Chrislorl

I have a flight booked in April, on a KE flight ATL - ICN - HKG (delta code share). I want to bring my son using miles. Delta tells me there is no inventory for awards tickets. Is there any way to see when seats are available? Any advise.

RealHJ

While nwa.com was not perfect (though honestly in relation to delta.com it sure seems like it was), it did at least show more SkyTeam airline awards than delta.com does.

Now with nwa.com gone, is there any place to actually see SkyTeam airline award availability online (given how very frustrating and time-wasteful it is to call DL on the phone without knowing the exact dates and flights available to book)?

Particulary I mean KE.

Both KVS and ExpertFlyer only show KE class A (First Class Award - something that DL does not offer on KE anyway) and nothing else, apparently as KE does not publish the upgrade classes into any reservations systems (as the awards are not booked by travel agents, makes sense). koreanair.com is pretty useless also. Though I have a KE FF# (never used, just for site login for OLCI), koreanair.com does not display any results for award flights unless you have the required miles for it (if anything, that seems like one even worse award booking interface than delta.com).

Any place to see KE award availability, or really there is none and now it's impossible to see it anywhere?

What about other SkyTeam airlines? Sure, some (but now missing most) KLM flights are on delta.com, I guess more AF (never flown them, never interested in any AF flights, so honesty I don't know), but that's about it.

KVS seems to have most SkyTeam airlines award classes (all except KE, AZ and AM it seems?), but does availability at those fare classes actually guarantee availability to book it with DL at the low mileage? There are three (supposedly, in reality seems a lot more) mileage levels, yet just one booking code for award flights - so any way (or none at all) to tell at which level is the availability (low, mid, high) for the award fare class in question?

Any insight on this will be much appreciated, by me and lots of others FT'ers here, I am sure.

dyung

Unfortunately I can't answer most of your questions, but I can tell you that award availability on partners will always confirm at the "low" level. The middle and high award levels are valid on DL flights only.

RealHJ

..but, for that I guess my question is, if a partner award class is available (for ones where can be searched online), does it mean that DL will let you book it, or can they still claim that it's "not available" (at the low award level)? Is there any sub-filtering within a single award class for what is what level, anyone know?

3Cforme

ExpertFlyer doesn't show KE. KVS claims to.

http://www.kvstool.com/FAQ.php#Classes

As for Delta filtering partner awards, in my searches I haven't found that to be the case with AF or AS (or CO, back in the day). This isn't United and their Starnet filtering.

RealHJ

KVS only lists though:
KE A (First Award)
which is pretty useless, as DL does not allow First awards on any airline. It doesn't show either Business or Economy on KE..

and BTW, ExpertFlyer also does show KE class A (just that, nothing else).

3Cforme

Ah, you're right. That must be why it didn't come to mind as EF-supported.

ExpertFlyer Voice

We just added the KE A class availability yesterday, so I'll give you a pass on that.

Also we just added award availability for Alitalia. We're not 100% sure if the classes are the same for partner redemption, so try it out and let us know what you find.

ucfpinay

I just called Delta to try to book our flights from MCO to MNL for Dec 2010 and as suggested by some folks to check on awards seats on KE. Apparently, award seats haven't been made available yet on KE. I even asked him to check dates in June 2010 and he said no award seats have opened up. Does that mean none are available or they haven't been released yet?

Any other airlines I could check other than KE where I can use my miles?

DARBgone

I had a DL agent tell me over the phone last week that award seats and upgrades with SM are not available at all on KE. Something about KE is not a full ST partner...

3Cforme

It does no good to request awards for travel during KE's blackout periods, which are substantial for travel between Korea and North America.

The Following Blackout Dates Apply Travel between North America and Asia:

2010: Jan 1 - 10, Feb 12 - 16, May 22 - July 11, July 16 - Sep 5,
Sep 18 - 26, Dec 11 - 31

bobbybrown

When in Dec? KE blocks award seats from US to Korea between 12/11-12/26, and from Korea to anywhere between 12/24-1/9/2011. So you can take only 12/1-12/10 on December from US to MNL.

June 2010 is also kidding for KE. Another black out dates are 5/22-7/11 from US to Korea. And from Seoul to anywhere except US, 7/16-8/15 is out. From Seoul to US, you can't take 7/24-9/5. That makes your travel possible only a small slot between 7/12-7/15. What a joke.

http://www.koreanair.com/local/na/gd...sp_rm_ka02.jsp

arkangel

I was trying to book a couple of award seats to Bali for travel in June of this year and was told that KE has blacked out the whole month for award travel. And, based on your experience, maybe most of the rest of the year as well!

ucfpinay

ahhhh... geez!! The rep even put me on hold to check on blackout dates and he said my dates weren't blocked out! HA! I guess he wasn't looking at the right screen either.

Ugh! That's a lot of blackout dates and ours is in the middle of it 12/11-01/02

Do you suggest any other airlines I could use? It's going to cost us 135K miles each right now on Delta. =(

Winkdaddy

I am curious....has ANYONE here been able to use their Delta miles to book an award on KE on their new 777 planes with the lay-flat Prestige Sleeper seat? I am not talking about the Prestige "Plus" angled seat...just the Prestige Sleeper. I am just trying to find evidence if KE ever releases Prestige Sleeper seats at all to customers using Delta miles.