Review: Korean Air 777 Business Class Seoul to Hong Kong

August 15, 2018August 15, 2018 ~ Alvin ~ Leave a comment

Introduction: A Wandering Seoul
SkyTeam Lounge Hong Kong
Korean Air 747-8 Business Class Hong Kong To Seoul (First Class Seat)
Park Hyatt Seoul Park Suite Twin
Korean Air Business Class Lounge Seoul Incheon Terminal 2 (East)
Korean Air Business Class Lounge Seoul Incheon Terminal 2 (West)
Korean Air 777 Business Class Seoul to Hong Kong

After visiting both of Korean Air’s dismal new lounges at Incheon Airport, it was time to head home to Hong Kong. I got to gate 252 and enquired to the gate agent if I could be assigned a first class seat, since they were selling them as business class seats on our flight (I did something similar on our outbound flight on the 747-8, and got lucky). Unfortunately I got a firm no from the gate agent – while he was cold, the gate agent showed me the system on his computer screen to prove that those seats were reserved for full-fare business class passengers (we were booked into the lowest fare bucket), which I thought was a very responsible thing to do.

While the majority of “our” gate area faced parked at the gate next to us, from the corner of the gate area I spotted the 777-300ER that would be flying us home.

Korean Air Boeing 777 Seoul Incheon Airport

I was “gate lice” for around 10-15 minutes since I wanted to get better cabin pictures, and soon they started up boarding for the infirm, followed by business class passengers. There was a rather old man in a wheelchair that had brought his family of around nine people, and they were all seated in business class, which I found rather interesting (and was happy about, since I always feel terrible when an infirm passenger is seated in economy).

Continue reading “Review: Korean Air 777 Business Class Seoul to Hong Kong” →

A Guide to Cathay Pacific’s Marco Polo Club

August 15, 2018August 15, 2018 ~ Jason ~ Leave a comment

Anyone who has flown with Cathay Pacific will have no doubt heard of the Marco Polo Club. “The Club”, as it’s sometimes referred to, is Cathay Pacific’s frequent flyer program, rewarding high-flyers with elite status. Despite how well-known the Marco Polo Club itself is, people generally tend to have a limited understanding of its inner workings and often have many unanswered questions about the program. Because I’m obsessed with Cathay Pacific and basically have no life, I thought it would be a good idea to dispel some common misconceptions about the program and do a quick “guide for dummies” about the program.

Cathay Pacific Boeing 777-300ER

Continue reading “A Guide to Cathay Pacific’s Marco Polo Club” →

Review: Korean Air Business Class Lounge Seoul Incheon Terminal 2 (West)

August 13, 2018August 15, 2018 ~ Alvin ~ Leave a comment

After briefly visiting the East business class lounge that Korean Air operates at Incheon’s new Terminal 2, I headed over to the West lounge so I could check it out. I planned on spending more time there, since it was marginally closer to our gate, and it was larger.

The lounge directly overlooks gate 249, and is reachable via an escalator right next to gate 249. I went up the escalator and across a footbridge to get to the lounge. The footbridge afforded very nice views of the airport terminal.

Incheon Terminal 2 Airside Concourse

Past the footbridge to the left was an entrance to the Korean Air West lounge. I joined the short queue to get my boarding pass scanned before making my way into the lounge.

Continue reading “Review: Korean Air Business Class Lounge Seoul Incheon Terminal 2 (West)” →

Review: Korean Air Business Class Lounge Seoul Incheon Terminal 2 (East)

August 11, 2018August 15, 2018 ~ Alvin ~ Leave a comment

While we had a great time in Seoul (which I’ll talk about in an upcoming post, though obviously I don’t specialise in maximising my time in cities – yet), it was time to get home on our 7:45 PM flight. We got to the airport at 4:30 PM – we weren’t actually intending to get to the airport so early, but we’d spent the morning at Alpacaworld and got back to civilisation earlier than expected.

Korean Air Terminal 2 Seoul Incheon

Seeing some Korean Air signage colours we headed towards the left side of the airport terminal, but after walking a fair distance we came across a sign saying that premium check-in was all the way on the very right of the check-in hall, by aisle A. I would’ve appreciated more signage indicating where to check in, and didn’t appreciate that Korean Air’s check-in at their hub airport for premium passengers and economy passengers were at opposite ends of the check-in hall. This would be a nuisance especially for families and groups traveling across different cabin classes (can you imagine how much trouble an unprepared large tour group would have if some of their members were flying in business class/had frequent flyer status?).

