SJLee77

I'm currently Morning Calm member with 218,598 total accumulated miles. However, I'm thinking about switching to Asiana Club.

The reason being:

• It takes too long to get to Morning Calm Premium. (500,000 miles)
• Therefore, was very dissatisfied for not getting any real benefits, when I would've been already allowed free additional bag and unlimited lounge access on other airlines' program. (Although I can get access to KE lounge 4 times during two years)
• As a Korean college student in US, KE or any Skyteam flights tend to be too expensive.
• Rather UA is always on cheaper side, and it's quite popular among students.

The reason why I favor Asiana Club a bit more:

• It's easier to get elite membership. (Gold= 40,000 miles, Diamond= 100,000 miles, Platinum= 1,000,000 miles)
• FYI, with 25,198 miles accumulated from OZ and Star alliance flights, I need 14,802 miles more for gold. (Only the flight miles are counted)
• I also fly between US-KOR at least twice a year, so it shoudn't be too tough to get to Diamond?
• Of course as a Star Alliance member, UA will get me a miles.

Do you think I should just keep accumulating Skypass miles, considering the amount of accumulated miles? Or should I actually think about switching? (I'm still going to keep both, not actually withdraw the membership. More like switching the concentrated program)

Also, I'm traveling on F award flight. Costing me 160,000 miles, it will use up all my current "usable" miles (145,598)+some of my family member's. Do you think it's worth it, or should I just stick with Prestige class and save some mile? (Economy is out of option, since they are all full now)

shloveg2

In my opinion, *A is also a better pragram than Skyteam overall.

Asiana gives you *gold for being a diamond, but Korean air does not give you slyteam elite plus till you get to the MC premium.

I think you would like to choose couch and upgrade to business, or get business and upgrade to first. Award tickets do not give you miles, but you can get miles for your purchaced fare class when you upgrade.

SJLee77

Thanks so much for the reply.

Your idea sounds great, but my parents (I'm still a kid. :P) seem to prefer Award ticket and not spend money on airfare. (Plus I wanted to try First, but I don't have enough $$ to buy C-class ticket. :/)

I was actually wondering if I should just use up my KE miles completely and go on with OZ or leave some KE miles in account for safety(?).

brahms77

If you were planning a "switch" then I'd use the miles. F class travel is certainly different thana C class, especially on asian carriers. You will enjoy it.

I've found that most of the UA fares earn 100% mileage on OZ's program so it's much easier to become OZ elite. *G program is much better than Skyteam elite status.

If you were going to fly more on UA metal, I'd suggest you signing up for UA mileage plus (once you reach 50K EQM, you become *G and earn double miles on united flights). The only caveat is that your status expires each year and need to requalify. With some creative routings back and forth the US and Korea on United, you should be able to get very close to 50K EQM per year (route via HNL then you earn almost 10K miles each way = that's about 40K EQM per year given that you travel at least twice back and forth the US and Korea).

SJLee77

Thanks for the reply.

You actually got me started considering UA Mileage Plus! Their benefits certainly sounds much more attractive and easier to reach *Gold than Asiana Club.

However, I noticed their miles expire for a year of inactivation (i.e. you didn't use or earn any miles). I know OZ's membership level is good for three years and miles are currently expiration-free. As I have to do mandatory military service for two years, I'm trying to decide whether using OZ for "everlasting mileage" (even if it's bit harder to reach *Gold status), or actually apply for MP for more benefits like bonus miles and easier reaching of *Gold status.

jamsoh

Awwww Sungnam..where my old highschool used to be..


SJLEE77, Keep in mind that Asiana Club will probably impose expiration on their miles as they usually follow Korean air's mileage system. I actually did see (or hear) that the expiration will start by this year from Korean newspaper.

