I feel after the announcement of postponed implmentation of mileage devaluation, KE has stopped releasing long-haul F award seat, whether far out or wait-listing.

Basically they claim to the public that J award seat is now up to X % of total seats to make Korean regulators happy, but reducing F award to 0%.:o

Well, X == zero for all JFK flights for next 360 days (or whatever end of schedule is).

Split reservation
 

I was able to confirm an ICN -USA award but had to waitlist a separate connecting SIN-ICN award . If the SIN- ICN award clears , is it safe to assume that since both are KE metal , KE will be able to link the 2 reservations to allow for SIn- ICN - USA through check in ? Thanks for any information.

It's also worth remembering KE has one of the most generous waitlisting policies in the industry, with many revenue booking classes eligible for waitlisting in addition to awards. At a time when premium ticket purchases are at record highs, there is good chance waitlist clearing will not go beyond the revenue tix much of the time.

How did this turn out? And was it not possible to waitlist the SIN-ICN in the same itinerary as the ticketed ICN-USA as a through award will be cheaper than separate tickets?

I have a similar situation right now. Our waitlisted BOS/JFK -> ICN -> SIN itinerary has cleared into F for BOS->ICN, but the connecting segments have not cleared. Wondering whether to ticket the BOS->ICN. I have a few days left to decide.

Did u check if ICN to SIN has F class?

It does not... I am waitlisted for business on that segment

Any recent reports on waitlists being cleared?

I traveled BOS->ICN->SIN in mid August. Initially everything was waitlisted. BOS-ICN cleared into F in late June, but ICN->SIN did not. I was able to secure ICN-SIN in economy and so we ticketed the itinerary as that and waitlisted for business class (on both of the two same-day connections). I could have chosen to just ticket BOS-ICN and waitlisted for the 2nd segment to clear, but as we needed to get to SIN it was better to just accept economy to be sure of something. Note that to ticket they had to remove me from the waitlist, ticket, then add me back.

ICN->SIN cleared into business class in late July, about 3 weeks before flight. Initially it was the later of the two ICN-SIN flights, but two days later the earlier "better" connection cleared.

All of this was done by online chat or telephone. To actually ticket you need to telephone. I found the KE agents very professional, they understood exactly what I was trying to do. It left the impression that they had been well trained and had lots of experience.

Now as it turned out, the flight BOS-ICN was affected by the volcano eruption in north east Russia. This extended flight times of lots of trans-pacific flights so we were late arriving in ICN and missed the connection to SIN. Again KE did an excellent job... they had staff at the end of the jet bridge with new boarding passes for impacted passengers. We were rebooked on the later flight to SIN and assigned 1A/1B seats... on the A330 so not as nice as the B777 biz class seats. The First lounge in ICN was very quiet, for most of the time we were the only people there. We got a good meal and I showered. I believe this lounge has since closed as they work through refurbishing all their ICN lounges.

Thank you for sharing this data point. I think I might just book ORD and leave JFK for waitlisting just in case...

I was originally waitlisted on both JFK flights and the BOS flight for the same day in both first and business (so total of 6 options on the one PNR). The BOS in First cleared and I accepted that. During the whole time I was researching/booking, I found KE was much more likely to have mileage award inventory on the BOS flight than on the JFK flights if looking many months in advance. But I did observe a pattern where KE would release seats from JFK in batches about 10 to 20 days before flight time. I could probably have changed to a different day and got a JFK flight (in business). Also, while I had success with my waitlists clearing, the flights I got onto never opened inventory for direct booking with miles... so waitlisting was essential.

Okay, that's good to know. I just checked Boston <> ICN and the days I want to fly/return aren't available in 2026, so going to go with ORD, which seems to have a lot more availability.

Would love to fly in/out of JFK, but cash tickets seem to be cheaper by a significant amount from ORD instead. I only have enough points for myself, so will have to book cash for P2 and those change/cancellations fees are quite hefty.