Your guide to Cathay Pacific Asia Miles: Kickstart Your Hong Kong and European Adventure

Finding reward seats can be tough at the best of times. But if your travels take you to Hong Kong – and perhaps, onwards to Europe – it’s worth becoming familiar with Cathay Pacific’s frequent flyer program.

Simply named ‘Cathay’, membership can be your ticket to flying in luxury. That’s because Cathay members have access to far more Cathay Pacific reward seats than travellers using other partner airline programs. Cathay’s redemption rates are also very competitive.

Better yet, those PayRewards Points you’ve been earning can become Asia Miles with Cathay. Just 330,000 PayRewards Points can take you to Europe in Business Class when transferring and redeeming your points via Cathay – here’s how.

Turning your PayRewards Points into Asia Miles

Thanks to our partnership with Cathay Pacific, it’s a breeze to convert your PayRewards Points into Asia Miles. You’ll receive 1 Asia Mile for every 3 PayRewards Points converted, which will appear directly in your personal Cathay Pacific frequent flyer account.

Why the 3:1 transfer rate, you might ask? It’s simple. When it comes to spending Asia Miles, Cathay Pacific offers tremendous value. In many cases, the number of Asia Miles you’ll need to book a flight can be lower than the number of miles needed through other major programs. For instance, a one-way Cathay Pacific Business Class flight from Sydney to Hong Kong costs 75,000 Qantas Points. But that same ticket is only 58,000 Asia Miles, when booked with Cathay.

How to spend your Asia Miles

You’ll get the best value – and best seat availability – by redeeming your Asia Miles on Cathay Pacific flights. But Asia Miles is a broad program with many partners as well.

For starters, you can spend Asia Miles on flights with every Oneworld airline. This includes Qantas, along with American Airlines, British Airways, Japan Airlines and more. (Granted, reward seat availability on Qatar Airways can be limited.)

The program counts a vast number of other airlines among its ranks, too. You can spend Asia Miles with Air Canada, Air China, Air New Zealand, Austrian Airlines, Bangkok Airways, LATAM, Lufthansa, Shenzhen Airlines and SWISS.

Fly to Hong Kong using Asia Miles

Whether it’s business or pleasure taking you to this major financial centre, Hong Kong is central to Cathay Pacific’s network. The airline flies direct from Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane and Perth. Cathay Pacific also offers seasonal flights from Cairns.

As it happens, Cathay Pacific offers more direct flights from Australia to Hong Kong than any other airline. You can even book Qantas’ flights from Sydney and Melbourne to Hong Kong using Asia Miles. Here’s what that all looks like in the numbers, one-way.

Even though you won’t find reward seats available on every flight, Cathay Pacific is still very generous with seat availability in premium cabins. On many of the dates we searched, Cathay Pacific not only had availability on most dates, but even gave passengers the choice between multiple flights on many of the days.

Interestingly, a lot of these flights were not appearing as bookable through other partner frequent flyer programs. This means converting your PayRewards Points into Asia Miles gives you a significant advantage when hunting for Cathay Pacific flights.

Europe

Cathay Pacific’s network can take you beyond Hong Kong and through to the UK, Europe, and many other destinations too, including across Asia.

If bound for Europe, reward seats can be a little trickier to find. But they’re not impossible, and pricing is reasonable. For instance, you’d burn 110,000 Asia Miles for a one-way Business Class journey from Sydney to London via Hong Kong.

Tips and troubleshooting with Asia Miles

It’s free to sign up for Cathay Pacific’s loyalty program – and you’ll need that Cathay login to search for reward flights. But you don’t need any Asia Miles in your account before hunting for reward seats, so you can check for suitable flights before converting your points.

Keep these other tips in mind as you plan your Cathay Pacific journey:

• London is popular, so search wider.
  Everybody wants those reward seats to Heathrow. If you’re bound for the UK but can’t find something suitable, try searching into Manchester. If that doesn’t work, you could also try places like Amsterdam, Frankfurt, Madrid, Milan or Paris. Sure, you might need to buy a quick intra-Europe hop to get to your final destination, but if that’s what it takes to cross continents in style, it’s a small price to pay.
• Book connecting flights on the one ticket
  Where your journey involves multiple flights to reach a single destination, book them on the same reservation whenever you can. It’ll make things smoother on the day, especially when flying with checked luggage. It also means that if one flight is delayed and you misconnect, the airlines are responsible for rebooking a replacement connection – at their cost, not yours.
• Cathay Pacific is generous with lounge access.
  If you’re connecting between Cathay Pacific flights booked in different cabin classes, you’ll enjoy lounge access for the whole journey based on the highest cabin. Let’s say you’re flying from Melbourne to Hong Kong in business class, but then from Hong Kong to Manila in economy as a through connection. You’d receive business class lounge access not just in Melbourne, but in Hong Kong as well.
• You can also transfer many credit card points to Asia Miles. Along with converting your PayRewards Points, you might also consider transferring eligible credit card reward points to top-up your Asia Miles balance. Cathay has credit card rewards partnerships with every Big Four Bank, along with American Express, Citi (for Prestige cards) and HSBC (for Premier cards).
• Some partner reward flights require a phone call. All Cathay Pacific and most partner reward tickets can be booked online. But for travel with Air Canada, Air New Zealand, Austrian Airlines, Bangkok Airways, Lufthansa, Shenzhen Airlines and SWISS, you’ll need to call Cathay (131 747, or +852 2747 3333).

A few final pointers when spending Asia Miles

Go forth and hunt for flatbed class flights with these final tips.

• Have Cathay status?
  You may see more reward seats than other members – especially if you’re Diamond, Diamond Plus or Diamond Invitation and searching for business class.
• Reward seat availability is great, but not universal
  Cathay Pacific is generous with reward seats, but expect that you won’t always be able to find a seat. That’s why it helps to keep your PayRewards Points in your PayRewards account until you’ve found something perfect. That’s the beauty of flexibility – you’re not locked into just one frequent flyer program and can make use of different PayRewards partners every time you travel, if the need arises.
• Searching for Qantas flights?
  Yes, Asia Miles can be used to book with Qantas. But just as Cathay Pacific releases far more reward seats to its own frequent flyers, the same is true for Qantas with Qantas Frequent Flyer. Just because you can find a Qantas reward seat on the Qantas website doesn’t necessarily mean you’ll be able to book it with Asia Miles. The same is true when you’ve found a Cathay Pacific flight on the Asia Miles portal, in that you mightn’t be able to book the same flight using Qantas Points.

Written by Chris Chamberlin

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About the author

Chris enjoys making the most of frequent flyer points, which have taken him around the world – usually, at the front of the plane. He’s travelled over 1.5 million miles sampling the best in Business Class and First Class. That’s further than three return trips to the moon! Chris is based at Point Hacks' Melbourne office as News Editor, and shares his experiences via @chris_chamberlin on Instagram. When he’s not travelling, he enjoys tennis, keeping fit, and discovering new gins.