[Dead] 45K RT First Class to Hawaii in flat beds

7
Sorry, this deal is no longer available. Do you want to be alerted about new deals as they’re published? Click here to subscribe to Frequent Miler's Instant Posts by email.

Last night, Stephen reported on the outrageous first class award availability on Delta’s new route from Detroit to Honolulu that starts service next summer (for up to eight passengers). The catch is that while Delta still charges a king’s ransom (which, by the way, could be a different amount of miles any day of the week), partner Virgin Atlantic is showing eight seats or more available for 37,500 miles each way plus $5.60. However, you can do even better. As pointed out by an astute reader, you could fly round trip (and even add a connecting flight on the ends) for just 45K Korean SkyPass miles. The kicker, of course, is that Korean is no longer a Chase transfer partner.

a screenshot of a computer screen

The Deal

  • Fly round trip in Delta first class from various cities in the Eastern US to Hawaii via Detroit (for flat-bed seats) for 45K round trip

Key details to know

  • Korean partner awards can easily be booked online, but it’s easiest to find available dates via Virgin Atlantic first
  • Awards must be booked round trip
  • Availability can be found July-September 2019

Quick Thoughts

You can search for availability on this via the Korean Air website, where it shows nine seats available on some dates. That likely means that even more than 9 seats are available for awards. That’s insane. Note that it may be easier to find available dates via Virgin Atlantic first (though I emphasize “may” because Virgin’s site isn’t necessarily easy to use either).

As noted at the top, an additional advantage in booking through Korean (as though you need an additional advantage to RT flat beds for 45K) is the ability to add on your positioning legs. Last night, I booked Detroit to Honolulu via Virgin Atlantic. However, I’ll have to position to Detroit for that flight — if I booked it as a single award via Virgin Atlantic, they would have charged more.

However, Korean charges 45K round trip from the continental US to Hawaii — so I could have booked from Albany, NY to Detroit to Honolulu and back for the same 45K RT.

Unfortunately, Korean is no longer a Chase transfer partner. If you need to transfer, your only option would be Marriott, but I would not recommend this as transfer times from Marriott can be both slow and unpredictable — I would be surprised if availability lasts as long as is necessary to transfer from Marriott. Therefore, this deal will work best for those who already have Korean miles (perhaps those who preemptively transferred to Korean when news broke that they were breaking up with Chase).

This is also a good reminder that not all points and miles are created equally — so it’s always a good idea to check what other options might be available when opportunities like this arise.

Want to learn more about miles and points? Subscribe to email updates or check out our podcast on your favorite podcast platform.
Subscribe
Notify of
guest

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

7 Comments
newest
oldest most voted
Inline Feedbacks
View all comments