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Korean Air SKYPASS is an award program that tends to fly under the radar, mainly because of how difficult it is to accrue SKYPASS miles. We think many travelers undervalue it, not realizing that the Korean Air award chart offers some excellent sweet spots.
What's more, the suite of Korean Air SKYPASS co-branded credit cards tend to be similarly overlooked. However, these are the best way earn valuable SKYPASS miles, given the lack of transfer options from any bank rewards program.
So, don't write off Korean Air SKYPASS. Here are 10 reasons why the program should be on your radar.
Excellent Award Chart Sweet Spots
The value you can get out of SKYPASS miles is a key reason why the program is worth your attention. The program has some excellent sweet spots, including:
- SkyTeam business flights between North America and Europe for 80,000 miles roundtrip
- Delta economy flights from North America to Hawaii for 25,000 miles roundtrip
- Delta business class flights from North America to Hawaii for 45,000 miles roundtrip
- Korean Air business class between North American and Korea/Japan for 62,500 miles one-way on off-peak dates
- Korean Air first class between North America and Korea/Japan for 80,000 miles one-way on off-peak dates
It's hard to beat the prices for any of these. For fliers based in the eastern part of the United States, Korean offers an excellent option for flights to Hawaii. Nonstop routes from Delta hubs can be especially pricey in either cash or miles, so this is a great option.
You can occasionally score mileage deals to Hawaii with other programs, but for business class, few programs hold a candle to Korean Air SKYPASS.
Good Award Availability
Unlike many airlines that are charging additional miles for flights on many dates, Korean tends to offer a good amount of award availability at their saver level for both economy and Prestige business class on U.S. routes.
Prestige can be harder to snag both close-in, but I found that availability was good if you look a couple of months out — aside from over the Christmas and New Year season. Sometimes, you can also find seats very close in. Prestige business class can be harder to come by far in advance, but I still found seats occasionally near the end of the schedule.
If only first-class availability was what it used to be! Korean has apparently retired first class on many of their routes. And on the routes where they are operating the cabin, I couldn't find award seats. They used to open up multiple seats every day. Here's hoping this level of award space comes back!
Korean Listened to Its Members and Postponed Its Program Devaluation
Korean Air announced a significant devaluation to take place in 2021, which was then postponed to 2023. Then, in February 2023, Korean Airlines suspended the idea entirely. We don't know if they will eventually roll this out. I hope they don't. It would severely impact the sweet spots we've covered. For a program where it is especially difficult to earn miles, I hope they keep things just as they are.
Lots of North American Destinations
Korean Air flies to many North American destinations compared to many Asian airlines. Among the cities/airports served by Korean Airlines are Atlanta (ATL), Boston (BOS), Chicago (ORD), Dallas (DFW), Honolulu (HNL), Las Vegas (LAS), Los Angeles (LAX), New York (JFK), San Francisco (SFO, Seattle (SEA), Toronto (YYZ), Vancouver (YVR), and Washington, D.C. (IAD). As such, you likely live in a city served by Korean — or can easily position to one such city.
Complimentary Stopover on Award Tickets
Korean used to be one of the few SkyTeam airlines with both high-value miles and the ability to add stopovers on certain award tickets. Now, Flying Blue also offers stopovers. Both are still better than Delta, which does not offer this perk. However, there are some caveats to be aware of.
First, while stopovers are allowed on Korean Air's own flights, the pricing is not what you'd expect. Rather than being priced according to the origin and final destination, awards including a stopover are the summation of the award price of each individual segment. So, you ultimately don't enjoy any savings over booking two separate tickets.
However, you can enjoy a truly free stopover on partner award bookings. Korean Air SKYPASS rules allow you to build in one stopover into a round-trip ticket. This is priced according to the round-trip partner award chart for your origin and final destination. As an example, this means that if booking a ticket to Europe, you could potentially fly from San Francisco to Amsterdam on KLM (stopover), then continue on to Rome, and then fly home on Delta Air Lines via a U.S. hub.
