hpark21

I was hoping to book a round trip business class tickets for my parents from Korea for next summer (2015). I had about 140K USAirways DM and with combined churn of another 40K for my wife and I would have netted me enough miles for the trip on Asiana business class to NYC or IAD (I live in Philly so either would have been ok). However, that all broke down when US airways merged with AA and joined OneWorld which does not have any airline which flies direct from ICN to NYC or IAD.

Now, I have decided that I can shelve this plan and probably will use it for my wife and I who are ok with connecting through HK or DFW in maybe 2016 to visit Korea.

So, I will need a quick way to gather enough points for KA or OZ business class RT ticket in about a year. I can put enough through CC for about 50K points.. Maybe a bit more if I really try. I do have about 50K points in Chase Sapphire so maybe KA MIGHT be doable, but I noticed that their redemption rate is rather sad.

I will await your wisdom. Thank you.

szehui

I feel like the obvious answer here is to continue earning with US and using those miles to book CX seats, since US is now in OneWorld. Have I missed something?

guv1976

Wirelessly posted (BlackBerry: BlackBerry8530/5.0.0.1030 Profile/MIDP-2.1 Configuration/CLDC-1.1 VendorID/417)

Sometime in 2015, it is expected that the USDM program will cease to exist, and all US miles will become AAdvantage miles. Current AAdvantage award routing rules do not permit a HKG connection on award travel between North America and Asia 1 (Japan and Korea).

RhubarbPie

KALs award chart is comparable to other airlines award charts for flights to Korea in J (125K miles r/t) as long as you book off peak awards.

If you currently have 50K UR points, you need an add'l 200K. Sounds like you can makeup 50K via your own spending. Since you already have a CSP, I would open a Chase Ink w/ 50,000 point signup bonus. And then send a CSP referral link to your wife so you get an additional 5K points and have her open a CSP w/ 40K bonus (so total 45K) and also a Chase Ink for 50K bonus. After all of that you're at 195K points just from bonuses and you should hit the 200K mark just from meeting min spending requirements.

If you're trying to book award flights for next summer (it is peak season until the end of June so you would want to book July or August flights) I would get all of that done ASAP. Good luck!

(and by the way, I dont know if your parents are seasoned travelers or not, but they will have a great experience in KAL J, especially on the A380 which I believe is the only aircraft operating JFK ICN now).

szehui

Fair point, but I read the OP as being willing to take a connection for him/herself where that wouldn't have been acceptable for his/her parents. It sounded to me like that connection could be in HKG as an example but didn't necessarily need to be there (OP also used DFW as an example). Looks like connecting in DFW is possible on AA.

hpark21

Yah, my parents are NOT seasoned traveller nor can they speak good English, so I would prefer to get them a non-stop/direct flight from ICN to either NYC or IAD. Like I said, my wife and I can still go in 2016 using DM or AA miles through DFW or HKG no problem.