Bad News: Chase Loses Korean Air Skypass as a Travel Partner

Very dissapointing to hear that Chase loses Korean Air Skypass as a travel partner as of August 25th 2018. If you’ve been holding onto some Chase Ultimate Rewards points to transfer to Korean Air, you now have until August 24th to do that. This is particularly sad because I’ve always thought Korean Air Skypass to be Chase’s most valuable travel partner other than World of Hyatt.

Korean Air was always the most generous airline to regularly release multiple premium award seats especially in First Class. I recently flew in First Class from New York to Seoul on their beautiful A380 aircraft and continued to Hong Kong on the Boeing 747 all for 80,000 Skypass miles plus ~ $64 in fees. I also booked 2 seats in First Class for an upcoming trip from Bali to Los Angeles with a layover in Seoul for 2 days for 190,000 Skypass miles and $400 total for 2 people.

Korean Air Skypass miles is also the cheapest way to get to Hawaii from the US with points. A roundtrip economy flight from the US to Hawaii on Korean Air’s partner Delta costs only 25,000 miles. That’s an incredible deal.

Now Chase has 12 travel partners instead of 13 which is less than what American Express and Citi have. It’s such a shame to see this happening. I used to value Chase points, Amex points and Citi points the same. This will definitely drop Chase Ultimate Rewards value a little bit below Amex and Citi.

Bottom Line:

If you were thinking about transferring Chase Ultimate Rewards points to Korean Air for an upcoming trip; do that ASAP. Also keep in mind that transfers used to be instant, now they take about a week. That’s not really an issue as long as you initiate the transfer before August 25th.

I was also thinking if I should move some of my Ultimate Rewards points to Korean Air speculatively for a future trip. It might not be a bad idea since the miles don’t expire for 10 years. However, I’d hate to transfer points enough for a certain trip then Korean Air devalues their miles for whatever reason before I book that trip then I won’t have enough miles and it’ll be difficult to add miles to my Skypass account without a transfer partner.

I really hope Chase adds a valuable transfer partner to replace Korean Air. I also hope some other bank picks up Korean Skypass as a transfer partner; maybe US bank since they issue Korean Air Skypass credit cards.

What do you think of Chase losing Korean Air Skypass? 

If you have any questions, comment below or tweet me @pointspointers or email me at ramy@pointspointers.com

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