Originally Posted by kyushuman
Nobody has mentioned the new split of Asia into North and South zones, like *A and OW. Not a good thing. "North Asia" consists of only Japan, Korea, Mongolia, so you'd think that's good, since South Asia is all the rest of Asia, other than Indian subcontinent.
BUT in order to get ANYWHERE in Asia on current Skyteam choices, you'd have to transit in NRT or ICN, thereby incurring a North/South Asia ticket, vs. a simple "within North Asia" or "within South Asia" ticket.
MH is still an option, though not mentioned on the chart. Hope it's still around! Also, China Southern might join at some point too. But nothing yet.
Here's the kicker:
"Flights within or between North Asia and South Asia on Korean Air require 50,000 miles for Coach,*70,000 miles for*Business and*100,000 miles for First Class."
Compare this to the old NW award levels of Y=20K, C=30K, and F=40K. Yuck! Especially on within North Asia--that means the 1hr15min flight ICN-NRT on KE would be 100,000 miles in F. Umm....think I'll pass!
Finally, there is no listing of intra-Asia award levels, other than on KE (and that's in the footnotes). Does that mean that NW/MH awards are still 20/30/40?
I hope so!
I LOVE quoting myself! Anyway, I see the mileage charts are more complete now, and the main change in intra-Asia award travel is that if you're flying NWA, it's still 20/30K to fly in Y/C. So that is good, though NWA only flies between Japan and Asia. So unless you're going to Japan, it's not so useful. MH is still 20/30/60. I thought MH was 40K for FC, but I guess I was wrong on that, because the "old" chart also shows 60K.
Also, Upgrades from Asia to USA did go up from 25K to 30K OW. Too much!
I ignore KE because of the ridiculous mileage requirements to fly them.... But does anyone see an oversight in the SE Asia-USA footnotes about flying KE? I see they mention that flying KE to Hawaii costs more, as well as intra-Asia, and also to South Pacific. But not to the continental US. So is a KE FC SIN-ICN-JFK only 120K? That would actually be quite good, though I think they have a FC and a "Premium FC", so I'm guessing this is in the non-flat-bed-FC.
MH looks like it's staying at 120K as well for the long haul to the US, also good.