Two years ago Singapore Airlines KrisFlyer eliminated fuel surcharges on Singapore Airlines awards and raised mileage prices to compensate. They left their Star Alliance awards untouched and of course those still incurred surcharges.

It did create a strange situation where you could add a Star Alliance partner airline flight to the end of a Singapore Airlines itinerary to save miles, since Star Alliance flights were often cheaper. You’d then just throw away that final segment.

The KrisFlyer program raised Singapore Airlines award prices again at the beginning of 2019 with about three weeks’ notice. Again they created the window where Star Alliance awards could be cheaper (albeit with fuel surcharges) and again offering a window of savings to throw away a partner flight segment at the end of a one way award booking.

That’s a pretty good indication that things wouldn’t last — that the Star Alliance award chart would be devalued too. As in the past Singapore doesn’t seem to update their own metal chart at the same time as the partner airline chart.

Unsurprisingly then there’s a new, higher-priced Star Alliance award chart going into effect for the KrisFlyer program effective April 19. For reference here’s the current Star Alliance award chart. (HT: MileLion)

Singapore last devalued their Star Alliance award chart at the end of 2017, bumping up prices as much as 25%, so this is kind of quick.

In MileLion’s analysis overall changes appear to be:

• Economy: No change
  
• Business class: up 8% – 12%
  
• First class: up 6% – 10%

Singapore Airlines KrisFlyer is a transfer partner of Chase, American Express, Citibank, and Capital One so it’s of great interest to US frequent flyers. The primary use of their miles in my opinion is booking awards on Singapore Airlines itself (since there’s much greater availability using their miles than partner miles when doing so) and those prices aren’t changing at this time. I rarely look to their Star Alliance award chart – except for United domestic US and Hawaii flights. Those prices are changing.

• North America roundtrip premium cabin: increasing from 40,000 miles to 46,000 miles
  
• North American – Hawaii roundtrip premium cabin: increasing from 60,000 to 69,000 miles

Both remain relative values, but won’t be as good starting April 19. You can still book under current mileage prices for travel into the future, of course, up through April 18 in Singapore.