Card Companies Blocked from Overseas Travel Due to COVID-19, Launching All-Out Effort to Attract Domestic Travelers

Difficulty Traveling Abroad Due to COVID-19
Discounts on Jeju Hotels and Airfare Available

[Image source=Yonhap News]

[Asia Economy Reporter Ki Ha-young] As the summer vacation season kicks off, credit card companies are rolling out travel events one after another. Due to the impact of the novel coronavirus infection (COVID-19), overseas travel has become virtually impossible, so they have focused on domestic travelers as their main target.

According to the card industry on the 3rd, Woori Card recently launched the 'Card's Jeongseok Unimile in Jeju,' which offers benefits needed for traveling to Jeju. As Jeju Island gained popularity as an alternative to overseas travel due to COVID-19, the company strengthened Jeju travel services on the 'Card's Jeongseok Unimile,' a low-cost airline integrated card introduced last year. This card provides an additional 5% discount when paying for airline tickets, accommodations (hotels, resorts, pensions), admission tickets (museums, exhibitions, leisure and sports), and dining through a dedicated website based on Jeju.com. For domestic airline tickets, even the issuance fee is waived. It also offers a free 5kg excess checked baggage benefit on Jeju Air, Jin Air, T'way Air, and Air Seoul, as well as priority handling of checked baggage on Air Busan.

Shinhan Card is running an event offering up to a 78% discount on room rates at Jeju Shinhwa World until today. Additionally, through All That Shopping, customers who use Hongik Travel's travel products by the 19th will receive up to a 17% discount, limited to 100 customers. Samsung Card and KB Kookmin Card each offer a 10,000 KRW discount when paying for airline tickets over 50,000 KRW on T'way Air and Jin Air, respectively.

Due to the inability to travel overseas caused by COVID-19, the popularity of airline mileage cards sharply declined in the first half of this year. According to 'Card Gorilla,' the largest credit card specialist site in Korea, the only airline mileage accumulation card ranked within the top 30 in the popular credit and check card settlement for the first half of this year was the 'Samsung Card & Mileage Platinum.' Last year, there were five airline mileage accumulation cards in the top 30. Instead, eight cards specializing in shopping or offering online shopping benefits newly entered the top 30 this year. The rankings were based on the number of views and application conversions for each card product on Card Gorilla from January 1 to June 30.

There are also overseas direct purchase events to ease the disappointment of not being able to travel abroad. Hana Card has newly launched an overseas direct purchase lounge service on the overseas service platform 'Global Must Have (GMH).' The GMH service is a specialized overseas usage platform exclusively for Hana Card customers. It allows booking airline tickets and hotels, airport use, shopping, and direct purchases. The newly opened overseas direct purchase lounge includes major overseas direct purchase sites such as Amazon, AliExpress, and iHerb. In particular, a direct purchase insurance service that compensates up to 300,000 KRW per case for non-delivery, damage, or returns of purchased items is provided free of charge. Hana Card is also running an exclusive card company event with the global activity reservation platform KKday for direct delivery of Taiwanese souvenirs until September 30. Popular Taiwanese souvenirs such as Chia Te Pineapple Cake and Yuki & Love Mango Jelly can be purchased with up to a 10% discount and received through KKday’s direct delivery service.

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.