Big Bonus Transferring Hotel Points to Cathay Pacific

by Gary Leff

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Cathay Pacific’s AsiaMiles is an American Express and Citi transfer partner. They’ll also be introducing a US credit card in a few months from a bank that doesn’t issue (and therefore conflict with) other frequent flyer cards and that will have a few really interesting features.

They offered this in December but it’s available again and a pretty good deal: a 30% bonus converting hotel points to miles through February 28 You don’t get the bonus instantly, instead the extra 30% will post by May 31 (or sooner).

Here are the programs you can transfer in from and earn the bonus:

Update: Starwood is excluded from ‘phase 2’ (January/February) for this promotion.

Consider redeeming Marriott travel packages

270,000 Marriott points (which is also 90,000 Starpoints, since Starpoints transfer to Marriott at 1:3) gets you 110,500 AsiaMiles and 7 nights in a category 1-5 hotel property.

AsiaMiles has a distance-based award chart with some strong values.

Cathay Pacific is a oneworld airline and you can redeem for US domestic travel on American (or Alaska). Their award chart for premium transcons on American is cheaper than American’s own pricing — 50,000 miles roundtrip for New York JFK – Los Angeles in business class (versus 65,000 American miles).

My first-ever redemption on AsiaMiles was British Airways Baltimore – London Heathrow – Barcelona – London Heathrow – New York JFK when I had dinner at El Bulli. Back then it only cost 60,000 miles roundtrip and I got those miles transferring eBay Anything Points. Transatlantic business class is still just 80,000 miles roundtrip for the short East Coast hop across the pond or 120,000 in first class.

(HT: René S.)

About Gary Leff

Gary Leff is one of the foremost experts in the field of miles, points, and frequent business travel - a topic he has covered since 2002. Co-founder of frequent flyer community InsideFlyer.com, emcee of the Freddie Awards, and named one of the "World's Top Travel Experts" by Conde' Nast Traveler (2010-Present) Gary has been a guest on most major news media, profiled in several top print publications, and published broadly on the topic of consumer loyalty. More About Gary »

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Comments

  1. so Cathay’s cost for AA business seat is a good deal BUT what about availability? Since AA has become very stingy with award space (esp saver) would we actually be able to book these awards?

  5. How good is the Asia Miles program for redemption?
    In the recent past it was hard to find award availability and the amount of points they require was very high, which is why I never bothered to accumulate Asia Miles. In other words, miles are absolutely useless unless they can be redeemed for something you want.

  7. I doubt many here would want the 7 nights in a Category 1-5 hotel. You will need to add more Marriott points to get a decent hotel.

  8. My wife and I each have about 50,000 IHG points from the old post-card sweepstakes. We could redeem these for a couple nights at a decent hotel, but 130,000 Asia Miles seems way more valuable than 100,000 IHG points. Am I missing something, or is this a no-brainer?

  10. @Hepworth

    You’re looking at 26,000 miles if my math is correct. 10,000 IHG Points = 2,000 AsiaMiles, then factor in the bonus.

  11. @Hepworth

    You did not do your math right for IHG. The promo states 5 IHG = 1.3 AM. Your assumption of 100,000 IHG = 130,000 AM is incorrect since you are assuming 1 IHG = 1.3 AM which is not the case. Therefore if you divide (100000 x 30%) / 5 = 26,000 AM which is the correct amount.

  14. How does 270k Marriott convert into 110,500 Cathay Pacific? Doesn’t 10,000 Marriott convert into just 1,500 Cathay Pacific which makes it 1,950 after bonus?
    What am I missing?

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