10 Best Ways To Earn Garuda Indonesia GarudaMiles [2023]

Garuda Indonesia is the flag carrier of Indonesia, the fourth-most populous country in the world. One of the leading full-service carriers in Southeast Asia, Garuda Indonesia was, at one point, an aspirational carrier connecting the world to Africa, the U.S., Australia, and Europe via nonstop flights.

Since the turn of the century, though, the airline has struggled with financial solvency, corruption, and growing competition from Southeast Asian budget airlines.

However, most agree that it’s an incredibly safe airline with a modern fleet, unique routes, and even an international first class product!

Today, Garuda Indonesia is majority-owned by the government of Indonesia and is 1 of 2 SkyTeam airlines (the other being Vietnam Airlines) with a hub in Southeast Asia.

Garuda Indonesia’s loyalty program is called GarudaMiles — these are the miles you can earn and redeem for free flights.

In this article, we’ll examine the ways you can earn GarudaMiles. This guide will be comprehensive, and hopefully, you’ll learn a new way to amass GarudaMiles!

Sign Up for a GarudaMiles Account

Sign Up via the Garuda Indonesia Website or via the Fly Garuda App

If you don’t sign up for a new account through the Fly Garuda app, you can easily do so on the website.

To sign up for a GarudaMiles account, you’ll need to follow these instructions:

1. Visit Garuda Indonesia’s GarudaMiles registration page.
2. You’ll see a form. Fill it out and click Submit.
3. You may be asked to verify your account by clicking a verification link sent to your email address.
4. Keep your GarudaMiles number handy. If you want to earn any miles, you’ll need to provide your GarudaMiles number.

Hot Tip: GarudaMiles expire after 36 months. You can extend the expiration of your miles by earning or redeeming at least 1 mile. 

The online registration form will look something like this:

Earn GarudaMiles With Credit Cards

Traditionally, credit card spending has been an easy way to earn lots of GarudaMiles, even for U.S. residents.

Unfortunately, since Citi ThankYou Rewards removed GarudaMiles as a transfer partner in 2019, it hasn’t been possible to transfer points to GarudaMiles in the U.S.

So in this section, we’ll focus on non-U.S. credit cards that earn GarudaMiles.

1. Non-U.S.-based Credit Cards

Indonesia enjoys a fair amount of financialization — one of the implications of this is that payment networks are strong. In Indonesia, Garuda Indonesia has several co-branded credit cards with different banks.

If you’re an Indonesian resident, you can earn lots of points for your everyday spending — get started with any of these cards:

2. Other Financial Partners

If earning GarudaMiles directly through any of the above co-branded card products (credit or debit) isn’t practical for you, leverage any of Garuda’s foreign transfer partners!

Depending on which credit card product you have with different banks, you may access different transfer ratios. Here is the complete list:

As you can tell from the chart above, transfer ratios from each bank vary widely. Be sure to also consider the earning rates on each of these credit cards before making a final decision.

Just because a card offers attractive transfer ratios for each point doesn’t mean you should use it. You might earn points quicker with a different card!

Earn GarudaMiles Through Travel

The easiest way for U.S. residents to earn GarudaMiles is by crediting travel to Garuda Indonesia.

Because Garuda Indonesia is a SkyTeam partner, it’s easier than you think to earn GarudaMiles. You don’t need to fly to Indonesia. You can even earn GarudaMiles on domestic U.S. flights!

Let’s take a look at how to earn GarudaMiles through travel.

3. Airfare and Airline Purchases

First and foremost, the easiest way to earn GarudaMiles is by flying on Garuda Indonesia!

If you’re booking a Garuda Indonesia flight, you can earn miles on every eligible flight booked.

Be sure to double-check that your GarudaMiles number is entered into the passenger information fields when you’re booking your flight. Usually, it takes around a week after the flight is complete to receive your miles.

You can also claim missing miles retroactively within 6 months after the flight date by using the app, logging into the website, and following the prompts for claiming missing miles. You can also do this at your nearest Garuda Indonesia ticketing office. These claims are processed within 2 weeks.

Garuda Indonesia awards miles based on the cabin class, distance flown, and fare class of your ticket as shown in this chart:

Let’s consider a few examples:

• If you fly on a paid, one-way business class ticket from Jakarta (CGK) to Amsterdam (AMS) on an I-class ticket, you will fly an approximate distance of 7,055 miles. You will earn a 155% multiplier on that, which translates to 10,935 GarudaMiles accrued.
• If you fly on a round-trip economy class ticket from Jakarta (CGK) to Bali-Denpasar (DPS) on a K-class ticket, you will fly an approximate distance of 1,222 miles. You’ll earn an 80% multiplier on that, which translates to 978 GarudaMiles accrued.
• If you fly on a business class award ticket from Bali-Denpasar (DPS) to Tokyo-Haneda (HND) on an O-class ticket, you will not earn any GarudaMiles.

