There are new reports out that Singapore Airlines blocks award search results if you aren’t loyal enough, leading to potential issues.

Singapore Airlines blocks award search for “insufficient” activity

Reports from Reddit suggest that Singapore Airlines recently added a new restriction to some accounts that the ability to search for award space is dependent upon having recent activity.

• Reports indicate that having activity in the last 15 months is the key.
• Failure to have any activity returns a pop-up stating that “your current miles balance is insufficient for flight redemption searches”.
• The airline attempts to direct you to its AI-powered bot to get you to view award options, but accuracy from the bot is hit-or-miss. On top of that, it’s overly vague and doesn’t help you on your specific date.

The Reddit reports aren’t exactly correct

Wouldn’t you know it that my account (despite having 363 non-expired KrisFlyer miles in it) isn’t enough of a balance to see awards. So, the trigger isn’t exactly a zero balance.

The trigger also isn’t activity of any kind in the last 15 months. Here, I clearly added KrisFlyer miles at the end of 2025 and promptly used them towards an award. That brought my balance down to 363. Now, 8 months later, Singapore Airlines blocked my ability to search for new award space on their website. Clearly, I’m not loyal enough of a customer in their eyes.

The trigger seems to be holding a minimum number of miles

There are reports on Reddit of getting the pop-up and having award search functionality restored after transferring in 1,000 miles from a bank program. It’s unclear what the correct threshold is, but it’s between 363 and 1,000.

And it feels important to note the actual verbatim of the pop-up states that the member has an insufficient balance for flight redemption searches. It says nothing about needing about needing enough miles to purchase a flight.

Using your phone app could be a workaround… for now

While searches on the website are blocked for me, surprisingly the searches are not blocked when using my iPhone. When I open the app, award search functionality continues to work the same way as before. I can log in, enter dates for an award search and choose my cabin, and the system returns availability.

It’s unclear if this functionality will eventually go away or if the threshold for award searches on the app is different from the full site. However, if you’re blocked on the website, we’d suggest try using the app to see if it works for you.

It can’t hurt, right?

This is going to lead to problems

There are two main issues we have with this new functionality that immediately come to mind, one from the perspective of the airline and one from the member.

It goes against the power of bank programs

What is the best feature of bank programs like American Express Membership Rewards or Chase Ultimate Rewards? Being able to transfer in points to a large number of airline programs and book the flight you want. It’s the existence of these bank programs that has led to loyalty programs locking up awards on their own flights for their own members. They want to capture the money from these bank transfers and find it more lucrative than compensation from partner airlines.

So, you do what anyone else does. You want to look for a flight on a range of dates between two airports. Perhaps you know that a handful of airline programs have the potential to show availability so you check their websites. Singapore Airlines returns no results because you don’t have miles but the other airlines do. You choose the best option that meets your needs without even understanding what Singapore had.

Oops, Singapore just removed itself from consideration. It’s not fighting for your points transfers. KrisFlyer wants loyal members to be the ones booking flights, but it doesn’t realize that it’s hurting points transfers in the process. This change has unnecessarily shot itself in the foot.

You can get in trouble transferring to the same award program from the same bank twice in a day

Tell me this isn’t a realistic scenario that can occur. You want to search for Singapore Airlines award availability, so you transfer in 1,000 points from American Express. You start with just 1,000 because you know Singapore Airlines miles expire–with activity or not–in 3 years. Luckily enough, you immediately found award space on the dates you want. So, you decide to transfer over the rest of the points from American Express that same day to make the booking.

The problem with the story is that why points transfer instantly in the first batch, the second batch on the same day does not transfer instantly. In fact, it can take weeks. It happened to us before we knew the perils of transferring points multiple times on the same day. It’s used as some slowdown to prevent fraud, but you can’t call American Express or Singapore to fix it. The points just remain in limbo until the system releases them. At that point, the award space might disappear.

In this scenario, Singapore expects you to transfer enough points right from the start to book the flight at a cost they won’t tell you until you transfer points. See how this is a problem?

If you have enough points in multiple bank programs, you can transfer in 1,000 from one bank and then transfer the rest in from a different bank. That works just fine even on the same day. It’s multiple transfers from the same bank account that is the source of the problem.

What do you make of the Singapore Airlines award search block?