KrisFlyer Star Alliance Round The World Award Guide

KrisFlyer is the frequent flyer program of Singapore Airlines, who are a member of the Star Alliance. One of the best ways to redeem your KrisFlyer miles is for a Round The World trip in business or first class (although you can also redeem for economy). The Star Alliance Round the World Award allows you to visit up to 7 cities on a 35,000-mile itinerary over a 12-month period.

This redemption is especially useful to travellers who want to book an international long haul journey to somewhere like America or Europe. Say you wanted to redeem for return flights to New York, which costs 258,000 KrisFlyer miles in business or 334,000 in first. Alternatively, you can visit 6 more cities for 18,000 fewer miles in business, or 26,000 more miles in first. As you can see, this redemption can offer incredible value.

If you were to book a Star Alliance RTW ticket with cash, it would start at around $15,000 per person in business and $25,000 in First!!

KrisFlyer RTW – How much does it cost?

You can redeem your KrisFlyer miles for a round the world ticket in Economy, Business or First class. Redemption prices are as follows:

• Economy: 180,000 miles miles + taxes
• Business: 240,000 miles + taxes
• First: 360,000 miles + taxes

In addition to KrisFlyer miles, you can expect the taxes to be around $1,000 to $1,500 per passenger. The final amount is calculated based on the airlines and routes you fly.

Some Star Alliance airlines including Swiss, Lufthansa and Turkish Airlines charge relatively high carrier/fuel surcharges. On the other hand, some Star Alliance airlines like Singapore Airlines, Avianca, United and South African Airways charge no fuel surcharges.

Star Alliance partners

As well as Singapore Airlines, you can fly with any of the 24 other Star Alliance member airlines including Air Canada, Air New Zealand, Lufthansa and Swiss (just note that Swiss doesn’t allow partner redemptions in first class).

KrisFlyer RTW – Where Can I fly? 

Star Alliance airlines fly to around 1330 destinations, so almost any itinerary is possible provided award space is available and your itinerary the below routing rules:

• Maximum of 7 stopovers (stops which exceed 24 hours)
• Maximum 2 stopovers in a single country
• Surface sectors (any travel outside your itinerary) count as stopovers
• Maximum 16 flight segments
• Maximum 35,000 flight miles
• Bookings are priced in the highest cabin class (eg. If just one flight is in first class, the entire itinerary is charged in first)
• Itineraries must start and end in the same country
• You must travel in a continuous westbound or eastbound direction
• You must cross both the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans once each

KrisFlyer Round The World – Example Itinerary

The below itinerary is an example of what your Star Alliance Round The World Award could look like:

• Sydney (SYD) to Tokyo (HND) on ANA
• Tokyo (HND) to San Francisco (SFO) on United
• San Francisco (SFO) to Toronto (YYZ) on Air Canada
• Toronto (YYZ) to London (LHR) on Air Canada
• London (LHR) to Johansenberg (JNB) via Zurich (ZRH) on SWISS
• Johansenberg (JNB) to Dubai (DXB) via Addis Ababa (ADD) on Ethiopian Airlines
• Dubai (DXB) to Singapore (SIN) on Singapore Airlines
• Singapore (SIN) to Sydney (SYD) on Singapore Airlines

Planning Your RTW Award

An easy way to research possible flights is using Google Flights and Great Circle Mapper.

Firstly, you can use Google Flights to filter results by Star Alliance airlines to get an idea of your possible routing options. To do this, simply click on the “Airlines” tab and then select Star Alliance.

Want to know more about Google Flights? Check out our Ultimate Guide to Google Flights!

In Great Circle Mapper you can map a flight path and find the total miles of your routing. Simply enter the relevant airport codes separated by commas (e.g. SYD-HND-SFO…). Note, you must enter every flight sector, including connecting flights.

How to book a Star Alliance RTW Award

After you have planned where you want to go, you will need to find award availability. Most often, it will be easiest to search for each flight as a one-way trip on Singapore Airlines’ website.

From the homepage, simply enter your proposed flight details and travel class, and ensure ‘Redeem flights’ is selected at the top. Also, check the ‘Flexible travel dates’ box to make finding availability easier. Then click ‘search’.

You should then see a calendar which shows an overview of award seat availability over a 7 day period. For a Star Alliance Round The World Award you need to find ‘Saver’ seats, thankfully for this segment, the availability is wide open. For other routes, you may need to adjust your travel dates to fit. Select the day you want to fly and click ‘search’.

The next page will display individual flight details. In this example, I wanted to fly direct from Sydney to Tokyo with ANA, so I needed to select the ‘Star Alliance airlines’ option at the top. Remember, you must find flights with Saver availability.

If you are having trouble with Singapore Airlines, United’s website can also be useful as a backup. Plus, United will allow you to search for availability without the need to log-in.

After you find each flight write down the details of that flight including the date, airline, route, flight number and times. Then, you can call Singapore Airlines to book your redemption (02 8228 1188 from within Australia).

Singapore Airlines RTW – Summing up

The KrisFlyer Star Alliance Round The World award offers excellent value when compared to cash tickets and regular KrisFlyer redemptions. As with any round the world redemption, it can be difficult to find award space for the particular dates and routes you want. But with a bit of patience and research, you can score this amazing redemption.

We recommend redeeming for business class, as it is easier to find award availability than first and offers far better value than economy.

By maximising credit card sign up bonuses it’s easy to boost your KrisFlyer balance. One offer from American Express, for example, could see you earn 1 Kris Flyer mile per $1 spent on pretty much everything.

Plus, you can receive 50,000 Membership Rewards Bonus Points when you apply online, are approved, and spend $3,000 on your new card in the first 3 months from the Card approval date. Membership Rewards Points can be transferred to KrisFlyer at 2 MRG for 1 KrisFlyer mile. Learn more here or read our review!

Check out our list of the best KrisFlyer credit cards in Australia!