Krisflyer Redemption Sale - worse than last year.

 

If there's one certainty in life, its that your Krisflyer Miles will continue to be devalued, whether directly (increase award cost) or indirectly (reduce the sale prices). Which is why I never understood why those influencers want to flex that they have a million miles in their account. The value will erode over time. I emptied out all my miles last year at the SQ redemption sale which was a 20% discount on redemption tickets, which was worse than the previous years' 25% discount.

This year its even worse with only a 15% discount AND fewer flights are eligible. Previously, all flights to Kansai had promos. This year, only the less desirable 2.10pm flight (arriving 9.35pm which means you will reach your hotel near midnight depending on your destination) is available for redemption.

I am still thinking about this ticket to Osaka. As you can see from the date, this is within the cherry blossom season so at least that's a plus that the cherry blossom season is not a blackout date.

On the other hand, with the reduced redemption discount, I think that my miles might be put to better use waitlisting business class saver awards to Australia. I managed to clear the waitlist last year, so I am trying my luck again. 

2027 Travel Planning

SQ is having a 'sale' at the moment, which is unusual since their Annual Time to Fly Sale is scheduled for October. But I was pleasantly surprised that the sale prices of business class to Australia are really good (I bought tix at the 2025 Time to Fly Sale) so I bought some now. It makes me suspect that Time to Fly Sale is a little bit of a sales gimmick. 

Also a quick note. I entered a SIN-SYD itinerary a few days ago when the sale started. For some reason today the price dropped by $200 and was therefore lower than the 2025 prices so I grabbed it. SIN-SYD is their A380 route with plenty of biz class capacity

Experimental Unit Trust: Update 2

In April 2026 I decided to start an experimental unit trust portfolio on POEMS focused exclusively on Amundi Unit Trusts with the following target allocation:

• 40% MSCI World
• 20% Prime USA
• 20% Emerging Market

This is the 4 month update. The market has gone up and down but on average the portfolio profit has increase in absolute $ value. However, the average buying price continues to go up and the percentage return continues to go down.

Today's S&P500 futures are red as the Iran war continues to drag on and probability of a Fed rate hike increases. Hopefully, the monthly DCA strategy will still be profitable at the end of the year. 

Dividends Collected: August 2026

 

With STI ETF, banks, Comfort Delgro, Capitaland Ascott, paying dividends in August, August is traditionally a peak month for dividends. At about $35k, it was only $2k higher than 2025, so this year is more about slow and steady growth.

UOB Credit Card Waiver Criteria

 

Thanks to milelion for alerting the internet to the UOB Credit card fee waiver criteria. 

If you hold multiple credit cards with UOB, to qualify, you must spend:

S$5,500 on credit card charged w/ Annual Fee, or

S$22,000 across all UOB credit cards, or

S$3,000 in overseas spend across all UOB credit cards

UOB publishes criteria for credit card annual fee waivers - The MileLion

Its good to know that your spending on one UOB card can help you get waiver for other UOB cards. My hotel bookings (either paying on the hotel website or making a reservation where payment is only made at check in) easily hit S$3k a year so that explains why my waiver for my Krisflyer card was successful.

This means that I can apply for another UOB card to use in the occasional months that I hit my $1.2k spending cap on my UOB Visa Signature. I'm currently looking at UOB Preferred Visa. If I read the milelion review correctly, it seems that NTUC Fairprice online or via app payment qualifies for 4mpd, which the UOB VS doesn't have. That's pretty useful as I don't have a 4mpd card for online groceries yet.  

Topped up some SG stocks this week

 Apart from adding to my experimental unit trust portfolio (Amundi MSCI World, Prime USA, and Emerging Markets), I bought Frasers Centrepoint Trust, Frasers Logistics Trust, and Comfort Delgro this week. I have sizeable positions in these 3 counters and plan to hold them for a long time. Once in a while when prices look decent, I buy a little bit more.

Anytime Comfort Delgro goes under $1.30, its worth buying. EV Robo-taxis and buses are inevitable and CDG will be in a strong position to take advantage of this.

DragonPass - Can redeem decent restaurant meal at Changi

 

OCBC Premier customers get 2 lounge visits per year but Dragonpass lounges are very basic and crowded. So for the whole of 2026, I still haven't used up any of my lounge entitlements.

Thanks to Milelion, I learnt that instead of a lounge visit and eating very basic food, I can redeem one of my visit entitlements for a pretty decent meal in Changi Airport. I'm sure most people know this already but I don't frequent travel forums so whatever I learn depends on what Milelion publishes 😅

Full list of Priority Pass & DragonPass restaurants at Changi Airport - The MileLion

I have 2-3 more trips on economy this year so I will definitely give the restaurant redemptions a go.

Even Ben Felix is talking about Health & Fitness

 

Investing in Your Health

Ben Felix, a pretty decent Canadian finfluencer, just released a video on health and fitness. The instant noodle thumbnail brings to mind the FIRE chap featured in the CNA video who had a shelf full of instant noodles. Basically, bad life choices in relation to health and fitness will come back to haunt you later. This is a big risk with the FIRE lifestyle - some may choose to sacrifice health and fitness in their prime years in the hope of retiring a few years earlier. 

Anyway, as you can see from the screenshot, Chronic Stress is the biggest $$$$ factor. There are of course many reasons why this is the case, including the fact that elevated stress= elevated cortisol = elevated visceral fat deposits. See: Chronic stress and impulsive risk-taking predict increases in visceral fat over 18 months - PMC

At 6:30 in the video, he even mentions VO2Max.

Checking my 1-year average Stress level on Garmin, I'm glad that I managed to remain in the low stress range, otherwise I might become stressed about it (haha). Life is variable and as the peaks in the chart shows, sometimes there are period of more stress. Fortunately, the standard deviation is not large (I don't have months where it spiked to 50+ for example). 

Caveat: Your smartwatch can't distinguish between Excitement and Stress. So watching the World Cup could lead to elevated stress readings. But on a 1-year average, these special events would be 'smoothed out'.