4. Crediting Partner Airlines to GarudaMiles

Crediting SkyTeam Airlines to GarudaMiles

One of the best ways to earn GarudaMiles is by crediting paid airfare from SkyTeam airlines to Garuda Indonesia.

This includes paid flights on Delta, Air France, KLM, Korean Air, and more!

However, each partner airline maintains its own unique accrual chart, which you’ll need to pay attention to when trying to accurately calculate how many miles you’ll earn on a given flight.

Your mileage accrual will depend on the airline flown, booking class, cabin class, and flight distance. Here’s the complete accrual chart for all SkyTeam airlines credited to GarudaMiles:

Let’s go over some quick example calculations to give you an idea of what to expect from your SkyTeam mileage accruals:

• Suppose you’re flying on a short-haul, domestic ticket from Detroit (DTW) to Chicago (ORD) on Delta Air Lines on an H-class economy ticket. This ticket earns 75% of the flight distance, which means you’d earn 176 miles on a trip that covers 235 miles in distance.
• Suppose you’re flying on a long-haul, business class ticket on KLM from Seattle (SEA) to Amsterdam (AMS) booked into the I-class. In each direction, you’d earn 7,329 miles each direction based on a 150% multiplier on 4,886 miles of flight distance.

To credit your flights to GarudaMiles, all you need to do is enter your GarudaMiles number during the booking process instead of your Delta SkyMiles number, for instance.

Crediting Non-alliance Partner Airlines to GarudaMiles

Another great way to earn GarudaMiles is through partner airlines that fall outside the SkyTeam alliance.

Here’s the complete accrual chart:

So for example, if you book an ANA business class ticket booked in the P class from San Francisco (SFO) to Tokyo-Haneda (HND), you would earn 70% of the flight distance in miles, which equals 3,612 miles.

5. Hotel Partners

Booking your next hotel stay could net you a handsome bonus of GarudaMiles.

Here’s the complete list of hotel partners:

6. Transfer From Hotel Loyalty Programs

While you can transfer points from hotel partner programs, we’d only suggest this if you need to top up for an award as it’s likely not the best use of your points.

7. Hotel Booking Portal Partners

In addition to hotel chains, you can earn GarudaMiles on bookings made with 2 booking portals:

• Agoda
• Trip.com

If you make bookings through Agoda PointsMax, you can get up to 10,000 miles per stay.

With Trip.com, you can earn 1.5 miles per $1 spent on your bookings!

8. Book Holidays with Garuda Indonesia Holidays

Making a booking with Garuda Indonesia Holidays (GIH), which is the tour package arm of Garuda Indonesia, could get you an awesome bonus in miles!

Specifically, you can earn 1 mile for every IDR 25,000 (~$1.76) spent!

Earn GarudaMiles Through Shopping

As you make regular shopping trips throughout the year, you could be racking up GarudaMiles!

Let’s talk about how you can earn GarudaMiles through shopping.

9. GarudaMiles Shopping Partners

At the moment, GarudaMiles has 3 shopping partners:

• Grand Indonesia
• Pacific Place Jakarta 

Grand Indonesia and Pacific Place have their own rewards currencies, which you can transfer to GarudaMiles.

Grand Indonesia’s is called G-Card points; any time you shop at Grand Indonesia, you can earn points. You can then transfer your points at a 50:145 ratio to GarudaMiles.

With Pacific Place Jakarta, you can do the same, except at a 40:275 ratio.

Specialty Earnings for GarudaMiles

In this last section, we’ll explore some specialized ways to get your hands on GarudaMiles.

10. Buy GarudaMiles

The best specialty earning method for GarudaMiles is to simply buy them.

Currently, if you buy miles while located in Indonesia, you can do so at a rate of IDR 275,000 (~$19.31) per 1,000 miles. That’s equal to a rate of 1.93 cents per mile.

If you purchase GarudaMiles outside of Indonesia, you can do so at a rate of $30 per 1,000 miles. That’s equal to a purchase price of 3 cents per mile.

Final Thoughts

GarudaMiles is a niche frequent flyer program that can prove useful for SkyTeam loyalists or those who want to book the rare Garuda Indonesia first class product using points (you can even check out our guide to the best ways to book Garuda Indonesia business class with points).

Although its transfer partnership with Citi ThankYou Rewards in the U.S. has been nixed, there are still lots of ways to earn miles.

Plenty of foreign co-branded credit card opportunities exist, as well as travel-related ways to earn GarudaMiles.

Lastly, you can buy GarudaMiles at approximately 2 cents each if you are in Indonesia and 3 cents each otherwise. We wouldn’t recommend this for most travelers, but it’s another way to earn extra GarudaMiles!