KrisFlyer and Marriott Bonvoy have announced an expansion to their partnership. KrisFlyer members who are also members of Marriott Bonvoy, can now link their accounts and convert KrisFlyer miles to Marriott Bonvoy points. This two-way conversion builds on the existing option of converting Bonvoy points into KrisFlyer miles. In this post, I will focus more on the new option to convert KrisFlyer miles into Bonvoy points.
The details
Prior to this, existing KrisFlyer and Bonvoy members could convert Bonvoy points to KrisFlyer miles, but not the other way around. The conversion ratio was 3 Bonvoy points to 1 KrisFlyer mile. This aspect of the partnership isn’t changing. Now with this recent announcement, the reverse will also be possible, but the conversion ratio will be 2 KF miles to 1 Bonvoy point. A minimum of 3,000 KrisFlyer miles must be converted in a single transaction, up to a maximum of 180,000 KrisFlyer miles per calendar year. A couple of other pretty standard conditions to take note of:
- The names on both the KrisFlyer and Bonvoy accounts must match
- Points may take up to eight weeks to be posted to the Bonvoy account (though I expect it to be faster in most cases
- Conversions cannot be reversed
Is it worth converting KrisFlyer to Bonvoy?
Personally, I wouldn’t bother. I value KrisFlyer miles more than Bonvoy points, both in terms of value, and earn-and-burn pathways. Thus I wouldn’t burn KrisFlyer miles on converting them to Bonvoy points.
Allow me to give an illustrative example. Recently I’ve been eyeing an award stay at the Westin Singapore. That’s a hotel that current prices around SGD550 most nights, and the award rate on dates I’ve been looking at have been 32,000 Bonvoy points. Which is a great deal for an award stay by the way. Now if I had to convert all of that 32,000 from my KrisFlyer account, I’d need to convert 64,000 KrisFlyer miles. If I did it that way, I’d be getting SGD0.0086 (8.6 cents SGD) per KrisFlyer mile,
Alternatively, that amount of miles, post-devaluation, could be used for a a one-way Business Saver to Japan, and still have 12,000 miles change. A quick Google Flights search tells me the cheapest one-way tells me that the cheapest one-way Singapore Airlines business class ticket to Tokyo is SGD2,379. At 52,000 miles, I’d be getting SGD0.046 (SGD4.6 cents) per mile, or over 5 times the value compared to that Westin Singapore award night. But hang on, one-way tickets are inherently very expensive, so it’s skews the redemption value. Using 50% of the cost of a round-trip business class ticket (SGD3,188/2 = 1,594), I’d still get SGD0.0306 (SGD3.6 cents) per mile. That’s still around 3.5 times the value of that award stay. Plus it doesn’t account for the 12,000 miles difference.
While the above is one specific use case and comparison, I’ve already actually been quite generous by choosing a property that has a low award rate vis-Ã -vis its cash rate. It just shows what an unattractive proposition it is to convert KrisFlyer miles to Bonvoy points.
In short, this is a transfer option I simply wouldn’t bother with.
Conclusion
KrisFlyer members who are also Marriott Bonvoy members can now convert their KrisFlyer miles to Bonvoy points, at a rate of 2 KrisFlyer miles to 1 Bonvoy point. However the conversion is poor value, and isn’t an option I’d consider for burning KrisFlyer miles.