Stgermainparis

I disagree. I've been scoping KE for a year via the call back and have found 5 seats available for multiple dates.

Tth6133, have you any evidence or experience booking KE on DL?

tth6133

Yes, but I've not been able to find award tickets to Hawaii for the week between Christmas and New Year under multiple programs (including all three alliances), not just KE. Which airport did your flight originate from, may I ask?

Now that those DL flights are bookable online, we can easily check in a couple of weeks (DL flights are bookable 331 days ahead of time).

ronnyk

Can you elaborate on the online process? Is this something new that would allow one to avoid the documented call-in, call-back procedure?

Stgermainparis

Just go to KE site, log in, and search Skyteam awards. It became possible this week.

hurnik

I think what the previous poster means is something like:

Login to www.koreanair.com
click the Book A flight button
Select the Award Booking subcategory

However, neither of the options show a Skyteam Awards option, only KE flights.

Stgermainparis

Yes, there is an option for Skyteam. Once you get to the Award Booking page, there are two options: "Korean Air Award" and "Skyteam Award." After selecting Skyteam, you can book DL and etc flights.

hurnik

Must be an issue with Firefox then as it doesn't show up for me.

Tried using IE and now I see it. (yes, clearing cache, etc. to no avail).

edemirel

I am trying to book a trip from NYC to Hawaii with a stop over in San Jose and running into an issue - not sure I am doing something wrong or the Korean Air rules have changed recently? I searched delta award availability on Air France for the dates I needed and logged into the Korean Air to see if it would price the tickets (since it now allows you to search partner awards). Here is what I am trying to do:

LGA -> SJC ( this itinerary is via MSP)
SJC -> OGG (this itinerary is via SEA)
HNL - LGA (this itinerary is via MSP)

After I enter this into the search engine on the Korean site and hit enter I get the below pop-up:

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"Non-SkyTeam operated route can be allowed in final destination only for entire journey"
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After hitting confirm it actually continues to search for the flights, and finds displays the the Delta flights I found on Air France's website, I select my flights and hit calculate and get the below error:

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Reservation could not be proceeded due to following reason. Please change your itinerary and start again or contact Korean Air Service Center.

Invalid itinerary to issue SkyTeam award in one ticket
Invalid itinerary as country of destination does not match with country of departure
Invalid itinerary as transferring city of departure or destination more than once
Invalid itinerary as number of transfer exceeds 3 times per one way between city of departure and destination, or number of stopover exceeds 2 times excluding destination (number of stopover counts as part of transfer)
Invalid itinerary as landing city of one route and embarking city of next route is different other than final destination
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I am assuming it is not pricing because there are two many connections on the whole itinerary?

I am able to price this award if I do a direct flight from JFK-LAX ( stop over ) LAX-HNL, HNL-JFK. Any help would be greatly appreciated Thanks for your help in advance!

Stgermainparis

I've found that one connection is all it can handle. That's all the phone CSRs can book, too, at least in my experience. I wanted to do OGG-LAX-MSP-MEM and couldn't (even though KE had each segment available if I searched independently). My guess is that the KE site is getting blocked by DL married segment pricing/booking. I'd book it with one connection, and see if you can change it by phone later. But be prepared to keep the one connection. That's all I could manage after several calls and checking the new site.

edemirel

It looks like this wasn't an issue before, as I have seen a few people online who were able to book stop overs with connections (similar to we were trying to do) without issues. This must be a new thing with the new site or has this been the case before?

Stgermainparis

I booked in September for July 2017 via phone and couldn't get more than one connection. When KE went online, I saw my segments open with two connections. I could not book a through way ticket (new) nor could CSR change my ticket. He saw the segments but could book them altogether.

Doesn't seem new to me.

tth6133

KE only allows 2 transfers (transfers = connections + stopover in KE language) in each direction. You have 3 on your way to OGG.

edemirel

Thanks for the information. I thought maybe this was recent, due to the below blog post, the itinerary he has in this post has the same number of connections on my flight.

https://loopholetravel.com/2016/11/2...-25000-points/


The issue is that there is no availability for direct flights from NYC to Bay Area for the dates I am looking at.

Stgermainparis

Seems like I should have been able to book OGG-LAX-MSP-MEM, with space open on segments, but I could not. Ended up with OGG-LAX-MEM and 13 hours in LAX. Will have to either book a room to sleep or rent a car for the day.

tth6133

You may want to try to book the same trip using Flying Blue miles instead. I believe it doesn't have the same restriction, but would cost you 5k more miles per round trip ticket in economy. You can transfer points to Flying Blue account from Citi TY, Chase UR, or AmEx MR, etc.