Caution: Chase Strictly Limits Korean Air SkyPass Transfers

Word of warning: Chase points can only be transferred to Korean Air SkyPass once every 24 hours. I learned the hard way.

I’m not traveling home tomorrow on Turkish Airlines…or Kuwait Airways. No, I think I’ve got something even more interesting booked that actually may be helpful to you (readers) as well. I’ll share about that in a post tomorrow, but for now want to draw your attention to the fact that I almost lost the space thanks to a previously unknown and unpublished rule.

I have several Chase INK accounts that have separate log-ins. Assumedly, there is a way to consolidate all my Chase Ultimate Rewards into one account, but for now they remain scattered across multiple accounts and log-ins.

I had to transfer in 153K points into Korean and thought I would pull the 78K remaining Chase points in one INK account and then 75K additional from a second account. I transferred in the 78K points without a hitch.

But when I attempted to transfer in the next 75K points, I encountered the following error message:

My heart skipped a beat as my ticket was only on hold for a few hours and it is not possible with Korean to book a one-way partner award at half the round-trip price (one-ways are charged the same as a round-trip).

Confusion at Chase

I called Chase and spoke to an agent who told me there is no such rule and that she could transfer the points for me. I breathed a sigh of relief.

Moments later the agent said she had successfully transferred the points. I asked her to wait while I verified the points reached the account, but upon checking found they were not there. I also noticed that my Chase UR balance remained unchanged.

Oddly, in my account transaction history it showed her transfer of 75K points yet zero points redeemed.

She was just as puzzled as I was. We tried it again and again she received confirmation that the transfer went through.

But once again, the points never showed up in my Korean account and either were never deducted or immediately re-appeared in my Chase account.

She placed me on hold and came back stating that “there is some sort of technical issue going on” but she was going to escalate it and hear back within 24 hours. That would not help me, since my hold expired in less than three hours. She again defiantly affirmed that Chase had no such rule.

Korean: It’s Our Rule

I called back Korean to attempt to extend the hold and learned two pieces of information. First, partner holds cannot be extended. Two, the one transfer per 24-hour period is a Korean Air rule and not a Chase rule. The agent claimed to be well-aware of the restriction.

CONCLUSION

Be warned – you can apparently transfer once to Korean Air every 24 hours from Chase. This prohibition is not published anywhere, but definitely appears to be hardcoded in place.

Thankfully for me, the award space was still available after 24 hours and I was able to book the award. Avoid any potential issues by combining your Chase UR balances and transferring all points necessary in a single transaction.