Our Reader Success Story: South Korea goes perfectly this week as we’ve been visiting Asia. We often get asked how to use points and miles for a trip to Korea, so we are so happy to present Katelyn’s story to you!

 

Katelyn’s Story Using Points/Miles in South Korea

My name is Katelyn. I grew up traveling from a very young age and have been to more than 26 countries. I have always loved traveling. Relocating to Hong Kong at 3 years old opened our chances to travel more as a family. Later, I moved to London during my college years, during which I traveled Europe, and now I am in California. Traveling always inspires me for creativity and life. 

I am quite new to points/miles, and I believe your Instagram page was one of the first accounts I came across. It has helped open my eyes to better ways of traveling with kids and helped our family travel more! 

 

Flights

The very first international trip we took on points as a family of 4 was to the island of Jeju in South Korea, also known as the Hawaii of South Korea. We had opened the Chase Sapphire Reserve, Chase Freedom, and the Capital One Venture Card in a year’s time.

 

 

We transferred points from Chase Ultimate Rewards, which covered our flights on United (a partner of Asiana Airlines). It cost about 380,000 points for the 4 of us to fly from SFO to ICN airport. From ICN, we transferred to the domestic airport in Gimpo to get to Jeju Island. Our domestic flight was only an hour-long flight, so we paid out of pocket, which wasn’t much. 

 

 

 

Lodging

We used our Capital One Venture Miles for our stay at an Airbnb (some of it). Since we were there to visit my family and stay for a good 2 months, we wanted a place that would be spacious enough for our kids to roam and feel comfortable staying for a longer period of time. 

 

 

My daughter loved the Airbnb so much. It had three floors, a beautiful open kitchen, a large living room, a loft where the kids could play, and an outdoor mini-pool.

 

 

We were also only 5 minutes from the beach, making it so convenient and fun for my toddler. We went almost every other day! There were so many amazing places for our kids to explore, and we are immensely grateful for having been able to really explore and live as locals on the island. 

 

 

Bottom Line

We are slowly learning more about travel rewards and accumulating points to help make our travel goals into reality. Thanks to that, we have a month-long trip to France that we will take in the summer using points and miles. We are grateful for all the amazing content and help that you give us to take our travels to another level.

Thanks, Katelyn, for sharing your Reader Success Story:  South Korea! We love that you made this trip happen with only a few credit card sign-ups!