30 April 2022 was supposed to be D-Day, marking the start of a tsunami of expiring Krisflyer (KF) miles which I was planning to use for flight redemptions. But given the sudden arrival and explosive global spread of the Omicron variant late last year, we won’t be getting on a plane in 2022.
It’s not just the risk of contracting Covid-19 while travelling, but also the uncertainty around travel restrictions. Which, as we’ve seen recently, can change very drastically and very quickly.
After being triple mRNA jabbed, the fear of being infected is increasingly being superseded by the fear of being stranded overseas for an extended duration. Vacations are supposed to be relaxing, and getting stuck in a foreign land is anything but.
So, with our decision not to travel this year, I had to come up with a Plan B to run down our expiring wall of miles. The least bad option was to convert the expiring miles, on a rolling basis just before they expire, to Shangri-La Golden Circle (GC) points.
We could then use the GC points to pay for meals at their hotel restaurants in Singapore, something that I did frequently when I had a healthy stash of GC points (and Diamond status!), acquired from extensive work travel.
Using the conversion rate of 12 KF miles to 1 GC point to US$0.10, it works out to around S$0.011, or 1.10 cpm (cents per mile), assuming an exchange rate of US$1.00 to S$1.32. It’s not great, but hey, it’s better than using KF miles to buy champagne stuff on KrisShop at 0.80 cpm.
Surprisingly (and thankfully), Singapore Airlines decided to extend the expiry of Krisflyer miles again, this time by another 6-12 months. Which meant that our miles will only start expiring from 31 Jan 2023 onwards, giving our miles a new lease of life.
Which turned out to be even better news because Shangri-La recently announced a significant devaluation of GC points.
The current rate of 10 GC points to US$1.00 will become 15 GC points to US$1.00 from 28 Apr 2022. The new calculus then becomes 12 KF miles to 1 GC point to US$0.067, or a disappointing 0.73 cpm.
Looks like my Plan B will have to change from restaurant meals at Shangri-La to lots (and lots) of champagne from KrisShop. But that’s a decision that I only need to make in January next year.
I’ve updated our previous miles expiry profile to take into account this latest extension, and here’s what it looks like now, broken down by months. My miles are in dark blue and The Wife’s miles are in light blue, with our combined balance indicated at the top of each stacked bar.
We had previously redeemed Business Class return tickets to Europe for the autumn of 2020, but obviously that trip had to be cancelled. The lumpy bars in May and June 2023 are mainly due to the refunded miles from that aborted attempt to leave the country.
The miles expiring in 2024 are relatively insignificant and hence lumped together for the whole year. What is very significant though, are the miles currently sitting in our respective credit card rewards programs.
Their expiry dates are still quite far out, and they’ll get an additional three years of life when transferred over to Krisflyer, so I’m not worried about them at this point.
To get a sense of the overall magnitude of the expiring miles, here’s the same data plotted on a cumulative basis. Looks like a really sturdy wall being built, doesn’t it?
For our next few flights, we’ve decided to keep them within the region, specifically South Korea, Taiwan and Japan.
Among the three countries, South Korea has already started letting in vaccinated tourists, but Taiwan and Japan are locked down pretty tight. It’s likely that Taiwan will open up to tourists before Japan, but it’s probably not going to happen soon.
Will Japan open up by 2024? It’s anyone’s guess, but I sure hope so.
I’ll be checking the MFA Singapore website semi-regularly to get updates on the travel restrictions for Japan, Taiwan and South Korea.
Mapping the expiry profile to the miles needed to redeem Business Class return flights to the three countries, the table below summarises our current plan. The Redeem By date is dictated the expiry profile and is a hard constraint.
| Trip | Redeem By | Travel By | Target Date |
|---|---|---|---|
| South Korea | Jan 2023 | Jan 2024 | Apr 2023 |
| Taiwan | May 2023 | May 2024 | Nov 2023 |
| Japan | Jun 2023 | Jun 2024 | May 2024 |
Travel By dates are the following year since redemptions can be made 355 days in advance. At least that was how it worked pre-pandemic. There’s also the question of whether Singapore Airlines will even load flight schedules so far in advance, given the dynamic and evolving situation.
So, bottom line, who knows what will happen.
Assuming that everything works out, the Target Date is our current planning assumption of when to travel. I’ve spaced out the trips six months apart, deliberately avoiding typhoon season and the scorching hot summer months.
If things actually go as planned, and that’s a very big if, this is how our miles expiry and redemption profiles will look.
The expiry profile is the same one from earlier, redemptions from my miles are in dark green and The Wife’s are in light green.
Lines with circles show the cumulative expiry minus redemption amounts, mine in red and The Wife’s in yellow. Basically, the idea is to keep them below 0 so that all miles are redeemed before they expire.
Based on this, we should be able to burn all our expiring miles in the three upcoming trips. We’ll still have quite a healthy balance of around 260,000 miles sitting in our credit card programs for future trips after 2024.
Before pulling the trigger and making concrete travel plans, we have a checklist of what needs to happen first. Essentially, we’re not comfortable travelling overseas until we’re sure that our travel plans won’t be disrupted due to forced quarantines or denied entry to flights.
✅ No pre-departure testing before boarding flight for destination
✅ No on-arrival testing after landing at destination airport
✅ No on-arrival quarantine at destination country
✅ No pre-departure testing before boarding flight for return home
✅ No quarantine upon return at external facility; home quarantine is fineI know that extensive testing is part and parcel of overseas travel now, but the issue with any form of testing is the chance that you’ll test positive, and the subsequent restrictions that will be imposed on you.
For a cautionary tale, look no further than a recently publicised case about a family that travelled to Seoul in December last year under the Vaccinated Travel Lane (VTL) scheme. Ouch! It’s a fairly long article, but you’ll want to keep reading until the end. tldr; it gets worse and worse.
Travel restrictions imposed by Singapore authorities have loosened since then, but they’re still quite onerous. Plus there’s no telling when they’ll suddenly change, and it could very well happen when you’re still overseas.
I believe that the only realistic time that testing requirements will be removed is when the situation has truly normalised, and Covid-19 is recognised globally as being endemic.
Like influenza.
Because in the olden times, you didn’t have to get tested for the flu before boarding or after disembarking a flight.
Will we reach that state by January 2023?
Perhaps. Perhaps not.
If it doesn’t, we still have the option of extending our miles once (by 6 or 12 months), but with a 12% haircut or by paying an admin fee in cash.
After that, if the world still doesn’t settle down to some sense of normalcy, I guess we’ll be drowning in lots (and lots) of champagne.
