-Bali (from 18 to 28), and Jakarta (from 42 to 49).