Nothing says a good use of a beautiful afternoon like pouring through obscure SkyTeam award charts 😉 (ask me anything about Saudia Alfursan Miles, try me) but it looks like there seems to be a bit of a sweet spot for redeeming Czech CSA OK Plus miles to Iceland.
Unlike just about every other zone-based award chart, CSA OK Plus designates Iceland as part of the North America zone:
Czech CSA OK Plus award chart for travel within the USA, Canada and Iceland
This means that a round trip from anywhere within the US or Canada to Iceland will cost the same price as a domestic redemption – 25,000 miles round trip in economy class or 40,000 round trip in business class. Note you cannot route via continental Europe on this redemption, meaning your only option is flying Delta between New York-JFK and Reykjavik.
You can search for award space through either the Delta Air Lines or the Alaska Airlines website – I find the latter more intuitive and easier to use.
“Green” dates on the calendar indicate Delta BusinessElite award availability from New York-JFK to Reykjavik
While availability in economy class is scarce, the route from New York-JFK to Reykjavik has one of the best BusinessElite award availability throughout the Delta international network. Note that the same redemption using Alaska Airlines miles would cost 125,000 miles round trip – more than three times the amount needed for Czech OK Plus.
Note that however Czech OK Plus does levy fuel surcharges for partner award redemptions, which can be somewhat hefty in Delta BusinessElite.
Delta BusinessElite Fuel Surcharge Los Angeles to Reykjavik
Partner awards are not bookable online using OK Plus miles, you must contact the OK Plus Service Centre.
Accruing Czech OK Plus Miles
The other challenge to taking advantage of this deal is accruing Czech OK Plus miles. OK Plus does not partner with neither American Express Membership Rewards nor Starwood Preferred Guest, meaning your only option is to accrue miles through flying Czech CSA Airlines, SkyTeam or other affiliated partners. Still, this can be a good deal if you are eyeing a business class award redemption to Iceland.
OK Plus has a very reasonable partner accrual chart, for example when flying Delta you can accrue a minimum of 100% mileage through all booking classes, with a 500 mile minimum per domestic segment or 750 mile minimum per international segment. Paid first and business class fares earn 200% of actual flown mileage. This is more generous than Delta’s 2014 SkyMiles program, and definitely more so than the revenue-based SkyMiles accrual starting in 2015. This makes Czech CSA OK Plus an incredibly useful program for lower-fare Delta and SkyTeam flyers, especially from 2015 onwards.
Can you use Korean Air miles?
Nope, unfortunately the 40k business class to Iceland is only for using OK Plus miles.
Thanks for the heads up Jeff! I don’t mean to pry, but is your last name “kwok” a sonic translation from a cantonese surname?
Nice catch Jeff!
This reminds of the CSA Hawaii redemptions back in the day (circa 2007) that were only 30,000 OK Plus Miles roundtrip from North America. See my old old old chart showing how not only CSA but other SkyTeam airlines used to be the best to Hawaii http://www.rewardscanada.ca/cahamxrewards.html
Reminds me of Singapore where Hawaii and Central America are in the same zone 🙂
First of all, nice catch, Jeff! That being said, let me warn everyone against dealing with OK Plus. Do not under any circumstances start accruing the miles with a thought of getting this award, because it most likely won’t materialize. Trust me, I have a first hand experience.
Back in the day I made a mistake of of signing up for an account with Czech airlines. They were giving away 6,500 miles just for creating the account and taking the first flight. Then they became partners with Continental. I thought, hey, might as well credit the miles to OK Plus. After all, what could go wrong?
Well, after getting 25,000 miles in each mine and my husband’s accounts, I tried to redeem them on Delta. No dice. You had to call Prague (!), which I did. They didn’t see availability, even though Delta showed it on their website. Then they changed the expiration rule to having accrue miles on Czech Airlines specifically, or lose your miles. There was no way for me to do it. Faced with losing the miles, I transferred 20,000 miles to 20,000 HHonors points. Yep. Could have had United miles now, if I stuck with Continental program instead of stupid OK plus. Heck, I’m still angry about it!
Don’t do it!!!
Hi Jeff,
would you please send a link to me for the award chart? I can’t find it on their website. thanks.
Should have been here: http://ch.csa.cz/en/portal/loyalty_programs/ffp_okplus/membership_guide.htm but it appears they’ve removed it.