Korean tensions and future flight through ICN... options?
 

So plan was to book an F award on Korean Air from SFO to SGN through ICN for my honeymoon next April. Award availability opens for the date I want Wednesday. But now I'm second guessing whether that would be a good idea right now because of the political climate with North Korean... I know ultimately you never know what may happen anywhere in the world before a flight, but since this is for my honeymoon I'd like try to prevent any hiccups.

So these are my options...

Go ahead with the booking. And question is, say war breaks out, what would my options be? I feel bad just concerning myself with my flight... when war means death... :(

second option, look for another award ticket to SGN. Unfortunately only first class award my points balance allows is Korean Air, so any other options would be business. I have Chase UR points so I believe my second best option would be Singapore Air. And problem with that is availability is hard to come by.

Any opinions or suggestions?

This won't solve your problem fully, but you can put a hold on KE awards without depositing miles until about a month before the flight. This requires calling in.

yeah, actually thought about doing that. Then if the s*** does hit the fan look for award availability elsewhere.

I would book the flight. Nobody can predict the Korean situation a year in advance. If it goes bad and flights are cancelled or rerouted you can deal with it then. I flew out of ICN on Saturday amidst the weekend fears of an incident - no issues.

I'd consider booking backup award tickets. If something happens in Korea, everyone will be scrambling to rebook so as to avoid connections at ICN.

Vietnam Airlines (exact name?) is also in SkyTeam, so you could easily book DL TATL to TYO connecting to SGN. There's no FC, but D1 is awfully good TPAC especially if you can avoid the 767 (although it has advantages for couples seating over the 777). DMs and PMs can cancel for free, otherwise the fee to change or cancel an award ticket is $150 each.

Tagging on, I have a KE award flight in F booked for late May (PVG-ICN-FCO). I'm connecting from FCO to JTR the next day, so really need to make it to FCO. Likely nothing will happen, but any suggestions for backups?

I would book the flight you want now. If you refund it later it will cost you 3,000 miles per person.

Honestly, if the Koreas go to war you probably won't be taking your honeymoon anywhere.

youre worried about a layover? i'll be staying there for a week this month. im not even really worried.

Please follow the redirect as we move this post.

~beckoa, co-moderator Information Desk

Posted from Seoul

I have lived here for six years and I can tell you, again, this year as the last (and the last)....life is normal. Every year in April, North Korea has their largest holiday and this same conversation comes up in the American media.

On the streets, with my co-workers, with daily life....everything is normal. No one is worried in the slightest. No one cares in the slightest. They're more concerned with the new presidential election and the Sewol anniversary.

Also, North Korea is really good at blowing hot air. Every missile they have fails at launch. They don't even have Internet, how can they possibly be masters of war and defense technology? Kim Jong Un is living high on the hog in a poor, poor land. He won't give that up. And he knows that if he does ANYTHING to South Korea/Seoul, he'll be wiped off the Earth in a matter of minutes, even by his allies.

The media (CNN and others) are very good in convincing everyone that thermonuclear war is about to happen on the Korea peninsula.

I agree that it seems unlikely there will be any real issues. I would book it and not worry.

The wild card is Donald Trump which apparently even has some S. Koreans concerned according to the WaPo

How interesting. There were hundreds of demonstrators waiting for Pence to show up and all of them had signs asking the USA to do a preemptive strike on NK.

Just came back from two weeks in S. Korea, much of that in Seoul and none of the locals were talking about Kim J-U - everything was about the former president Park being arrested, etc.

Yet every time I switched on CNN they were talking about the NK situation as though it was DEFCON 1 and it was time to stock up on emergency food supplies before heading into your nuke proof bunker.

When I got back home one of my friends didn't even ask or want to know about my experiences in South Korea. He just constantly kept banging on about the forthcoming nuclear apocalypse and why Trump would be right to nuke the whole of North Korea immediately. I tried explaining that the DMZ is only 35 miles from Seoul so this wouldn't exactly be great for those living south of the border but he was so brainwashed by all the propaganda that he wouldn't even listen to anything I had to say.

This video explains the general attitudes well: