Singapore Airlines Restricts KrisFlyer Award Searches
Singapore Airlines KrisFlyer is making it a bit more difficult for members to search award availability when their accounts do not meet certain requirements.
Those requirements might include having some miles in your account, or maybe recent activity. Those who don’t meet the requirements will see a a message stating that their current mileage balance was insufficient for flight redemption searches and will be redirected to Singapore Airlines’ less useful Flight Recommender tool.
Some members with fewer than 1,000 miles have continued to search normally with recent activity, while others with more than 1,000 miles have remained blocked. This suggests that recent account activity may be required, and not just a fixed minimum balance.
But the airline has not posted or clearly explained the new policy, so it is also possible that KrisFlyer is testing different restrictions.
The restriction may be intended to limit automated award-search tools that use inactive or newly created accounts to collect availability data. However, it also creates a problem for legitimate travelers who want to check award space before transferring points into KrisFlyer.
That is especially inconvenient because KrisFlyer miles expire 36 months after they are issued, regardless of account activity. So you don’t want to transfer in all your points without making sure that there’s award availability for your flights.
HT: One Miles at a Time & Mile Lion
