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KE Skypass miles usage
Hello all –
I have some questions regarding a rather complex itinerary I’m trying to put together. From what I understand, US carrier seasonality doesn’t really apply to KE awards so I figured they may be good to use for holiday travel, assuming award space is open. Here’s what I’m trying to do:
HNL-CVG, 23Dec
CVG-LAS, 30Dec
LAS-HNL, 2Jan
I am also fine booking just the first and third legs of what is mentioned above, assuming if follows KE Skypass rules as to a “roundtrip” itinerary. Anyway, can I do this with Skypass miles (likely using DL award space), and would the entire thing need to be on DL metal, or could I perhaps use AS for the last leg?
I know this sounds complicated so if anyone can help, feel free to ask away with questions, thanks!
Welcome [USER=2521]@MSG93[/USER] – Alaska and Korean are partners so that shouldn’t be an issue. At the best of times you may have better luck finding low-level award space on Alaska than on Delta. But looking for award space to/from Hawaii over the holidays may prove to be extremely tough, especially this close in.
See Tiffany’s post: [URL]http://onemileatatime.boardingarea.com/2015/10/06/redeeming-miles-to-hawaii-can-be-tough/[/URL]
And Ben’s post that specifically addresses first class: [URL]http://onemileatatime.boardingarea.com/2015/08/26/miles-hawaii-first-class/[/URL]
Thanks [USER=184]@MidSouth Skier[/USER]. AS metal can’t take me to CVG, so based on the things I’m reading, the entire itinerary would have to be on DL metal. Is this similar then to how AA on BA Avios can’t be redeemed without the lowest level available? Seems like some things I read conflict a little bit. I’ve been led to believe that the seasonality of the holidays doesn’t matter for Skypass awards, but maybe the wording is just confusing.
Korean air has blackout dates on their own aircraft. For sky team some of the china airlines have some as well. Your itinerary would be on a sky team ticket where you could have multiple carriers, like AF,DL,KLM. But can’t include a partner carrier which AS is. Partner rewards must be single carrier itineraries. Therefore your limited to HNL on Delta. You could get creative and book RT on Alaska to west coast and pick up a sky team carrier to Paris. So you’d have 2 RT reward tickets.
Ok thanks, sounds like it all needs to be DL. CVG (Cincinnati) not CDG btw. What about the stopover situation then? Can I book a HNL-CVG rt with a LAS “stopover” for 3 days on the way back, given LAS is hardly a ordinary connect point for DL? If not, can I book a rt as an open jaw, where my “roundtrip” is HNL-CVG/LAS-HNL??
Thanks
Guess I have international on the brain. So you’re allowed 2 transfers each way. A stopover counts as one. So the return would have to be Cincinnati-las then las-hnl. So you’re right about LAS not working. However open jaw is fine.
Have you done this sort of thing with KE Skypass before? I know it has to be done over the phone so if you have any tips let me know. I can’t imagine it’ll be easy with this complex itinerary and most likely a language barrier.
btw DAY is similar to CVG so I’ll use that for what I’d like to do..
HNL-JFK-DTW-DAY is the cheapest on skymiles for 23 Dec.
and then I could do CVG-LAS-LAX-HNL with the LAS part being a 3 days stopover? Does that seem like it works?
Keep in mind that the cheapest on SkyMiles doesn’t mean saver space available to partners. I’d search Delta space using the Alaska site, as they should have the same access as Korean.
The only couple times I’ve dealt with KE they were friendly and spoke good english. But YMMV. The return on your itinerary doesn’t work. You can ask but according to the rules published a stopover counts as a transfer. So if LAS was in the mix it would be CVG-LAS (transfer 1) Stopover (Transfer 2) LAS-HNL ??? not a direct flight. Never hurts to ask.
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