Anyway, Korean Air “encloses” their premium check-in desk for first and business class passengers.

Continue reading “Review: Korean Air Business Class Lounge Seoul Incheon Terminal 2 (East)” →

Review: Park Hyatt Seoul Park Suite Twin

August 11, 2018August 15, 2018 ~ Alvin ~ 2 Comments

As I mentioned in my introductory post, I’ve wanted to stay at the Park Hyatt Seoul for years. The last time we came to Seoul we stayed at the Westin Chosun, as the Park Hyatt was quite pricey back at the time. As luck would have it, this time the Park Hyatt was offering suites that were cheaper than booking two standard rooms at another chain hotel. While the hotel website wouldn’t allow us to book a Park Suite for all four of us, upon emailing them they were happy to accommodate, and even said that a rollaway would be free of charge. Sold!

The Park Hyatt Seoul is located in the Gangnam district, which is the financial district of Seoul. While a lot of people work around here, the biggest issue is that none of the city’s busiest areas are around the hotel. Myeongdong, Dongdaemun, Jongno, etc. are where you want to be if you want crazy nightlife, good street food, and lots of cheap, local shopping (they’re famous for a reason), and the area, as the CBD, doesn’t have a lot of that. While the Samseong metro station is right next to the hotel’s entrance, it’s still a 12-14 stop ride away from most of Seoul’s biggest attractions. In terms of shopping malls, a quick walk through Samseong station will bring you to Seoul’s gigantic COEX mall, but it’s more of a high-class, imported-goods mall than a popping local joint. That’s something that’s at least noteworthy, in my opinion.

The hotel has a modern, glass exterior quite fitting with the adjacent office buildings.

Park Hyatt Seoul Exterior

Continue reading “Review: Park Hyatt Seoul Park Suite Twin” →

Hong Kong Airlines Will Stop Flying To Miyazaki, Japan

August 9, 2018August 9, 2018 ~ Alvin ~ Leave a comment

This quick update is one that I found kind of sad. Hong Kong Airlines flies to many regional destinations around East Asia, and they fly to many destinations in Japan that the Cathay Pacific group doesn’t. While Hong Kong Airlines doesn’t fly to Fukuoka, they fly to Kagoshima and Miyazaki, both of which are pretty big tourist cities in Kyushu. They also fly to Yonago and Okayama, which no other airline flies to.

Hong Kong Airlines isn’t worried about experimenting newer routes with lower fares and lower frequencies, whereas Cathay Dragon strives for consistency, so they won’t launch a route until they’re sure they can fly it at least four or five times a week. Unfortunately this means that there’s less demand for some of the routes that they fly. In the case of their two Kyushu flights this time there’s good news and bad news.

Hong Kong Airlines Airbus A320 Taking Off Hong Kong Airport

Continue reading “Hong Kong Airlines Will Stop Flying To Miyazaki, Japan” →

Review: Korean Air 747-8 Business Class Hong Kong To Seoul (First Class Seat)

August 8, 2018August 15, 2018 ~ Alvin ~ Leave a comment

While I had booked myself in business class on the Korean Air 747-8, as I detailed in a separate post, Korean Air opened up their first class seats for business class passengers to select two days before departure. That’s quite standard for a few airlines on shorthaul flights, though this was the first time I’d flown a three-cabin flight with a two-class service. At the check-in desk I was denied a seat in the first class cabin (the plan was actually to get the rest of my family seats in the empty first class cabin, as I still wanted to review the Apex Suite), as the seats “weren’t for sale”.

I left the SkyTeam lounge at 1:15 PM and made it to gate 60 by around 1:30 PM for our 1:35 PM boarding time. Going to the gate desk, I decided to slip in a sneaky question if I could have a seat swap. To my surprise, without even giving her my boarding pass, she recognised that I was traveling in a group of four, and gave me a new boarding pass for seat 2A.

I believe the check-in desk decided to contact a higher-up after we expressed discontent, as we were misinformed by the call center that we’d “definitely” get the first class seats if they were available. The higher-ups then confirmed to them that we were indeed allowed to assign seats in first class, so they paged the gate agents to make the change for us. At least that’s what I believe ended up happening.

I was going to seat the rest of my family in the first class cabin and stay in business myself so I could review the Apex Suite, but what was I to do? Complain? At that point, people had already started lining up to get on the Korean Air 747-8, so I followed suit.

