Review: Kris+ – Earn Bonus 9 Miles Per Dollar or 6% Rebate On Top of Your Card Rewards ($5 + $15 Sign-up Bonus!)

Kris+ is one wallet app I should have paid more attention to, but better late than never, since travel is a thing again, and miles are useful once more. In fact, even if one doesn’t collect miles, the miles collected can be used as rebates, making this app useful even for cashback enthusiasts. Since the miles given are on top of your usual cash rewards, it’s a no-brainer thing to use if the merchant you shop at accepts Kris+.

Earn rates

Using the app is simple enough: simply download the app (promo code W159000; see below for sign-up promo), scan the merchant’s Kris+ QR code, and pay using cards in your Google Pay or Apple Pay wallet.

On top of your card rewards, Kris+ gives as much as 9 bonus miles which is equivalent to 6% rebate. These earn rates were initially time-limited, but they have been extended indefinitely and they look good, especially when you consider that these are on top of your usual card rewards:

Earn Rate	Equivalent Rebate Value
9 miles per dollar	6% per dollar spent
6 miles per dollar	4% per dollar spent
3 miles per dollar	2% per dollar spent

Different Kris+ merchant partners offer one of these earn rates, and the rates are displayed in the app.

Using the earned miles

When you earn KrisPay miles through Kris+, you have two options to choose from:

1. Leave the miles in your Kris+ app to offset future purchases; or
2. Transfer the miles to your KrisFlyer account (for booking of flights or using on KrisShop)

In Option 1, each KrisPay mile can be used as 0.67 cents within the app, which is why 9 miles is equivalent to 6 cents. This would be the default option for people who don’t like miles. You can use this entirely as a cashback app if you wish.

Those who are into miles would definitely go for Option 2, and they have 7 days after the transaction to transfer the miles, after which they’d be stuck in their Kris+ wallet.

Combined with your card rewards, this means you can get as much as 13 mpd by using a 4 mpd card and spending at a merchant that offers 9 miles per dollar. If you’re more into cashback, using something like the OCBC FRANK means a maximum of 12% of rebates (6% cashback from FRANK + 6% from Kris+) can be earned at certain merchants.

Cashback people would also be pleased to find out that unlike FavePay or ShopBack Pay, the earned miles can be used for any merchant, and need not be a repeat purchase at the place you made your spend on.

Card interaction

Given that Kris+ transactions are considered in-app ones, it is likely that the transactions count as online. This is particularly useful for cards like DBS Woman’s World Mastercard, OCBC FRANK, and perhaps Citi SMRT, or any other card that gives extra rewards for online transactions.

The underlying merchant code for each transaction follows the merchant I have made spends at, and I have gotten bonus points from the DBS card for a purchase I made at a physical Challenger store through Kris+. It would normally not have given me extra points if I had used the card directly offline.

I am currently testing out Citi SMRT to see if it works, and you can also check with others to see if a particular card works.

Merchant partners

The best wallet app would be meaningless regardless of how high its earn rates are if it weren’t accepted anywhere. In this regard, Kris+ does fairly well with over 1,000 retail outlets in Singapore supporting the payment mode. This is nowhere near the ubiquity of other payment apps like GrabPay or FavePay, but it does feature some merchants I can see coming in really useful like electronics retailers such as Challenger and Harvey Norman. It also has F&B outlets ranging from snacks like Krispy Kreme and Gong Cha, to restaurants like Aburi En.

The Kris+ team adds new merchants each month, and they helpfully highlight the new merchants in the app (under Highlights in the Home tab of the app). You can also go to the Discover tab to see nearby merchants that accept Kris+ for payment.

Unfortunately, some cashiers seem to be ill-trained when it comes to Kris+ payments, probably because this isn’t nearly as common a payment method as say FavePay or GrabPay. I had to wait more than a few minutes as a Challenger employee struggled with the app, but with more users and merchants coming on board, I imagine this problem would go away eventually.

Sign-up Promo

Other Promos

On top of the sign-up promo, Kris+ offers merchant-specific promos which you can discover from within the app.

More enticingly, they often have spend promos. April saw $10 rebate with $30 of spend, while May currently has $15 rebate when you make $50 of spending in a single transaction with a Mastercard. It’s a sweet amount of rebate to get on top of the existing earn rates, and I’m looking forward to the June one. Subscribe to my Telegram to be updated of such promos.

The app is also currently giving 150 miles (or $1) just by checking in three times a week with no purchase necessary. The miles can’t be transferred to one’s KrisFlyer account, unfortunately, but hey: a free dollar is a free dollar, and I’ve been collecting a few free bucks every week for the past few weeks.

Conclusion

Being a Singapore Air app, Kris+ has the unique advantage of being the only wallet app that gives you KrisFlyer miles. In fact, it is currently the only wallet app in town giving miles of any kind for purchases. This makes it a natural fit for anyone who wishes to clock more miles for their next trip.

But Kris+ is also relevant for those who don’t hanker over airline miles. Despite the insistence to call it miles, Kris+ seems to encourage people to use the miles for rebates rather than the other way round. Every mile earned can be used to offset purchases, but not all can be transferred to your KrisFlyer account.

Cashback users will definitely see good… mileage from this app, owing to the added cashback and ability to convert offline transactions to online ones. It could perhaps be a gateway to the game of miles, and I wonder if that’s one of the goals behind the Kris+ app.

The good:

• Generous earn rates right now
• Good promos
• Well designed app; no complaints
• Turns offline transactions into online ones

The bad:

• While improving, merchant acceptance is still quite poor

The ugly:

• “Wait ah let me check with my manager I don’t know how to use.” – cashier when you finally find a place that accepts Kris+

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