EastWest Singapore Airlines KrisFlyer cards just received a major devaluation due to their upcoming changes. Heralded by many credit card enthusiasts as the best travel credit card here in the Philippines, the two EastWest co-branded credit cards had the fastest spend-to-mile ratio of any card here in the Philippines with its 3x multiplier on travel categories including any purchase online.
Here is the email with the upcoming changes
The Bad
As you can see there are drastic devaluations in the earning of miles starting September 1, 2024. The biggest blow here is the Php 78 to 1 mile for local retail spend, which used to be Php 36 to 1 mile, more than double. Luckily the Php 12 to 1 mile was retained for Singapore Airlines Group, hotels, and international cross-border spend.
It was honestly too good to be true as Singapore Airlines probably needed to reevaluate the card and was losing money or this was all part of the plan from the beginning to make the cards very attractive to gain cardholders at the start and eventually devalue them.
My guess is the card is now aiming to be more focused on its brand which is Singapore Airlines since they have devalued the earning rate for purchases with other airlines.
The Good
The only good to come out of the news is the increased number of complimentary airport lounge access from 4 to 10 times a year, which could come in handy.
As a consolation prize, they have retained the anniversary bonus of 15k KrisFlyer miles and the 1.7% foreign conversion fee for the co-branded cards instead of increasing it like all their other credit cards that also saw some changes.
Keep or Cut?
With the massive devaluation, it might be tempting to cut the card because the annual fee is pretty heavy and cannot be waived, but not anymore. It seems like it is no longer in the terms & conditions that the annual fee can't be waived, meaning it might be possible now.
The 10 complimentary lounge access by itself is worth way more than the Php 5,000 annual fee. Assuming the average lounge access costs 32 USD or around Php 1,920, the complimentary lounge access is worth around Php 19,200 already.
It is definitely still worth keeping the card as it still maintains a high earning rate for Singapore Airlines, hotels, and international spend. However, my strategy will have to change moving forward which is why I've gone ahead and applied for the Chinabank Destination World Mastercard.
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