For me, KE was great crediting my DL flights for 70% mileage flown, even for the lowest fare class. They're saying until 2021 for changes? I'll cash them all in for some F redemptions by Q1.

Are you sure HNL awards will be lower? I guess I am looking at Prestige redemptions which will increase from 62,500 -> 65,000 for ICN HNL.

I agree changes on the qualification look good. Maintained Morning Calm (not useful at all on other SkyTeam carriers) and Diamond on OZ. Tend to fly on OZ and *A carriers due to this. Will probably increase KE and SkyTeam flights due to this change.

To be fair the Diamond upgrade vouchers are insanely lucrative...one roundtrip voucher limited to section 6 (or below) and one roundtrip unlimited voucher.

You're right. I was only looking at economy which changed from 35,000 to 32,500. It looks like the cost of Prestige and First awards went up much more than economy across the board. The Q&A section on the website has a funny way of justifying this. They say it's because the miles earned for flying Prestige and First have also gone up significantly (F 165% -> 250%, J 135% -> 200%). Under the old system, you needed to fly a Prestige route 10 times on average to earn enough miles for an award ticket on the same route, but in the new system you'll only need to fly 7 times to earn a Prestige award ticket. I don't doubt that the math works out, but it pretty clearly shows the real reason why these changes are being made. The new system will give bigger rewards for full fare Prestige and First class tickets and minimize the value of miles from Economy flying and credit card spending.

Wow, that's a HUGE inflation in redemption cost. It seems like they basically applied the "peak season" price for Europe destinations. Prestige is now where First used to be... and First is now 40K miles more expensive. Terrible. I've got too many miles to spend within a short period of time before this goes live. The end of the golden ages of Skypass IMO.

Edit: maybe on a brighter note, they're start rolling out promotions for miles redemption like some other airlines do (dreaming......)

Reasons why I'm sad: Morning Calm was very easy to get with my one round trip flight ICN-ATL-ICN each year and Asian vacations a few times a year (also thanks Korean credit cards). Should also still get it, actually, under new system - BUT who knows what will happen with pricing and class. ICN-ATL route is always HIGH (like they don't even list it in the sale fares anymore).

I am not a mega biz traveler, but I get around regionally. I was well on my way to getting my first class ticket at 160,000 miles. Probably for the only time in my life (Korean card mileage earnings are bad, I have no credit in the US since being here so long). Now I'm gonna have to burn those miles before April 2021 on some BS economy seat haha. At least the value will be good - high Atlanta ticket price, good use of miles.

KE Skypass in its future form is really bad value.

KE charges a lot of surcharge fees to its award tickets and coupled with the massive increase in miles, makes it a terrible value.

There is hardly any reason to put miles into KE program going forward.
- High Award fees
- High miles requirements
- Lower quality First and Biz class compared to other Asian airlines
- No more lifetime to work towards

I thought the SQ miles devaluation was bad enough but KE made it so that it costs even more miles and more award fees than SQ with a worse product than SQ.

Dont know what KE is thinking...

They're just following the industry model. Everyone is devaluing. Outside of Alaska Air, is there anything that is super attractive anymore?

The new rates is basically the current « peak season » rate.
I can’t see any info about a new peak-season rate. I can’t possibly believe they will have the same rates for off and peak season.

Either they plan on having an even higher rate for peak-season, or they will have occasional discounts for off-season, IMO

EDIT: had a look again, and they specify that peak season will be an additional 50%. This means over 400K miles for a round trip in First to/from JFK or ATL. It used to be 240K during peak season.

I realize this is quite an inflation on the surface for those who only got KE miles with credit cards/transfers, but if one buys premium cabin tickets on KE and is a KE Platinum or Diamond in the new program then those customers may actually be better off. The old program did not have elite mileage bonuses while the new program does.

I still can't believe they are ending the lifetime program. These changes, especially the elite program, appear to better align with DL Skymiles and Skymiles has a lifetime program (just not at 500K), 1MM for Silver and 2MM for Gold.

I sorta have a feeling they'll roll out PEY class after 2024... Which would make those vouchers less lucrative. Well, hope not.

Little blast from the past. What the FT community thought about Skypass over a decade ago. 😏

https://www.flyertalk.com/forum/kore...r-skypass.html

KE price of premium cabin tickets have been getting quite expensive for the last 2 years, along with a somewhat more expensive economy tickets. This devaluation definitely has me thinking. Chinese carriers and Finnair seem more attractive now, if one can work with the transfer schedule and often longer itinerary.

I'm hoping enough people complain that they continue to do a lifetime program on top of the new tiers. It is ridiculous that they are axing MM completely

What are the program changes regarding mileage from other Skyteam members towards status? Do they not count anymore?