Related: What is the Difference Between a Layover vs Stopover?
Awards on Korean Air can be Booked Online
The process of booking Korean Air SKYPASS awards over the phone can be cumbersome. However, if you want to book a Korean award on one of their flights, you can do so online, even if you want to add a stopover. Searching for awards is simple. However, you do have to log in with your account credentials to perform an award search. With the amount of award space available and an intuitive user interface, booking your award online is straightforward.
Many Korean Air SkyTeam airline partner awards can also be booked online — including many Delta award flights — but not all. The interface is better than it used to be for partner awards, and you'll find that the search will show available award space for most SkyTeam airlines.
Pool Miles Among Family Members
Korean is one of a handful of airlines that allows family members to pool their award miles to book awards. This is helpful if you have accrued miles from travel, but none of you have enough for an award ticket. Pooled miles can be used to book awards on Korean Air and on non-SkyTeam partners. Unfortunately, you can't book SkyTeam award flights with pooled miles.
However, there's still an option for booking SkyTeam family member tickets. If you have enough miles without pooling them, you can book tickets for a select group of family members. Unlike programs that let you redeem miles for anyone, Korean is pretty strict with whom they let you “endorse” for miles usage. Eligible family members are limited to: spouse, parents, children, siblings, grandparents, grandchildren, parents-in-law, sons-in-law, and daughters-in-law.
Excellent Customer Service Agents
You might not expect it based on previous experiences with customer service agents on other airlines, but Korean's customer service is an exception. Agents are polite, have a genuinely positive attitude, and know how to handle almost every award-booking scenario with confidence. If you do need to give them a call to book an award — something that is necessary for certain partner awards — you'll know you'll have a pleasant experience.
Difficulty Earning Korean Air SKYPASS Miles
This might seem an odd reason to consider SKYPASS, but hear me out. Years ago, Korean Air was a Chase Ultimate Rewards transfer partner. This made it easy to earn SKYPASS miles. More recently, SKYPASS and Marriott parted ways, ending points transfers between the two programs.
Now you're left with Accor, IHG, and Hyatt points as the most common hotel points that transfer to Korean Air SKYPASS — and the rates are poor. While this is frustrating if you want to book awards with the program, it's my observation that programs that have a “high barrier to entry” for accruing miles have been less likely to suffer from devaluations over the past years.
If you're looking to pick up more SKYPASS miles, you'll need to consider any of the SKYPASS co-branded credit cards. Or, you can credit miles earned flying SkyTeam partners to your SKYPASS account.
Miles Don't Expire for 10 Years
Given how difficult it is to earn Korean miles, you might worry about collecting enough over time to eventually redeem. Sure, some airline programs have suspended mileage expiration entirely, but others still have policies where your miles will expire after 18-24 months of account inactivity.
Korean Air SKYPASS's expiration policy blows away all other programs. SKYPASS miles are valid for ten years from when they are earned. You can't extend miles beyond the initial decade expiration window, but this does give you plenty of time to redeem them. Still, I'd certainly add Korean Air SKYPASS to your list of accounts in AwardWallet to track your mileage expiration.
Minimal Award Change Fees
If you need to make a change, the fee is 30,000 KRW (approximately $22). If you need to cancel an award and want them to refund the miles, the fee will be 500 miles for a domestic award and 3,000 miles for an international award if the refund is issued within a year of when the award was initially issued. Compared to some airlines, this is quite reasonable.
Final Thoughts on Korean Air SKYPASS
When looking at mileage programs, your first thought is likely to focus on the airline with which you see the most. Perhaps it's the airline you travel on most frequently or hear about from friends and family. However, you may find that the right program to invest your miles in could be based on the other side of the world. Even if you fly primarily Delta Air Lines, it might be worth checking out Korean Air SKYPASS before you decide where to credit your hard-earned miles. You might be pleasantly surprised by all the program has to offer.
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