Cathay Pacific‘s loyalty program Cathay (formerly known as Asia Miles) currently offers an interesting promotion: If you transfer miles or points from a set of financial partners, you will be credited 10% more award miles than usual. The list of eligible partners includes American Express Membership Rewards of France, Italy, Germany, the Netherlands and the United Kingdom among others.
For example, if you transfer 10,000 Membership Rewards points to Cathay, you’d receive 8,800 instead of the usual 8,000 miles. This is based on the common 5:4 rate for these transfers, with the 10% bonus on top.
You need to register for the promotion at the website below before transferring your points. The promotion ends on March 31, 2024.
While the transfer should be completed within three work days, crediting on bonus may take up to ten weeks. That means, if you transfer the aforementioned 10,000 Membership reward points today, you might receive 8,000 miles almost instantly and 800 bonus miles weeks later.
In October 2023 Cathay updated its award chart. Of course, that lead to prices getting significantly worse with award flights getting 30% and upgrades 68% more expensive.
Miles Don’t Expire When Active
Miles earned with the program after 2020 don’t expire if there is at least one account activity every 18 months. An activity is considered earning or spending any amount of mileage.
Sweet Spots
As usual, we never recommend buying (or transferring) points without having a clear target in mind. This is why we present you with two of the more attractive redemptions left in Cathay:
Business or First Class Within Asia
Among the most interesting sweet spots in Cathay are premium award tickets within Asia. For connection of up to 2,750 distance miles, you pay between 28,000 to 32,000 miles, depending on your origin and destination.
A ticket from Seoul to Phuket is narrowly within this limit and quite affordable at 28,000 miles + HK$808 (~€96).
Qatar Airways Business Class from Europe to Doha
Outside of Asia, Cathay Pacific’s Oneworld partners bring you the best redemptions. Qatar Airways business class tickets from Europe (e.g. Munich) to Doha start at 33,000 miles. Sadly, the fees and surcharges of HK$2,723 (~€324) are quite high.
You can also search for redemptions with other Oneworld partners. But in most cases, British Airways Executive Club Avios will get you better value for money points than Cathay’s award miles.