As for your Korean air miles, why don't you get a Y ticket and upgrade to C?, keep the current miles you have since your current miles will not expire (miles earned til July will never expire on Korean Air as they will impose this rule in July) Since you travel frequently, I'm sure you can make a good use of those miles on future Korean air flight (to places where OZ does not fly)


I had the same dilemma as while I was in College, and kept both OZ and KE. Although KE flights from US is a bit expensive than OZ the fare difference is usually around $100 at most, if you fly economy a lot, then those AVOD on KE really helps, and that's one of the reason I flew Korean. I credited all my domestic UA flights (and back then even *A Silver members were allowed to fly econ+..awww the good ol' days) and reached my OZ status that way.

As for award ticket to F, although First class will be much better than business, it will make your future economy travel difficult (or even C-class for that matter) , and if I were you, I'd use that miles to upgrade from Y to C on future flight as you travel a lot between Korea and US.

brahms77

Hehe, I think we all are Korean here. I am also in need of going into the military service (I just turned 27 - yes, quite late but I was doing my graduate school work) and will end all my travels at the year's end.

What's nice about UA mileage plus is that it's really easy to log a mileage activity. Just call UA around the time your miles are going to expire and book a dummy mileage plus award (just put it on hold) and cancel a day or two later. That pulls the miles from your account (but you are not ticketed) and once you cancel, your miles will go back into the account (no service charge since you never ticketed the booking). This is considered a mileage activity and it will renew your mileage expiration date for another 18 months. Very easy.

I currently have more than 200K miles banked (I am UA 1K for the past four years) so that's how I am going to extend the validity of my mileage with UA (I've already used more than 1 milion miles for award travel ).

The economics of mileage is complicated and is really dependent on your preference. Others can persuade what the mileage is worth, but its actual worth to you is based on how much you value your mileage yourself. What's important to consider is the following: 1) How much (roughly) did you spend to accumulate x amount of miles, 2) how much is the currently available ticket pricing in ECONOMY (assuming that you generally travel in Y) for your choice of destiation for mileage ticket, 3) Mileage accurability (is tied to #1), and 4) Mileage redemption chart.

Generally, if your mileage program does not give you bonus miles (ex. 100% if you are premier executive, etc.), your banked miles are relatively more valuable than say those earned via bonus (2x bonus miles as an elite in other programs). So, typically you'd like to spend miles on premium class travel where tickets are almost always very expensive (3000+ USD to the US from KOREA in business and 6000+ USD in First). That's why I'd suggest that you redeem for first class travel, if available. Remember, miles do not earn interest so its future value is significantly lower than it's present value. In other words, spend it as soon as you can.

Hope this helps!

brahms77

If you are looking for fast *G status, consider BD (British Midland) or AC (Air Canada)'s mileage programs.

I believe these programs provide the easiest *G qualifications:

Roughly 30-35K elite qualifying miles per year to qualify for *G status with these two carriers.

Compare it with UA (50K miles - it's really not that difficult if you have constant travel, but with just 2 firm trips per year, you are subject to additional "mileage runs").

Compare it with OZ (initially you need to bank 100K miles, then requalify in three years by banking 40K miles, I think). So, let's assume that it takes you 3 years to get to 100K mile level... you requalify for another 3 after banking 40K miles. That's 7 years of *G status, with about 140K EQM miles. Divide that by 6, it's about 25K miles per year.... BUT your first three years does not give you *G status. So you are better off with AC or BD program.



N.B. Since you don't seem to travel in paid business or first class and you go to a school in the U.S., I think AC's program will be better suited for you.

SJLee77

We all do seem to be Koreans, indeed. haha

Brahms77- Thanks for another mileage program suggestion, but would AC really benefit me? Again, I'll be flying UA a lot (they are usually the cheapest for IND-ICN. I go to Purdue, BTW.) and am pretty much US based. So, I thought having Canadian program was somewhat weird, I guess. lol (I see where you are coming with faster *Gold status, though.)

jamsoh- As mentioned above, it seems that I'll be flying UA more often for the price. I would more than love to stick with KE and perhaps OZ, but they're just too expensive.

