Earn KrisFlyer miles fast: 7 best KrisFlyer miles card welcome promotions in Singapore

Unless you hemorrhage money every month, earning Krisflyer Miles or Asia Miles with your regular credit card spending is a tedious and long-drawn affair. So what’s the fastest way to earn miles instead?

The answer is to get an air miles card with welcome miles, i.e. a nice fat bunch of miles you get just for signing up, spending a minimum amount, or paying the annual fee. Let’s take a look at the best credit cards for clocking up miles fast.

Best Krisflyer welcome bonus miles promotions in Singapore (2022)

Want to know where 45,000 miles can take you? No need to mess with mind-boggling charts — find out quickly and easily with KrisFlyer miles redemption calculator.

Citi PremierMiles — 45,000 miles with $9,000 spent

There seems to be a bit of a “miles war” going on here, with Citibank also getting in on the action.

For new to Citi customers, you can get 45,000 miles if you hit the minimum spend of $9,000 in the first three months. Otherwise, you can also get 18,000 miles if you hit the minimum spend of $4,000 in the first three months. You also need to pay the annual fee, otherwise you get just 10,800 and 4,800 miles accordingly, which is dramatically less.

If you’re an existing Citibank card holder, the promo is significantly less attractive: 10,800 miles if you spend $9,000 within three months and pay the annual fee. (There’s no option to waive the annual fee if you want those miles, sadly.)

DBS Altitude Card — 38,000 miles with $6,000 spent

DBS Altitude is one of the most popular beginner air miles as it has an entry-level minimum income requirement and the miles don’t expire.

If you’re one of those rare creatures who’s never owned a DBS / POSB credit card before, you can take advantage of their very generous promotion: A whopping 38,000 miles if you spend $6,000 within three months and pay the annual fee. That’s a better deal than some of its other competitors on this list.

• Sign-up bonus: 10,000 miles (5,000 DBS points)
• Annual fee bonus: 10,000 miles (5,000 DBS points)
• Spend requirement: 18,000 miles. Spend $6,000 to the card within the first 90 days from card approval ($1 = Three miles for online flight and hotel transactions)

If you’re averse to paying the annual fee, you can opt for the regular first year fee waiver, and you get 28,000 miles instead. Take note that $1= Three mile earn rate is for flights and hotels, so you might want to apply for it right before a vacation!

So you decide if you want to pay that $192.60 for those extra miles.

Amex KrisFlyer Ascend — 21,000 miles with $5,000 spent

Amex KrisFlyer Ascend, the premium version of the entry-level Amex KrisFlyer card, used to have the best welcome miles promotion. It still offers a decent “up to” 21,000 miles, but there are more actions required than other cards.

Charging $5,000 in the first three months nets you 21,000 miles. 5,000 (first charge) + 10,000 (first transaction in the first month) + 6,000 ($1 = 1.2 miles). Not too shabby but the annual membership fees of $337.05 which is higher that of other cards offering a higher welcome bonus is a considerable drawback.

Take note that the minimum income requirement is $50,000 a year.

Standard Chartered Visa Infinite X Card — 30,000 miles upon annual fee payment

The Standard Chartered X Card would have topped this list with its insane first launch promo of 60,000 miles.

But this number has since dropped to 30,000 miles. Considering the annual fee of $695.50 including GST, though, this welcome bonus is quite disappointing.

It also has a minimum income requirement of $80,000 a year, which means it’s only for affluent individuals.

But, if you do have the ability to apply for it, you can get an additional 100,000 air miles when you sign up for Stan Chart priority banking and drop a minimum of $300,000 in fresh funds into your savings account. That’s some serious dough!

Amex KrisFlyer Card — 20,000 miles with $10,000 spent in six months

The AMEX SIA KrisFlyer Credit Card is one of the most classic air miles cards out there. If you’re new to the air miles game, this is one of the entry-level cards you might want to go for. Minimum income is pretty accessible at $30,000 for Singaporeans and PRs aged 21 and above.

The base mile rate is very mediocre at 1.1 miles per S$1 spend, and 2 miles per S$1 equivalent spend in foreign currency (from June to Dec only). Unlike other air miles cards which award you miles based on S$5 spends, the AMEX SQ KF card calculates your miles per every $1.

A small caveat? 0.5 miles are rounded down to whole numbers while 0.51 miles and above will be rounded up. Normal base rates aside, the AMEX SQ card offers pretty generous welcome bonuses. In fact, there are three ongoing welcome bonuses (means you get these on top of your base miles):

• 5,000 KF miles if you’re new to AMEX SQ credit cards
• 7,500 KF miles if you spend $5,000 within the first three months (works out to $1,667 spend per month)
• 7,500 KF miles if you spend $5,000 in the subsequent three months (basically the fourth to sixth month), but you have to be new to the AMEX card association

So, assuming you have never had an AMEX card, never had an SIA credit card. Now, you apply for your first AMEX SIA KF card, consistently spend $1,667 per month for six months on the card, you actually check all the boxes. You’ll walk away with a grand total of 5,000 + 7,500 + 7,500 = 20,000 miles in welcome bonuses. What about your base air miles? In these six months, you would have spent $10,000 on your card.

Assuming you spent it all in Singapore (haha, not time for travels yet), you can take $10,000 x 1.1 KF miles = 11,000 in base KF miles. Your great-grand total will be 11,000 base miles + 20,000 welcome KF miles = 31,000 miles. Is that a lot? As of time of writing, that’s a return SIA economy trip to Hong Kong (30,000 miles).

Not bad if you’ve been craving for some old school Lin Heung Tea House dim sum in Sheung Wan. But here’s a point to note – the miles do expire in 3 years. Even if you’ve accumulated a chunk of miles, you might not always be able to get the most out of it if you’re not quite the jet setter.

Amex Rewards Card — 17,500 miles with $5,000 spent

Those who are serious about playing the miles game know that, often, rewards cards are a much faster way to earn miles.

Amex’s little rewards credit card hardly gets any love, which is why I’m particularly gleeful about sharing this deal – you only need to spend $5,000 in the calendar year to get bonus miles. Pretty attainable, right?

You get 5,000 (base reward points) + 2,500 (favourite five bonus reward points) + 10,000 (welcome bonus) = 17,500 rewards points, which you can convert to 17,500 miles on one of Amex’s many frequent flyer programmes, including KrisFlyer.

In comparison with the other cards, the Amex Rewards Card’s welcome bonus pales in comparison BUT it does have its saving grace. There’s no limit to the membership rewards points that you can accumulate and even better, they do not expire. So, assuming you’re moving into your new BTO and shopping at Best Denki, Decathlon, Poon Huat, Da Paolo, and Vhive, you can chalk up those points with every spending.

Note you need to pay the annual fee of $53.50 though, unless you can wheedle a fee waiver out of Amex.

UOB KrisFlyer Credit Card — 3,000 welcome miles on first transaction

UOB has stopped offering generous welcome miles promotions with its two miles cards — the UOB PRVI Miles Card and new UOB KrisFlyer Credit Card. Instead, the bank is dangling a $100 cashback promotion for new signups.

If you want welcome miles, the UOB KrisFlyer Credit Card gets you 3,000 welcome miles on your first transaction of at least $5. But that’s about it.