A LoyaltyLobby reader sent us a question about converting credit card points to Cathay Pacific Asia Miles.
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You can access Cathay Pacific here.
Question from the reader:
I received an email from Cathay Pacific with a promo points conversation of 15%.
Means I can convert my Citibank points to Asiamiles with a bonus of 15%. Link here:
https://cathaypacific.formstack.com/forms/more_miles_more_rewards_row_en
The thing is I already have close to 1 million Asiamiles points and every time I’m looking for redemption, there are no availability.
I’m mostly flying from Asia to Paris or Asia to USA (California) in premium cabin.
Frequent departure cities include: Saigon, Bangkok, Singapore
Would you suggest me to convert 4 million Citibank points to Asiamiles and get another batch of 300,000 Asiamiles+ more ?
Or should I just convert them in Kris Flyers seems it look like there is higher availability as well as Suite redemption / sweet escapes deals?
We often receive questions about transfer bonus offers that programs run to get members to convert their (usually) credit card points.
I advise you NOT merely to convert because of the bonus offer. There are always other offers in the future as well.
I converted a significant amount of points from HSBC to Singapore Airlines KrisFlyer miles last year when they were running a conversion offer that also gave elite status (I now have Star Alliance Gold with United, Aegean & Singapore Airlines).
I have not much experience using Cathay Pacific Asia Miles beyond trying to issue a ticket way back from miles earned/converted eBay Anything Points (we probably need to go back 15 years). Even then, phoning Cathay Pacific for award issuance was difficult, and based on the feedback we have received, things are not any better now.
Also, Cathay Pacific is having an issue with not having enough pilots and flight attendants on hand. They have been only flying 10% to 15% of their pre-pandemic schedule and trying to bring it up to 30% to 35% by the end of the year.
It seems that Singapore Airlines is in a better situation right now, and you tend to be able to redeem KrisFlyer miles relatively easily for their own flights. But, unfortunately, the web award search is crap for partner awards that you should use other programs to redeem.
I would wait for another conversion bonus offers from Singapore Airlines before moving any points to miles.
Conclusion
Cards in various markets, even from the same issuers, often have different conversion partners with various points-to-miles ratios.
I tend to convert points to programs that are easy to deal with; most awards can be booked online, and preferably those that are easy to deal with over the phone, too, in case of last-minute changes and emergencies.
Singapore Airlines awards are readily available through its booking engine, but you can forget most partner awards with any complicity. In addition, partner awards are not competitively priced compared to other Star Alliance programs.
I have not much recent experience with Cathay Pacific, but I would stay away until the airline and program stabilize.
