Air New Zealand Air Points - From Airpoints to Singapore?

Hi all

Was wondering if I could garner expert FT opinions on the merits of the Singapore Krisflyer program. I have J class travel to Europe on Singapore booked in for a couple of months, and will probably travel them again longhaul in J at least once before the end of the year as well.

I fly once or twice a week domestically for work, always on AirNZ, and at least once a month TT, either QF or NZ depending on times/directness etc. Longhaul to Asia/Europe every quarter or so.

I'm wondering if its worth switching over to the Singapore program for my upcoming travel on them, and crediting all NZ travel to there once I've done enough each year to qualify for GE requalification.

Does anyone have any experience with the Krisflyer program? Is it any good?

Thanks!

It is probably the second most miserly program, after Airpoints. It is still better than Airpoints, but still a very poor earn/burn ratio.

SQ*G is only slightly higher than scum other*G to SQ - if you're not PPS, they don't care.

(I spent three years based in SIN, flying SQ weekly. I only used KrisFlyer for flights/hotels that couldn't credit to UA.)

I found KrisFlyer miles good for two things - upgrading from Business to First (a treat on the long hauls) and a cheap way to fly Air NZ Business from AKL-PER. All Australian destinations are common rated as far as KrisFlyer (and Aeroplan) are concerned and so AKL-PER return is only 35K miles.

I have J class travel to Europe on Singapore booked in for a couple of months, and will probably travel them again longhaul in J at least once before the end of the year as well.

With this travel pattern you might want to join KrisFlyer anyway as you may find that you make PPS - you can still credit points/miles to another programme.

So you mean I could claim Air NZ airpoints for the trip, as well as use the miles to qualify for the PPS Club? How does that work?

Definitely worth joining in that case!

When a flight is credited to "PPS Value" it will only have a life of one year. There is no redemption from PPS. It is just a status program from SQ achieved by $ value spent on First or Business flights on SQ.

To credit flights to both NZ & SQ PPS the following fields in the booking are used:

FQTV "NZ FF No"
FQTS "SQ FF No"

I don't belong to either so can't really help you but have you considered joining Velocity which is the Virgin Australia FF offering.You get points both on SQ AND NZ and at a much better rate.(Singapore wasn't in it when I last flew on them to the UK last year so I got my points through Thai Royal Orchid Plus and on fare qualifying class was a miserable 50% I wouldn't suggest putting your NZ miles there as another option).Like Thai You can redeem your points on things other than flights.Shopping Vouchers for instance start around the 3100 point level and everything else goes up from there.