How to accrue Elite Miles from Star Alliance partners?
- therichpoordad
- Aug 3, 2024
- 3 min read
I recently qualified for Singapore Airlines' KrisFlyer Elite Gold (KFEG) status. The criteria for achieving this is having to accrue 50k Elite Miles over a consecutive 12 month period.
Unlike KrisFlyer Miles, Elite Miles are (usually) only earned when you actually fly. There are occasional campaigns where you get to earn Elite Miles through spending on the ground (such as the Earn Status Credits Beyond the Skies campaign) or credit card points transfer. Currently there are no ongoing campaigns that allow you to do so.
KrisFlyer Elite Gold benefits
The only ones that matter to me are:
- Extra baggage allowance
- Priority Check-in
- Priority Baggage Handling
- Priority Boarding
- Free seat selection
- Lounge Access
- Earn 25% more KrisFlyer miles (on selected fare class)
So... you don't pay money when choosing seats, get to bring more luggage, check in faster at the airport, relax in the lounge, board the plane first, pick up your luggage first, and earn more miles than others after the flight.
This applies as long as you take any Star Alliance flight, as KrisFlyer Elite Gold = Star Alliance Gold.
Star Alliance Members
So how do we get there..?
FLY! But FLY WISELY... if you are going to spend hours in the plane flying thousand of miles across the globe, you want to make sure you get the most of out it.
First things first, understand fare class types. Comparing ticket prices is one thing, but there are reasons why certain tickets cost more or less than others. For example, Singapore Airlines offers four different fare types in Economy:
Lite (V, K), Value (Q, N), Standard (M, H, W), Flexi (Y, B, E)
Yes, those little letters you see in your itinerary mean a lot. As you can see in the table above, certain fare types only allow you to accrue a percentage of the actual miles flown. Depending on how early or late you book your ticket, sometimes certain fare classes are not offered to you at all, while the higher fare classes may just be a little more expensive.
It isn't just Singapore Airlines... but any other Star Alliance flights too!
Elite Miles are not only earned by flying Singapore Airlines. Any Star Alliance member flight allow you to accrue to your Elite Miles total.
Recently, I was asked to travel to the USA for work and had to quickly source tickets. My options were Singapore Airlines and United Airlines, but the latter was priced at half the cost compared to the former.
At first look - this is what I found for my return leg, see those little letters?
Check out this to find out how many miles you can accrue to your KrisFlyer account, the table below shows mileage accruals for United Airlines flights!
"S" only gives you 50% (i.e., 50% x 8,800 = 4,400 Elite Miles) while "Y" gives you the full 8,800 Elite Miles one-way. That set me thinking - why don't other fare types such as "Q, V, W" that give 75% mileage show up?
Search for other fare classes
Interestingly, there is a way to search for it on United Airlines. Simply sign up/sign in to your United MileagePlus account, click on "Advanced Options" when searching for flights, and a "Fare Class" field pops up. You can indicate the little letters here, so I went ahead to search for fare classes that will give me at least 75% mileage accrual.
WALA - a new column appears for your requested fare class. A "W" fare class appears here that will give you 75% mileage accrual (75% x 8,800 = 6,600 Elite Miles).
Comments