Kris Flyer redemption changes 1 December

Singapore Airlines' Kris Flyer program has some changes from 1 December 2009.

Kris Flyer has joined the trend for frequent flyer programs to allow cheap one-way awards - at 50% of the cost of return awards. This is a big and long-awaited improvement.

They have also simplified the star alliance award chart by reducing the number of zones. Generally most award costs remain unchanged, but some have increased a little. A few significant anomalies in the old chart have been fixed (routes where the award cost is very cheap for the distance travelled) - these will cost substantially more miles from 1 December so book now to get the old award mileage cost.

For awards on Delta, the changes are to add more zones than previously to more closely align with the star alliance award chart, and to generally increase the mileage costs (particularly in business class). Presumably this is to reduce arbitrage opportunities.

Mexicana awards have less zones and increased award costs.

For Virgin Atlantic the major change is to allow awards on the entire journey. Previously a route for say North America to Africa required 2 awards, now it can be done in one award. As with the other charts, in general costs have increased.

The Air India awards are not being changed.

Overall there is a slight devaluation of miles - the extent of which depends on routes awards are used on. However, the significant reduction in cost for one-way awards reasonably offsets this in my view.