topic Re: New SPG Airline partner korean air in Credit Cards

New SPG Airline partner korean air

red259 — Mon, 17 Aug 2015 18:27:38 GMT

Korean air is now a tranfer partner of starpoints from the amex spg card. Previously you could only transfer to that program from Chase URs. Anyone have any experience with korean air? Was wondering if this would be a good use of my starpoints to go from us to japan in first.

Re: New SPG Airline partner korean air

Anonymous — Mon, 17 Aug 2015 20:24:43 GMT

This is great news, I've been thinking of getting the SPG AMEX next year, mainly for the Boingo access. I might be moving next year and leaving behind my unlimited LTE, but where I'm going has plenty of Boingo access points so...

Korean Air is a great airline, I've never done their 1st class but business is great (JFK-ICN non-stop) and even economy is pretty nice. There's also some great redemption possibilities there, such as booking CONUS to HNL on Delta via Korean Air is only 25k miles (40k for business).

Korean Air is my primary airline (I actually live in Korea right now), and was the main reason I picked UR as my primary CC point program.

Re: New SPG Airline partner korean air

red259 — Mon, 17 Aug 2015 21:17:48 GMT

CONUS to HNL 40k for business is that from anywhere in conus?

Re: New SPG Airline partner korean air

Anonymous — Mon, 17 Aug 2015 21:22:21 GMT

Monstradamus is the person to ask about KAL

Re: New SPG Airline partner korean air

Anonymous — Mon, 17 Aug 2015 21:33:22 GMT

Personally I prefer Asiana airline over Korean air, because Asiana's service is much better than Korean air. Plus, the whole Korean air is owned by buncha bats**t insane families and treating their employees like personal slaves (anyone remember macademia nuts incident?).

Re: New SPG Airline partner korean air

red259 — Mon, 17 Aug 2015 21:46:09 GMT

@Anonymous wrote:
Personally I prefer Asiana airline over Korean air, because Asiana's service is much better than Korean air. Plus, the whole Korean air is owned by buncha bats**t insane families and treating their employees like personal slaves (anyone remember macademia nuts incident?).

Not sure that incident is a reason to not fly the airline. I believe that woman was forced to resign and went to jail for a year.I don't know how insane the families are, but its among the 20 largest airlines in the world and that is only part of their business, so I won't rule them out based on that. As to Asiana's service being better that could be a valid reason but I have read Asiana is a massive pita to redeem with, it may have gotten better but Korea air has very good availability.

Re: New SPG Airline partner korean air

Anonymous — Mon, 17 Aug 2015 21:58:06 GMT

AA is 37.5K in Biz/First to HNL, and if you have an Aviator or Citi AA it is actually only 33.75K*

* If you can find an award ticket.

Re: New SPG Airline partner korean air

red259 — Mon, 17 Aug 2015 22:00:54 GMT

@Anonymous wrote:
AA is 37.5K in Biz/First to HNL, and if you have an Aviator or Citi AA it is actually only 33.75K*

* If you can find an award ticket.

Sadly kinda low on AA miles at moment.

Re: New SPG Airline partner korean air

Anonymous — Mon, 17 Aug 2015 22:02:28 GMT

SPG has bonus on AA transfer m

Re: New SPG Airline partner korean air

red259 — Mon, 17 Aug 2015 22:46:41 GMT

@Anonymous wrote:
SPG has bonus on AA transfer m

Just got my SPG card today so will be a bit before I can make spend and I don't have miles from another source to complete an award I would like. With korean air I could pair starpoints with chase URs to come up with enough for a reward.

Re: New SPG Airline partner korean air

Anonymous — Mon, 17 Aug 2015 22:49:34 GMT

Sure wish Chase UR transferred to AA. Yes I know they transfer to BA but it isn't the same.

Re: New SPG Airline partner korean air

red259 — Mon, 17 Aug 2015 22:53:01 GMT

@Anonymous wrote:
Sure wish Chase UR transferred to AA. Yes I know they transfer to BA but it isn't the same.

Yea I would be tempted to dump all my URs into AA.

Re: New SPG Airline partner korean air

Anonymous — Tue, 18 Aug 2015 01:01:58 GMT

@red259 wrote:
@Anonymous wrote:
Sure wish Chase UR transferred to AA. Yes I know they transfer to BA but it isn't the same.
Yea I would be tempted to dump all my URs into AA.

I pretty much have guaranteed AA gold yearly due to work travel and possibly platinum if didn't use so many award flights vs revenue ticket.

Re: New SPG Airline partner korean air

red259 — Tue, 18 Aug 2015 01:10:41 GMT

I would also note that korean air recently reduced the fuel surcharges they charge as well, so this is a nice combo of factors. Still don't know if they really fit into my plans though.

Re: New SPG Airline partner korean air

NRB525 — Tue, 18 Aug 2015 05:07:58 GMT

@Anonymous wrote:
This is great news, I've been thinking of getting the SPG AMEX next year, mainly for the Boingo access. I might be moving next year and leaving behind my unlimited LTE, but where I'm going has plenty of Boingo access points so...

Korean Air is a great airline, I've never done their 1st class but business is great (JFK-ICN non-stop) and even economy is pretty nice. There's also some great redemption possibilities there, such as booking CONUS to HNL on Delta via Korean Air is only 25k miles (40k for business).

Korean Air is my primary airline (I actually live in Korea right now), and was the main reason I picked UR as my primary CC point program.

How are you finding the redemption rates? I'm looking at the Korean SkyPass site and can't see where the "partner airline redemptions" may be.

Re: New SPG Airline partner korean air

IWOL — Tue, 18 Aug 2015 05:15:08 GMT

I've looked at a few Korean business class redemptions and the redemption rate looked pretty good.

I was looking to go from LA to Sao a Paolo, Brazil in business class and it was around 120k points vs AA who wanted 280k for the same flight basically in business with no saver awards.

i have a ton of AA miles but find that they very rarely have saver level awards available. The standard award redemption for business class on AA is really bad. I have found that United has much more business saver award availability and much better standard award value.

Re: New SPG Airline partner korean air

Anonymous — Tue, 18 Aug 2015 12:30:42 GMT

Looks like it went to 45k for business/first since I last looked...

This is the chart for partner (skyteam) airlines departing in North America:

https://kr.koreanair.com/global/en/skypass/redeem/skyteam-awards/skyteam-bonus-north-america.html

Others are listed on this page:

https://kr.koreanair.com/global/en/skypass/redeem.html

You need to look at their regionings, since it's different from most US carriers, to figure it out but anything US (including Hawaii) is in North America.

On the general redeem page they also have charts for Alaska Airlines, Emirates, and Hawaiian Airlines.

There's a few other redemptions in there too, a couple hotels, club at the Hyatt membership fees, etc.

Re: New SPG Airline partner korean air

NRB525 — Wed, 19 Aug 2015 03:01:53 GMT

Thanks for the info.