Why Infinity Mileagelands?
The Infinity MileageLands program is a highly beneficial but frequently overlooked frequent flyer choice, offering great perks and has a much lower redemption rates for Eva Air or Star Alliance partners with Business Class awards to these destinations priced up to 40% less, as compared to Singapore Airlines’ Krisflyer program making it an ideal option for travelers looking to get more value from their miles. However, warning… The website is very archaic and there is things that you can only get done via calling their membership services. If you are ready to do so, you may proceed.
If you are redeeming Eva Air flights:
You can add one free stopover when you redeem a round-trip long-haul international ticket (i.e. Europe, America or Oceania)
If you are redeeming Star Alliance flights,
You can add up to two free stopovers when you redeem a round-trip international ticket operated by Star Alliance partners, one outbound and one inbound. However, keep in mind that these stopovers and your turnaround point must be in different countries than your trip’s origin and final destination. Each round-trip award ticket can include up to six flight sectors and one open-jaw — this gives you some flexibility to explore multiple destinations along the way. Do note that you are subject to pay extra airport/fuel surcharges for each stopover (which is typically around S$100-200)
In case you were wondering,
- Open jaw ticket is defined as a round-trip ticket where the passenger arrives at one city, but departs from a different city.
- Stopover is an extra stop in your travel for at least 1 night.
This would be a maximum hack scenario: Singapore → Seoul (Stopover)→ San Francisco (open jaw ticket) / New York → Frankfurt (Stopover) → Singapore
If you’re booking for one-way award ticket, stopovers aren’t permitted and you’re allowed a maximum of three flight sectors for one-way journeys.
However, for all stopover redemptions, you will need to call up membership services to get it done as it cannot be booked online. I did say it was archaic. 😝
Here’s a quick comparison for the same Singapore Airlines flight:
One-way Business Class | Krisflyer | Infinity Mileagelands |
Singapore to Japan/Korea | 52,000 miles | 40,000 miles |
Singapore to US | 107,000 (West Coast) – 111,500 miles (East Coast) | 97,500 miles |
Singapore to Europe | 103,500 miles | 80,000 miles |
But the thing is, it is quite difficult to obtain Infinity Mileagelands Miles compared to Krisflyer— you can only transfer miles from the following banks and platform:
- Citi
- AMEX
- HSBC
- Heymax (as of 7th April)
Some ways to amass large amount of miles:
- AMEX Platinum Charge sign up promo
- Buy grocery or ride-hailing vouchers on Heymax with your Citibank card to double dip on miles as well as Max miles (from Heymax). Eg. Instead of spending directly at Fairprice, you can buy Fairprice online vouchers with Citi Rewards card (or other relevant 4 miles per dollar cards) to get 1 Max Mile per dollar on top of 4 miles per dollar. That’s 5 miles per dollar, essentially. I would, however, not sign up for credit cards on Heymax as the amount of Max miles rewarded is lower than the usual cash vouchers or gift options.
For Eva Air Award Flights via Infinity Mileagelands Portal
Make your booking via this link.
For Star Alliance Partners (Including Singapore Airlines) Award Flights via Infinity Mileagelands Portal:
Make your booking via this link.
How to Book Award Tickets:
The process is the same for both Eva Air and Star Alliance partners, just different links.
- Visit the above links according to what you want to redeem.
- Login with your credentials (make sure to sign up if you don’t have one)
- Enter your travel details to start the search
- if you are booking for others, this is also the part where you enter their membership number and password (see “How To Book For Other Travel Companions” below on step 5)
- Check for Flight Availability under “Available” (not “Waiting”)
- Complete your booking by paying the necessary taxes and surcharges, and miles will be deducted from your account.
How To Book for Other Travel Companions:
In order to book award tickets for yourself and your travel companions, Infinity MileageLands portal requires you to transfer your own miles to them. But your companion doesn’t make the booking. You have to do through your account and you will need their password. Altogether now, HUH?
Here is the step-by-step guide to do so:
- Create an Infinity Mileagelands account for your travel companion.
- Complete the Enable Online Service form and send it to sininfinity@evaair.com
- you need to have earned at least one mile from qualifying activities such as flights or credit card transfers to proceed which you can earn from:
- Credit Card Miles/Points Conversion
- flight Credit
- Miles Purchase
- EVA Mileage Mall
- EVA Mileage Hotel
- There is a free miles received upon creating an account but this doesn’t count
- you need to have earned at least one mile from qualifying activities such as flights or credit card transfers to proceed which you can earn from:
- After the online service is activated, add a nominee to your account through the Nominee List Management page.
- After adding a nominee, it will take 24 hours for the nominees to be “activated” and that’s when you can only perform any transactions for the nominee
- Regular, Silver, and Gold members can register 6 nominees, while Diamond members can register 9 nominees
- Once added, your nominees cannot be removed
4. Then, Transfer miles to your nominee’s account.
- Select a registered nominee from the dropdown list and enter the amount of miles you’d like to transfer. Fortunately, these inter-member transfers are instant and free of charge, and members can return any transferred miles to the original sender, also instantly and for free.
5. When searching for awards (see “How To “Book Award Tickets section” above at step 3), input the nominee’s frequent flyer membership number and password. Yes, you need their account password. LOL.
- As mentioned, even if you transfer miles to your companion, you make the booking through your own account, not them.
6. If everything is done correctly, the system will let you book award tickets for yourself and your nominees
7. Complete your booking by paying the necessary taxes and surcharges, and miles will be deducted from your account.
Knowing the Different Type of Miles
- You should also be aware of what type of miles you’re using since you’ll be prompted to choose between:
- Earned Miles: Miles which you earned from flights, credit card points transfers, or other partners
- Purchased Miles: Miles which you purchased from Infinity MileageLands
- Reinstated Miles: Miles which you purchased back from Infinity MileageLands after they expired
A complicated condition to be aware of: when booking award tickets, transferred miles cannot be combined with any of the nominee’s existing miles. This means that if an award costs 75,000 miles and your companion already has 10,000 miles, you can’t simply transfer 65,000 miles to cover the difference—you’ll need to transfer the full 75,000 miles in order to proceed with the booking. Similarly, the 1,000 bonus miles awarded upon account opening cannot be used in combination with transferred miles; they can only be redeemed alongside miles the nominee earns themselves.
Conclusion
While Infinity Mileagelands may not be the most-user friendly— with its clunky interface, manual processes, and unusual requirements like needing your travel companion’s password—it more than makes up for it with the value you get offering lower mileage redemptions compared to competitors like KrisFlyer, particularly for Business Class tickets on Eva Air and Star Alliance partners, with savings of up to 40%!
It might not be the easiest process, but for those who understand how to work the system, it’s a hidden gem that offers exceptional value!
