Korean Air

[Karee 4,190]

I wanted to post a couple things concerning Korean Air's frequent flier program that I thought were pretty good.

1. The miles don't expire for 10 years, unlike U.S. based airline miles that expire after 18 months without any use. One caveat is the Korean miles expire at the end of 10 years period whether you fly with them during that period or not. So I guess that's good and bad.

2. I was messing around on the Korean Air website and found this thing called "Family Plan" I dug into this further and you can pool your miles together. For example, I have roughly 40k miles and my wife has roughly 40k miles. A round trip ticket to Thailand from the U.S. is 80k miles. After you register for this family plan thing, you can combine the miles and redeem them for one ticket. No U.S. airline that I'm aware of will let you combine miles from different accounts. It appears they let kids grandparents etc. all pool their miles together as well. I did have to upload proof of marriage. I pinged them on chat, and they said they will let me know via email when approved.

[TEX_715 6]

good info!

also economy seats are 18 inches wide as compared to 17 or 16.5 on other airline

[AaronLV 12]

That is good to know. I just booked tickets on Korean, 2 Adults, 1 Kid, RT Chiang Mai to Vegas 3400. I will have to look into the family plan we have a bunch of miles on them as this is our 3rd trip. The layover in Seoul sucks 11 hours for us each way, but it is much easier than booking extra tickets to BKK and then LAX to Vegas, and we get in Vegas at 5pm vs 9pm in LAX where we always have to make the drive rather than fly because not enough time to catch the connecting flight that night.

[long_ 3]

AaronLV - the day rooms are nice and pretty reasonable there in Seoul. I've stayed in them a few times are my trip over and back to Vegas.

[AaronLV 12]

AaronLV - the day rooms are nice and pretty reasonable there in Seoul. I've stayed in them a few times are my trip over and back to Vegas.

Yeah they are not bad and the price is decent, I think the last time it was around 66.00 for the deluxe. This trip the kid is a bit older so I think we will try to do a day trip into Seoul. I hate the layover but I do like flying straight into Vegas, better than driving from LAX and getting home at 2am.

[Thane 8]

Korean Air is great, the service/food/IFE is fantastic. Most importantly, prices are great (unlike Thai Airways) and they have a direct flight to Seoul from Las Vegas three days a week.

[Karee 4,190]

Something else to add. Pretty much as soon as we got back, my wife had to turn around and fly back to Thailand for a funeral. I was able to get a ticket for $1900 with 24 hours advance notice.

[AaronLV 12]

Korean Air is great, the service/food/IFE is fantastic. Most importantly, prices are great (unlike Thai Airways) and they have a direct flight to Seoul from Las Vegas three days a week.

I haven't found the food to be very good, but I am a finicky eater. Thai airline food was much better, but now that there is no direct flight from BKK to LAX, it is pointless to pay the premium for Thai since they stop in Seoul and I still have to transfer to Vegas.

Interesting as for service, we found the Seoul <--> America great, but the Seoul <--> Thailand was HORRIBLE! The flight attendants were not nice.

This trip should be interesting as our son is now 2 /12 and very mobile where as before he just laid around and slept... I have a lot more tolerance for kids on a plane now

The nice thing with Korean also is you can get Business class for 2600 if you book far enough out, and watch for the specials.

[Karee 4,190]

So I logged in and my family plan was approved. They said they would send me an email when approved, but they didn't. I logged into both my wife's account and my account and enabled pooling for both accounts. I then tried to book a ticket that I did not have enough miles on my own to book. It allowed me to book the ticket using miles. (I went all the way to the confirmation page and didn't click confirm) So looks like it works.

Pretty damn awesome!

[slowlyman 118]

I haven't found the food to be very good, but I am a finicky eater. Thai airline food was much better, but now that there is no direct flight from BKK to LAX, it is pointless to pay the premium for Thai since they stop in Seoul and I still have to transfer to Vegas.

Interesting as for service, we found the Seoul <--> America great, but the Seoul <--> Thailand was HORRIBLE! The flight attendants were not nice.

This trip should be interesting as our son is now 2 /12 and very mobile where as before he just laid around and slept... I have a lot more tolerance for kids on a plane now

The nice thing with Korean also is you can get Business class for 2600 if you book far enough out, and watch for the specials.

No kidding. I'll have to keep an eye out for that.

[Thane 8]

I haven't found the food to be very good, but I am a finicky eater. Thai airline food was much better, but now that there is no direct flight from BKK to LAX, it is pointless to pay the premium for Thai since they stop in Seoul and I still have to transfer to Vegas.

Interesting as for service, we found the Seoul <--> America great, but the Seoul <--> Thailand was HORRIBLE! The flight attendants were not nice.

This trip should be interesting as our son is now 2 /12 and very mobile where as before he just laid around and slept... I have a lot more tolerance for kids on a plane now

The nice thing with Korean also is you can get Business class for 2600 if you book far enough out, and watch for the specials.

I figured I'd post after my experience earlier today since I have a quick layover in Incheon as we're on our way back to Vegas. I'd have to second what you said about the Thai crew. They were pretty much a pain in the ###, although I'm sure they'd say the same about some of the passengers (not me of course )

As for the food, I still stand by that part, I love the bibimbap. The rest of the food isn't that great, but it's still better than most of the garbage served on US Airlines.

[AaronLV 12]

I figured I'd post after my experience earlier today since I have a quick layover in Incheon as we're on our way back to Vegas. I'd have to second what you said about the Thai crew. They were pretty much a pain in the ####, although I'm sure they'd say the same about some of the passengers (not me of course )

As for the food, I still stand by that part, I love the bibimbap. The rest of the food isn't that great, but it's still better than most of the garbage served on US Airlines.

That is true about airline food it sucks when in economy, the business class is usually fairly decent. I am not a fan of Korean food which is probably why I don't like what they have to offer

I will be headed the same route in a month, but from Chiang Mai, so we will see if the crew out of Chiang Mai is any better. We normally fly out of Bangkok.

[slowlyman 118]

That is true about airline food it sucks when in economy, the business class is usually fairly decent. I am not a fan of Korean food which is probably why I don't like what they have to offer

I will be headed the same route in a month, but from Chiang Mai, so we will see if the crew out of Chiang Mai is any better. We normally fly out of Bangkok.

I didn't realize Chiang Mai was an international terminal. I'll need to look into that.

Edited May 22, 2014 by slowlyman

[AaronLV 12]

I didn't realize Chiang Mai was an international terminal. It isn't listed as a possible arrival city for Thailand.

On the Korean site you have the option of choosing Chiang Mai. There are not a lot of airlines that fly in/out of Chiang Mai internationally. From here can goto HK, several cities in China, Malaysia, Australia, Singapore, and I think there are a few Middle Eastern ones that fly in. In April they started 24 hour operations, so I will assume there will be more flights added. Eva is flying from Taipei a few days a week, but for some reason I haven't been able to book directly on their website back to the states. I think they might be using a code share flight and not allowing the transfer.

The one draw back I noticed for some reason on Korean, is the special prices don't show up as frequently when choosing Chiang Mai as they do when choosing Bangkok.

We usually like to fly into Bangkok and spend a week there on the way in and out, but the wife has been making almost monthly trips down there, so it is not as important this time.

[Karee 4,190]

I didn't realize Chiang Mai was an international terminal. I'll need to look into that.

I didn't realize that either. I wish I would've known that last trip.