Skypass Program Changes
 

Not sure if this has been released in English yet, but things are changing (in 2022). They're also introducing "Pay With Cash AND Miles" feature. Value of miles dropping drastically for Q class - 70% down to 25%. "Silver, Gold, Diamond, Platinum" levels.

NAVER Blog link: ???? ??? : ??? ???

KE FAQ Page: ?????? ??? ??? ?????.

Oh wait here it is in English from their page: https://www.koreanair.com/content/ko...2_SKYPASS.html

Overall it looks like miles will be worth less than before with the distance-based award system. I haven't crunched all of the numbers for all routes, but award tickets for flights between the US and Korea will all cost more under the new system except for Honolulu which will cost slightly less than it does now.

On the other hand, changes to elite qualification look great. I'll easily qualify for gold under the new system (only a lowly morning calm now) which means sky priority, lounge access, skyteam elite plus, etc. I wish they would change this today instead of waiting until 2022.

Are they getting rid of lifetime elite status? Had plans to fly around 20K miles a year on KE from next year until eventually hitting MCP... Maybe I won't now. :(

There's no mention of lifetime status in the updated qualification requirements, so it looks like it's going away. The Q&A section does mention that existing Morning Calm Premium and Million Milers can keep their lifetime status. (Morning Calm Premium = lifetime Gold, Million Miler = lifetime Platinum)

Not sure how far along you were, but flying only 20K miles per year would have taken 25 years to qualify for MCP on the old system. Not sure that's something you can count on in any frequent flyer program. Skypass will almost certainly see many more changes over the next 25 years, if it even still exists at all.

Definitely sucks for anyone who is getting close to 500K though.

Yikes!!
Huge devaluation in miles for redemption...
KE miles will be worth a lot less going forward...super lame


Qualification seems to be on a yearly basis now instead of every 2 years..

Well this is sad, I am about 120k away from Morning calm premium and only fly around 35k per year...

So, from reading the announcement, it seems like redemptions will be safe through the end of March 2021. So, if I wanted, I could make a redemption end of March 2021 and still get today's redemption values? I have 120 in my account which is exactly enough for a 1 way F award from US to Australia. Haven't gotten around to doing that yet but it's my plan.

They're getting rid of Morning Calm Premium Club and Million Miler Club?! :mad:

Not going to be easy, but might want to do 120k in the remaining 2 years and get MCP switched to lifetime gold status... Off by around 100k I think it's still doable... That's about 7 return trips between HKG - JFK ish?

English website doesn't list all the details. According to Korean language site, it strongly implies

"Only KE or KE-coded flights are eligible for elite qualifying miles."

Seriously hope this is not the final one. Otherwise, what's the point of being in SkyTeam?

Nevermind, it seems like any lifetime membership will carry over to the new system... the things we do for FFPs all that to get slapped in the face. Oh well guess I'll be flying through ICN alot during the next two years.

This is a slight improvement over the current system where only miles from KE metal flights with a KE flight number qualify for Morning Calm status.

Looking at the changes overall, it seems lot worse for non-Korea based flyers than for flyers in Korea. Since awards are now priced by length of each segment, any trip that requires a connection in Korea requires significantly more miles than it did before. On the other hand, if you're going to/from Korea, there are several city pairs that will be less expensive now than they were before (Nearby cities in China/Japan, Vietnam, Philippines, Hawaii, Dubai, Russia, Brisbane, etc.)

Same for elite qualification, if you're based on Korea you can realistically do all of your flying on KE and KE codeshares. If you're based elsewhere in the world, you probably won't be able to get status miles for all of your flights unless you only fly to Korea/Asia.

Morning Calm status indeed looked at KE only (more complicated than this though), but higher level looked at SkyTeam flight miles as well. Now, unless KE rewords some, it appears that across all levels, only KE flights matter when it comes to the annual evaluation of elite status.

I 100% agree with you that the new system works favorably for those living in Korea and to some extent, Koreans living abroad.

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?

All flights with a KE flight number count towards status, including codeshares, regardless of whether or not the operating carrier is a Skyteam member.

Flights without a KE flight number do not count at all, even if the carrier is a Skyteam member.

The previous rules were a little complicated. For Morning Calm, only KE metal flights with a KE flight number counted (more restrictive than new rules). For Morning Calm Premium and Million Miler, all Skyteam flights counted (less restrictive than new rules).

Miles earned through ST and other KE partners(including credit card spending) counted towards Morning Calm qualification?

Interesting.. does it mean that if I book in AA.com from ICN-DFW I can still get the miles, or does it have to be on KE website directly??

Until the beginning of the new program, miles from other Skyteam members of course count towards status, although a certain number of miles have to come from KE flights. If this is no longer possible in the future, I think KE might not comply with the Skyteam agreement and/or thinking about leaving the alliance.

I got an email saying that morning calm premium staus from life time 500,000 miles would stay except the name change to Gold Morning Calm Premium.

It will remain as lifetime member but only as Gold. Gold is third tier behind Diamond and Platinum.

You would have to fly a lot more to get to 500K miles if your Skypass is not near it already.

The value is buying a North America-Asia or vv roundtrip J ticket for ~$1,800 and upgrading all 4 sectors to F

Getting little off topic here but... For like CX, SQ, JL I'd agree, but for KE I just personally don't think they have great F products. For me I'd use the vouchers to get a prestige suite out of a Y ticket. That's why I was hoping that they wouldn't be coming out with a PEY cabin. ☺

When and from where are these North America-Asia roundtrip J fares for ~$1800?