point fu

UPDATE AUG 2024: Their North America – Korea award availability is still bad. I poked at a bunch of dates and there's 1 or 2 Business Class seats available 330 days from now and that's it. I love Korean Air's Skypass mileage program, and let me tell you the top 3 reasons why: availability, availability, availability . Sadly, booking award travel with most airlines usually involves major compromises on dates. If you want that Saver reward seat on the cool new plane with the lie-flat seat and the fancy champagne and the amazing lounge, it means you're going to have to cut your trip short by several days, or waste a day and a half of your trip flying a 2-stop itinerary through cities you don't want to stop in. With Korean, there was always at least one flight every single day with open Business or First seats so you never had to compromise like that. Furthermore, Incheon airport's luggage storage service meant you could intentionally schedule yourself...

Well this blows. It's now confirmed that Chase is losing Korean Air as a transfer partner . This is my preferred method of spending Ultimate Rewards points from our Chase Sapphire cards – we've already taken several flights this way, and were actively saving to repeat our 747-8 upstairs experience sometime next year.  I'll wait and see if they pull a rabbit from their hat and add another transfer partner to make up for it (Alaska Airlines would be a great option), but if not, this very likely means we'll cancel one or both of our Sapphire Reserve cards when they're up for renewal. There's a very active discussion happening over on /r/churning right now – lots of fun speculation about the future and reminiscing about great trips taken over the years. The reason I loved them so much is that they had great award seat availability . Yes, I'd heard that the popularity of the Sapphire card caused that to decrease a bit, but even last week I'd been doing...

I just got an alert from Korean Airlines that a pilots' strike is going to cause a bunch of flight cancelations the 22nd through the 26th of December. Details here , but so far it looks like no North American flights are going to be impacted . International cancelations (click to enlarge)

pros 747 upstairs Business Class cabin is my favorite place to fly newest (and likely last-ever version ) of the 747 has updated interior similar to JAL's fantastic Business Class suite exterior cameras feed into a pilots-eye view channel on the in-flight entertainment the coolest in-flight map ever  good food and liquor  cons no wi-fi  no pajamas the blue interior plus white LED lighting makes the inside feel like a hospital very warm cabin  no mattress pad how i did it This trip is the second leg in this this booking .  75,000 Korean Air points  for Manila – Seoul – JFK ( For comparison, JFK – Seoul is 62,500 ). 40k points came from a sign-up bonus for a  Korean Air credit card . The rest came from Chase Ulitmate Rewards, most of which we acquired from a 60k point bonus for a Chase Ink Business card. (Both cards we've since canceled). Planning is  here . conclusions Korean Air has great award availability ...

pros great reward availability  flight was half-empty midweek good food big plane and very nice business class seats for a 3 hour regional flight they use two doors for boarding: faster and more pleasant  cons   no wi-fi Business Class has 2-3-2 config so you can still end up in a middle seat how i did it 75,000 Korean Air points for Manila – Seoul – JFK ( For comparison, JFK – Seoul is 62,500 ). 40k points came from a sign-up bonus for a Korean Air credit card . The rest came from Chase Ulitmate Rewards, most of which we acquired from a 60k point bonus for a Chase Ink Business card. (Both cards we've since canceled). Planning is here . conclusions Korean Air has great award availability and accepts instant point transfers from Chase, so this will stay a go-to option when getting to Asia provided I'm not flying on one of their Peak dates  when redemption rates jump.  If timing means I need to fly the A380, I might spring fo...

Summary JFK—Houston—Taipei—Kalibo—Manila—Seoul—JFK $439 JetBlue positioning flight from New York JFK to Houston 80,000 United miles from Houston to Taipei on the EVA Air Hello Kitty plane  in Business Class. 🛬 UPDATE: Trip report for this flight! $498 from Taipei to Kalibo on China Airlines in Business Class 🛬 UPDATE: Trip report for this flight! $115 from MPH to Manila 🛬 UPDATE: Trip report for this flight! 75,000 Korean miles ( Korean Air credit card bonus topped off with Chase points) plus $45 for Manila – Seoul – JFK in Business Class 🛬  UPDATE: Trip report for the Manila to Seoul leg! 🛬  UPDATE:   Trip report for the Seoul to JFK leg! TOTAL: 155,000 miles + $1042 .  CPM low: 2.2¢, high: ∞ (Hello Kitty plane has been on the bucket list for a while now!) but seriously, somewhere in the 3.5¢ range, HOU-TPE r/t is $4800. all numbers are per person As I mentioned before , we've had long-term plans to attend a we...

We're heading to  Boracay  for a wedding in December and after lots of planning , New York – Seoul – Manila on Korean Air looks to be our best bet. The initial plan was to transfer Chase points to my Korean Air account and fly on their A380 service to JFK.  UPDATE 4/2016: My miles posted a few days after my first statement closed and I paid my bill! But then, literally  as I writing about how these days I'm really only considering targeted, high bonus credit card offers, I received one in the mail for Korean Air and I decided to go for it (the targeted offer was  40,000 bonus miles versus the normal 15,000 ). The card arrived about 10 days later.  New card! The card only earns one mile per dollar on purchases (except those with Korean Air where it earns 2), so I'd prefer to hit the $2500 spending minimum in categories where I couldn't earn a bonus on my other cards. Considering all of the bonus categories my Amex and Sapphire card...

We flew First Class on Korean Airlines A380 from Seoul to New York City earlier this year (thanks largely to Chase Sapphire points) and loved it. I noticed today that the already amazing seat is getting an upgrade - the Kosmo Suite 2.0 will have fully-closing doors that are apparently see-through only from inside the suite. It also looks like they raised the height of the partition for even more privacy. The partitions can be raised and lowered and yes, I had a lot of fun playing peek-a-boo / Bye Felicia! with Kelly during the trip :) We have the big Japan trip coming up next spring, but we're doing ANA and JAL for that trip so we won't be able to check this out anytime soon. 

Pros: Best seat/bed ever Service was the perfect mix of efficient and doting Great award availability ( how I did it ) The onboard bars are an awesome throwback to the "glory days" of flying Cons: The food was just ok No priority line through security in Seoul Arrival Incheon airport (ICN) is basically a science fiction movie set. If you're from North America it's almost like taking a trip to the future.  It's connected to downtown Seoul station by a 40 minute express train ($8; $7 if you show the ticket agent your Korean Air or Asiana boarding pass). The local train is slightly cheaper and takes just under an hour. Keep in mind that ICN doesn't have priority lines for security and they also have exit immigration : it took us 45 minutes from exiting the airport train to reach our gate.  The lounge is post-security, across from gate 26. It's got a great view of the Korean Air gates, so there's lots of pretty blue planes ...