Anyways, could you(or anyone, really) explain what you mean by making my future Y-class trip difficult through this F-class award trip?

shloveg2

It's tempting to gain 100% bonus from UA. However, it's harder to get lifetime *G status with UA than Asiana. In addition, *G with UA do not give you the free lounge access in the states. You sometimes might have to fly more just to qualify for *G with UA, but it is easy to maintain your status with Asiana once you get to Diamond. One downside of Asiana is that tickets to ICN is usually more expensive with Asiana.

For KE, it is a good idea to keep the miles for upgrades. You will sometimes have to choose Skyteam over *A, then you can take advantages of your saved mile. Who knows if you will notice that you are not far from lifetime status with KE as well.

brahms77

You can probably fly to IND from ICN via AC as well. Do check on the flight schedule. It's not that hard to via to the US via Canada. I highly recommend AC option (now that there are two flights to Canada from ICN).

What Jamsoh meant was that the miles you save from not flying in F award ticket (redeem C award), you can use the remaining balance for your future travel or future upgrade.

It takes just about the same to get life-time status with OZ (1 million miles banked for both UA and OZ). The only advantage for OZ for life-time status is that *A flight (not all) do count towards your life-time status qualification where as UA counts only those that were on UA metal.

Remember that Diamond status with OZ used to be lifetime status, but it no longer is.

MegatopLover

A little suggestion to throw something else into the mix. Consider Delta's SkyMiles program. You can keep flying KE but just credit your miles to Delta. Silver Medallion status comes at 25,000 qualifying miles. That gets you added to the list for unlimited complimentary domestic upgrades. (Actually getting them is a function of your Medallion status and the fare class your ticket is booked in; Silvers do get upgrades sometimes, and if you're flexible you can pick flights that will improve your chances.) Silver also gets you a 25% redeemable mileage bonus on every SkyTeam flight. Gold comes at 50,000 miles and, crucially, comes with a 100% mileage bonus. That makes mileage-earning go much faster. Platinum (SkyTeam Elite Plus) is at 75,000 MQM's; it also has the 100% mileage bonus and some other benefits, notably lounge access for international travel in Economy.

The best part of Delta's program for you would be using it for travel beyond Korea. Instead of just taking an award trip to Korea, go someplace else like Thailand or Hong Kong or Singapore, whatever, and book a long "stopover" in Korea either going over or coming back. That gets you a free trip to wherever else you decide to go because awards US-Korea are at the same levels as US-Southeast Asia. If you just want a side trip on an award ticket, you can book ICN-Southeast Asia for 25,000 in Economy or just 30,000 in Business-- one of the best deals around and a lot cheaper than SkyPass redemptions for the same routes.

The drawback of SkyMiles for you is that you have to requalify for Medallion status each year. Taking one of your trips home as an award ticket could make that tough. Also, Korean Air imposes blackout dates for US-Korea award tickets booked through Delta. The last major drawback is that KE will not deposit any miles into a partner's program for tickets booked on the Q fare basis (commonly sold by travel agencies, these are the cheap fares that earn 70% mileage in SkyPass).

somuchtosee

I think he meant once you tasted F class, you cant go back to Y?
anyways, nice to see a group of koreans in one place. ^^^ I thought I was a rare breed.

MegatopLover

One other drawback of Delta SkyMiles for the OP's purposes: First Class award bookings are not available on KE using SkyMiles.

(Only non-Korean in this thread, apparently.)

jamsoh

Yep..my early days I tried to fly the cheapest Y flight I could flight - (ie NWA from ICN-TYO-DTW-ORD, found out it was just too much..so then I took UA ICN-TYO-ORD..few times on UA and it was too much to switched to KE ICN-ORD or JFK in Y) These days I almost always fly C with upgrade or C class ticket and if I had to stay in Y seat for my 14 hour flight to JFK, I don't think I could take that..haha

I took KE First to LAX couple of months ago and though business is better than economy, when you're on that angled bed, you naturally get reminded of the 180 flat first class seat.


By the way, I think if you choose to fly UA alot and get status on UA, the chance of getting op-up is much higher than that of OZ or KE from what I saw on flyertalk. (just my observation - could be wrong but what I know is KE usually never do op-up)