Korean Air Skypass - DTW-ICN Award Ticket

I'm currently trying to plan a trip to Seoul around mid July. I have 84,000 Chase UR points that I can convert to Skypass miles. Would that be enough for a round trip economy ticket? Also, what kind of fuel surcharge does KE have?

I think the economy ticket is 70k miles. You can look up the actual chart on their website.
Last month KE charged close to $400 for tax and fuel charge on a roundtrip TPAC Business ticket. So I used DL miles to book the same flight for around $70 tax and fees.
Also, KE does not give you the award ticket from your home airport to their connecting cities in the US so you need to get a separate ticket for that.
At least that's what they did the time I connected thru LAX.

I think the economy ticket is 70k miles. You can look up the actual chart on their website.
Last month KE charged close to $400 for tax and fuel charge on a roundtrip TPAC Business ticket. So I used DL miles to book the same flight for around $70 tax and fees.
Also, KE does not give you the award ticket from your home airport to their connecting cities in the US so you need to get a separate ticket for that.
At least that's what they did the time I connected thru LAX.
I would guess that it's less KE wouldn't give you the connecting flight(s) than DL didn't have award inventory for them to use.

KE doesn't fly into DTW by itself. So you'll need 80k + the same $400 tax and fuel surcharges. Also DL should release award seat which might be an issue. I would transfer UR to UA and transfer once at ORD (UA+OZ route) to save fuel surcharge and save miles (65k vs KE's 80k).

You probably hit one of the 'blackout' dates DL has for KE flights.

2012

1.1 ~ 1.8
1.20 ~ 1.25
3.1 ~ 3.4
5.4 ~ 5.6
5.18 ~ 7.1
7.14 ~ 8.26
9.28 ~ 10.3
12.22 ~ 12.31

These are not actually KE imposed, but rather DL blocks out ANY date that KE has as a peak (2X) miles in ANY region.

For example, during Korean holidays, for Korean Domestic flights KE requires 2X the miles from their own Skypass members to redeem domestic flights during those dates. So DL's interpretation of that, is to blackout ANY KE flight throughout their network. So nice of DL to allow us 12 days to fly KE from 18 May- 26 August.

No, the black-out dates are not working as long as OP uses KE miles and takes DL flights.

A bigger issue is that DL's award seat is extremely hard to grab. I seriously don't recommend to convert UR points to KE.

No, the black-out dates are not working as long as OP uses KE miles and takes DL flights.

A bigger issue is that DL's award seat is extremely hard to grab. I seriously don't recommend to convert UR points to KE.

My mistake, for some reason I thought the OP wanted to use DL miles to book the KE flight.

But yes, I wouldn't convert to KE either. I'd stick with CO/UA and book with OZ.

I would guess that it's less KE wouldn't give you the connecting flight(s) than DL didn't have award inventory for them to use.

Nope.
That's not what the KE agent said when I used KE miles couple years ago.
Maybe I had an uninformed agent or whatever, but she said I could not use KE miles to fly DFW-LAX-ICN period.
She said I could only fly DFW-ICN direct using KE miles, and DL availability was a non-issue.
So I used AA miles to fly DFW-LAX, and I didn't bother calling to find out if the agent was correct or not.

Nope.
That's not what the KE agent said when I used KE miles couple years ago.
Maybe I had an uninformed agent or whatever, but she said I could not use KE miles to fly DFW-LAX-ICN period.
She said I could only fly DFW-ICN direct using KE miles, and DL availability was a non-issue.
So I used AA miles to fly DFW-LAX, and I didn't bother calling to find out if the agent was correct or not.
My money's still on poorly informed agent or agent who didn't communicate clearly what the issue was.