The gate agents, while friendly, were not very helpful in suppressing my excitement by stating that the last row of first class was also empty.

Korean Air Boeing 747-8 Hong Kong Airport

Continue reading “Review: Korean Air 747-8 Business Class Hong Kong To Seoul (First Class Seat)” →

Review: SkyTeam Lounge Hong Kong

August 7, 2018August 15, 2018 ~ Alvin ~ Leave a comment

We arrived at the airport at around 11:30 AM for our 2 PM flight. We mainly wanted to get there so early so we could get a credit card verification issue out of the way, though I also wanted to be there ahead of time since the first class seats on the flight were first-come, first-serve. Korean Air sometimes releases their first class seats to business class seat selection on regional flights if the cabin is empty 24 hours before departure, which was the case on our flight. As I’ve detailed in a separate post, the check-in desk agents weren’t able to assign us first class seats – or so we thought.

I wasn’t able to add my SkyPass number to our reservation online, since the names were different (since the last time I’ve taken Korean Air, I’ve added my first name to my passport – if you live in Hong Kong this will probably make more sense to you). Even though Korean Air sent me a name change form I never actually got around to filling it out, so I was glad that I could do so at a dedicated counter at the airport, and didn’t even have to go back to the check-in desk to add the number to our reservation.

Afterwards I headed through security and made my way to the SkyTeam Lounge. The lounge is open to business class passengers on all SkyTeam airlines, as well as elite members of any SkyTeam loyalty programme. Elite members can even bring in a guest (business class passengers can’t). I’ve been to the lounge a couple times in the past (my last review can be found here), though I figured it was a time for us all to revisit here at YTHK, since it’s been a few years since I last reviewed it.

SkyTeam Lounge Hong Kong Entrance

Continue reading “Review: SkyTeam Lounge Hong Kong” →

Introduction: A Wandering Seoul

August 6, 2018August 15, 2018 ~ Alvin ~ 1 Comment

This trip report will consist of comprehensive reviews of the flights, lounges, and hotels that I visited during a quick family trip to Seoul, including a roundtrip booked on Korean Air business class.

Needing to be in Seoul with my family, I immediately had a look at Korean Air and Asiana’s business class prices on the route, since I know that Korean Air and Asiana consistently offer low prices on regional flights (the same can’t be said about their longhaul flights, though). I was able to pull up fares of HK$5,200 roundtrip on both airlines, which I don’t consider to be astronomical for intra-Asian business class (Cathay Pacific charges thrice as much). I would also be able to earn Korean Air SkyPass miles had I flown Korean Air, and Singapore KrisFlyer miles had I flown Asiana. I had also flown Korean Air many times before, but I’ve never flown Asiana.

One deciding factor made the choice very easy for me. Korean Air was flying some of their new aircraft with Apex Suites between Hong Kong and Seoul, which we’d be able to book ourselves onto on the outbound flight, despite not being able to on the return flight. Meanwhile, Asiana was flying A330s and 747s between the two cities, both of which feature angled flat seats that wouldn’t make as exciting of a review.

Korean Air Boeing 747-8 Business Class

Continue reading “Introduction: A Wandering Seoul” →

Incheon’s Disappointing Brand New Terminal 2

August 2, 2018August 2, 2018 ~ Alvin ~ Leave a comment

Yesterday I flew Korean Air from Seoul Incheon to Hong Kong, and I detailed my initial thoughts in a “preview” post as usual (the review will come next week). To get to my flight I had to use Seoul Incheon’s brand new Terminal 2, which Korean Air started using in January this year. I’ve heard very good things about the terminal, and was excited to check it out.

Korean Air Terminal 2 Seoul Incheon

Incheon’s Terminal 2 is a really nice terminal. The terminal is airy, the waiting lines are way shorter than in Terminal 1, and everything is pretty new, which I like. However, I was left disappointed and don’t think the terminal has anything on some of the best in the world, such as Singapore Changi or even Hong Kong Airport.

Why, might you ask? What’s not to love?

Continue reading “Incheon’s Disappointing Brand New Terminal 2” →

Make this post fly:

Like this:

Make this post fly:

Like this:

Make this post fly:

Like this:

Make this post fly:

Like this:

Make this post fly:

Like this:

Make this post fly:

Like this:

Make this post fly:

Like this:

Make this post fly:

Like this:

Make this post fly:

Like this:

Make this post fly:

Like this: