Cathay Pacific award travel used to be easy. They had plenty of U.S. capacity, plenty of excess seats, and it was widely available using American AAdvantage miles (less so with Alaska miles, usually one fewer seat).

Since the pandemic that just hasn’t been the case – slow to restore flights, reluctant to release award space, and when they do it’s almost exclusively to members of their own Asia Miles program and not to partner airline frequent flyer programs.

That last limitation remains in place but right now there’s exceptional availability in both business and first class on the New York JFK – Hong Kong route in April and May (generally first class is just back from Hong Kong) and you can use this to connect onward in Asia as flagged by Find Flights For Me. Some limited space may show up with partner programs. Points transfer from American Express, Citibank, Capital One and Bilt – though not all instantly.

Cathay Pacific First Class

Cathay Pacific First Class

Scroll ahead in their Instagram post for available dates:

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These awards are expensive:

• Asia Miles charges 110,000 points each way for business class
  
• And they charge 160,000 points each way for first class
  
• you can generally fly beyond Hong Kong to cities for the same pricing (staying within the same distance bands)

Cathay Pacific Business Class

At New York JFK you’ll use the Greenwich lounge as a business class passenger, and Soho lounge if flying first. In Hong Kong of course there’s The Wing and The Pier.

The Pier, Hong Kong

Soho Lounge, New York JFK

I genuinely long for the days when Cathay first started releasing gobs of first class award space during the Great Recession. Back then American AAdvantage charged just 67,500 miles each way for first class to anywhere in Southwest Asia (“Asia 2”) and included North American connecting flights at that price. I was described as ‘living in’ Cathay first back then.