Apparently, and with fairly short notice, Chase is ending transfers from Ultimate Rewards to Korean’s frequent flyer program. The last day to transfer Chase Ultimate Rewards points to Korean Air’s SkyPass program is August 24th 2018.
This is pretty sad news. While SkyPass can be confusing – especially the way they restrict you from making a booking for significant other (companions must be verified as family with documentation), it’s really the only way for a US-based flyer to book Korean First Class. Korean Air restricts First Class bookings to people in its own frequent flyer program. This leaves SPG/Marriott as the US transfer partner (for now) and I don’t think that is a terribly good way to spend those hard to earn points.
Of course, it’s also been written about a million times over that using Korean miles is also a fantastic way to get from the US to Hawaii (using Delta as the operating carrier) for less points than with any other program.
I think the loss of KE First as an option for US-based travelers to get to Asia (and beyond) though is the huge loss here. If you’d like to try Korean’s First Class, now’s the time!
As an aside, I remember recent rumors of new UR partners…. I hope they announce one soon to offset this loss!
H/T: Spencer Howard
Will you transfer and book while you can? Do you care about losing this transfer partner? Let me know here, on Twitter, or in the private MilesTalk Facebook group.
New to all of this? My new “introduction to miles and points” book, MilesTalk: Live Your Wildest Travel Dreams Using Miles and Points is available now.
