Plan Quickly: Chase Losing a Major Airline Transfer Partner in Less Than 2 Weeks

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Bummer for everyone in our hobby who love transferring Chase Ultimate Rewards points to Korean Air.

As of August 25, 2018, Korean Air will no longer be a Chase Ultimate Rewards transfer partner.  So if you’ve been thinking of planning award flights by transferring Chase Ultimate Rewards points, you have very little time to act.

Korean Air is part of the SkyTeam alliance, which includes Delta.  And transferring Chase Ultimate Rewards points to Korean Air has been an awesome way to book cheap Delta award flights to Hawaii.

Korean Air also had some other sweet spots in their award chart and lot of available award seats, even in First Class.  So this news isn’t great for miles & points enthusiasts.

While this stings, it isn’t the end of the world.

Some folks (including me) overlooked Korean Air as a transfer partner because the award booking process can be a pain.  And Chase still has plenty of other fantastic transfer partners.  So you can still get Big Travel from cards like the Chase Sapphire Preferred, Chase Ink Business Preferred, and Chase Sapphire Reserve.

For example, if you’re looking for cheap award flights to Hawaii, you can transfer Chase Ultimate Rewards points to Singapore Airlines.  Then, book an award flight on Alaska Airlines or United Airlines.  We shared how folks in certain West Coast cities can get an awesome deal on Hawaii award flights by booking with Singapore Airlines miles.

Keep in mind, you only have until August 24, 2018 (less than 2 weeks!), to transfer Chase Ultimate Rewards points to Korean Air if you’ve been saving up for an award flight.  Also, Korean Air has a generous miles expiration policy.  You have 10 years to redeem them.  Some folks might think about transferring points now and booking an award later if it makes sense for a specific trip.

We’ll have a post coming up soon about strategies for folks who’ve been planning Korean Air redemptions.  But in the meantime, here’s our Ultimate Guide to Korean Air Miles if you want to review all the sweet spots with the program.

And don’t despair if this throws a wrench in the works for you, because there are still plenty of ways to get where you want to go with the travel credit cards. Or check out our Hot Deals page for an easy-to-digest list of the top rewards card offers available right now!

Are you disappointed to see Chase lose Korean Air as a transfer partner?  Let us know in the comments below.

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