jorrdanhammond

In the small print of the KrisFlyer terms & conditions is a small line that mentions that pooling of points is not permitted. They have a system that allows you to access the points of your family members, but you cannot use those points combined to access any reward.

11. Pooling of KrisFlyer miles and/or status credits is not permitted and each KrisFlyer membership can only be utilised by one person. Singapore Airlines reserves the right to cancel a KrisFlyer account and all KrisFlyer miles and/or status credits in the account, if it is found to be used by more than one person.

So if you have a family who travel together, each with their own KrisFlyer account, and later you want to use all those points to upgrade a flight. You can't.

What do we know about the KrisFlyer scheme?

1. You cannot transfer points to other members
2. You cannot pool points between connected accounts
3. Your points expire extremely rapidly
4. Within Europe, your reward flight options are extremely limited (once on the phone every reward flight available between EU cities was to go via Singapore)

So honestly, ask yourself. Why bother with Singapore Airlines at all?

There are so many other options out there without such restrictive rules.

skywardhunter

1. Some airlines permit this for an extortionate fees, some don't at all, very few have free and user friendly pooling features (e.g. BA HH account)
2. pretty standard. You can use miles from account A to upgrade passenger B, but can't use 10k from account A, 15k from B and 7k from C. Normal
3. 3 years, pretty standard
4. I don't know, I'd assume it depends on the *A partners making awards available to some degree

TL/DR, OPW?

lokijuh

Welcome to Flyertalk. Yes, you are understanding some of the limitations of the program, but it is far from a scam, these are all clearly laid out in T&C, and it is not that common to allow transfers/pooling between family members (at least free of charge). Each program has its pros and cons, which is one of the reasons why this site exists, for members to discuss the various pros and cons of the different programs. There may well be another star alliance program better suited to your needs. If in business class, or higher economy fares other programs may work out better. If on lower economy fares, these may not, as some of the lower fares don't earn anything in other programs.

There may be other programs that do allow family pooling, I am not sure of who the are. Te main way I think of family pooling using SQ flights (on lower economy fares) is if you have access to (ie have or know someone with) an Australian or NZ address - by using Virgin Australia's program, which allows free family transfers and family pooling (and earns the same number of miles as through Krisflyer - although awards cost more) . The catch is, if you want to use on star alliance or for upgrades on SQ, you can indeed transfer to Krisflyer, but lose 35% of the miles in the process (as ratio is 1.55:1), but you can pool your entire family mileage that way.

nancypants

PiperAtGatesofDawn

It's OP's first post so either it's paid-to-scare-you type of marketing by someone or OP got burnt recently because he was ignorant. I suspect it's the former.

jorrdanhammond

1. Being able to transfer with a fee is far better that not being able to transfer at all and the points disappearing. Qantas has no transfer fee.
2. Without a transfer option, pooling your family accounts would be the only logical solution. Since you can only have 5 connected accounts, abusing this would be hard. What's the purpose of being able to connect the accounts of you cannot share the points? A "pointless" feature.
3. 3 years without automatic extension? I've never come across this before. Every point system I've used is N years from the last date of activity for the entire points balance. KrisFlyer ignores you activity and auto-expires points after 3 years no matter how much you fly with them.

It's by far, the worst FF programme that I've ever come across.

jorrdanhammond

Lost on me too.
thefreedictionary's suggestions don't provide any help.

Oily Palm ...... possibly?

Often1

It is unfortunate to start off on FT on a bad note, but the fact is OP's predicament is solely the result of his failure to read the contract (terms & conditions) before agreeing to them. One may call them "small print" but they nonetheless are a contract and if it was important to OP, they were worth reading.

The simple fact is that it is far from common to permit the fee-free transfers and other features which OP suggests are common and thus the failure to provide them becomes a "scam".

Every program is different. In the same way that air carriers are different. Consumers make their choices based on what is important to them. In this instance, OP chose a program without considering what was important to him and that is unfortunate.

LondonElite

I'm not aware of any major FF programme that allows the easy transferal of points from one member to another. Household or family accounts, which some have, are probably the closest you get.

jorrdanhammond

Okay, agreed it's not a scam. However the point is hidden away in Section D, point 11, sub-note G, etc.

My main points experience has been with Qantas which does free family transfers. This works fine without issue. The other is Virgin Atlantic, which have proven in more than 10 years to be impossible to use. The "surcharges" normally cost more than the list flight price. I have 300K of those which I've not been able to ever use. If there's any good posts for using these, let me know.

jorrdanhammond

Qantas does. Free transfers between 5K & 600K points. Can redeem on any One World flight.

samwise6222

Righto - and most US airlines charge anywhere between $350 - $500 to move 10,000 miles.

Tokyoite

Sad for you, but unfortunately, you simply failed to read the contract (terms & conditions) before agreeing to them.
If something is important to you, you would take the time to read the contract first, right?
Ignorance of the contract is a bitter pill to swallow, but not an excuse.
Just because QF does or did something, shouldnt mean that SQ would too. It is what it is.

Welcome to the world of miles and points.
Just learn and move on to a hopefully better experience next time.

Or, you will next get shocked with miles or points expiring without notice, and call it a scam again!

Tokyoite

Here are my top 5 reasons.
1. Access to Singapore Airlines suites first class award redemptions.
2. Sweet spots in redemptions between the Middle East and Europe (Dubai to London etc.) or Maldives to Europe, North America and Hawaii etc.
3. NO fuel surcharges on Singapore Airlines own flight awards
4. Very low cancel/change fee (20 USD)
5. Ability to wait list Singapore Airlines own flight awards and they don’t charge a close-in ticketing fee (booking an award within 21 days of travel)

among others.

Gig103

Welcome to Flyertalk, Jordan. I do not know how often you fly, but I will say that many of your complaints are not unique to Singapore Krisflyer. Here in the USA we are not allowed to combine household points on any of our carriers. Expiration is a problem for infrequent fliers (in the USA we are luckier that there are non-flight ways to add time to expiration). And all airlines are stingy with their awards. You say that you need to transit through SIN for Europe awards, well sometimes American Airlines wants us to take two stops and a 15+ hour layover for awards to Europe!

I guess what I am saying is that you need to temper expectations. And see about getting a credit card to increase mileage earnings?