I'm looking to use DL Skymiles to book a KE ticket. If I book a round trip, can I later change the date of return after I've flown the first part? If so, is there a fee to change the date of the return ticket?

Subject to Delta's rules and fees, you can change the return, but only if there is award availability for the flight you're changing too. Delta's fees, not Korean's, will control. Plats get some free redeposit and re-issues, but I'm not sure how many. And this would be subject to DL's new rule about no cancellations within 72 hours of departure-- I'm not sure how that applies if there's more than 72 hours between the outbound departure and the return.

This question is best answered in the DL forum.

PMs get unlimited free changes and redeposits as well. The 72-hour rule is a moving target, but it sounds like now the return portion can be changed whenever for free by PMs and DMs.

The KE ST rewards chart lists awards for USA-Europe at 80k BIZ, 100k FIRST. Since this is much less than what UA requires, I am looking into this because of the RGN fares and a Tokyo trip I have coming up in KE as well. I have a lot of AMEX miles that I can use to top off the accounts for tickets.

Since I am a *A flyer, I have no idea how difficult it is to redeem these awards which I assume are going to be off peak. If they are somewhat available, will a search on the operating carrier's award availability help me out? I know that Air France and Emirates (partner?) are on the list of ST carriers that I may want to try out.

How generous are the routing rules for a round trip award? Are open jaws and stopovers permitted? Can anyone share with me and how to make the most out of a KE Skypass award?

You cannot redeem partner miles for AF first class. Only FlyingBlue elites can redeem for AF F, and even then at inflated mileage rates.

To redeem for business class, you can look for "classic" inventory on the FlyingBlue award engine on airfrance.us. Just create an account and search. In theory, those seats should be available for redemption by KE. However, there has been some use of point-of-sale differences by AF to restrict the usage of SkyMiles for awards on AF metal. We do not know if such things apply when using KE miles.

I am excited about redeeming for the 380 out of ATL next year. No connect in JFK yay!

Foo

So I have about 130k skyteam miles and just about the same in DL miles.

I want to try to get to thailand in biz class... Do I have any shot at two tickets on the same flight (using DL miles for one and Korean for the other ticket)?

Yes. The consensus seems to be that the number of seats KE makes available to partners is always one or two fewer than they'd make available to SkyPass members. Thus, whatever flights you find that DL can book, you should be able to call up KE and book the same flights using SkyPass miles. Since you have enough SkyPass miles to book one award seat, you can also search and eliminate dates for which there's no availability at all. (Although some days with SkyPass availability might not have DL availability, it at least cuts your list of dates to ask DL about.) Be sure you know which dates are DL blackouts and don't even bother searching them.

Nice, thanks. I will start searching. I have found rather good availability on DL outside of Korean's black out windows, so that's at least a start.

Do I have to currently have the miles in my skypass account to search on the KE website?

Unfortunately, yes.

It is too bad that fuel tax is passed on to ST partner airline passengers when redeeming an award. I believe one can still fly OZ without paying high fuel taxes when redeeming a *A partner award.

How are the First and Business Class seat award availability on A380 routes to/from the US? Are the ATL and JFK routes the only US routes flying the A380?

LAX and JFK are the US A380 routes at the minute. ATL gains it sometime this winter.

Award availability using SkyMiles on the LAX A380 flights has been pretty good lately. I've gotten a few in the last year. I've tried to get the JFK A380 flights but no luck. ATL flights used to be near-impossible to get (I'm speaking strictly of Business Class awards) but since the nighttime flight was added, award availability seems to have loosened. Not clear what will happen when ATL goes A380. No word yet on exactly when that will be.

ATL-ICN goes to the A380 on 1 January 2013 according to the current GDS schedule. Iirc, it's daily at first and then later becomes 3x weekly or 4x weekly with a 777 (772 or 77W, I can't remember).

Good to know. Does it look like the 3-4x weekly nighttime flight will continue to operate to/from ATL after the A380 arrives?

Between now and the end of the year, it looks like ATL's daytime flight will be 744 service.

When I checked KE's website, I noticed an A380 doing the evening ICN-NRT turn, which I'll be taking in November. :)