Cathay Pacific has removed fuel surcharges. Here’s what awards to redeem

Cathay Pacific has removed fuel surcharges from all its tickets. Although this won’t necessarily lead to cheaper flights, it’s fantastic news for award travelers, who will pay less cash on mileage redemptions.

In this post, I’m going to cover two main things: the first half will be a refresher on Asia Miles, including an explanation of the award charts, rules, and some very confusing stuff on their website.

The second half will compare Asia Miles to KrisFlyer, and identify situations where Asia Miles redemptions can save you a chunk of miles.

Let’s dive in.

Asia Miles Refresher

Which credit cards allow you to earn Asia Miles?

Asia Miles are fairly easy to earn in Singapore, can be accessed through the following banks’ credit cards.

Several of these cards are currently running sign up bonuses, and you can also earn up to 4 mpd on certain categories of transactions.

Standard Chartered and OCBC do not offer transfers to Asia Miles .

How long are Asia Miles valid for?

Asia Miles earned from 1 January 2020 onwards do not expire so long as you earn or burn at least one mile in an 18-month period.

Asia Miles earned prior to 1 January 2020 expire after 3 years.

Who can you redeem Asia Miles for?

Just like KrisFlyer, you can name up to five redemption nominees and redeem awards in their name. Redemption nominees may be changed up to three times per membership year, at a cost of US$50 per change.

Does Asia Miles have a waitlist?

Cathay Pacific and Cathay Dragon awards can be waitlisted, provided you have at least 70% of the miles required. A maximum of 10 waitlist bookings can be made at any point in time.

How much does it cost to change or cancel an award ticket?

Asia Miles charges the following service fees, which apply per passenger.

Note that some changes (e.g refunds) can’t be done online, so you’ll have to call in to do so.

How much do awards cost?

Asia Miles has several award charts, but here’s the three you need to be most familiar with.

(1) For award travel on Cathay Pacific & Cathay Dragon

(2) For award travel on Partner Airlines

(3) oneworld Multi-Carrier Award Chart

Charts (2) and (3) have their sweet spots (the Multi-carrier award chart in particular can be extremely useful), but since we’re on the topic of Cathay’s elimination of fuel surcharges, we’ll focus on Chart (1) in this article.

How do I search for awards?

This may seem like a “duh” thing, but I need to point out two confusing things about the Asia Miles search interface.

(1) Use the right search engine

First, when browsing the Flight Awards section of the Asia Miles website, don’t click the first “Redeem Now” link that appears.

Clicking the first “Redeem Now” link will bring you to an extremely useless page that only prices direct flights. As the screenshot below shows, I’m not able to search for a SIN-SFO itinerary because Cathay and its partners don’t operate non-stop flights on that route (the “airline” field is ghosted and can’t be clicked). This means you won’t be able to find any ex-SIN itineraries on Cathay Pacific, apart from SIN-HKG.

Instead, click on the bottom “Redeem Now” button (or simply go here). You’ll see this search dialogue box, which means you’re in the right place.

Enter your destination, class and dates, and hit the “Search Flights” button.

(2) Don’t trust the first price you see

Second: don’t trust the pricing you see at the top of the search results.

Let’s take the example of a Singapore to London Economy Class award. At the top, you’ll see  that Economy Standard awards “start from” 30,000 miles one-way.

However, when I scroll down and look at the awards actually available, all I see are 42,000 miles options on Cathay Pacific, and 35,000 miles options on British Airways and Qantas.

Where are the 30,000 miles options? Am I just looking at the wrong date? Maybe I should try one of the other dates in the award calendar?

Don’t waste your time. What’s going on is that Asia Miles is showing you how many miles the route would cost if Cathay Pacific flew it. 

Huh?

Put it this way: a SIN-HKG-LHR flight covers a distance of 7,852 miles.

As per the Cathay Pacific award chart, an Economy Class award should cost 42,000 miles. Indeed, that’s the price we see in our detailed search results.

However, a direct SIN-LHR flight covers a distance of 6,765 miles.

If Cathay Pacific flew this route, they’d charge 30,000 miles in Economy. This is obviously useless information, kind of like saying “if my grandmother had wheels, she’d be a car.”

You’ll never be able to find a 30,000 miles award on this route…because it doesn’t exist! It boggles the mind that Asia Miles would put such stupid logic into their pricing system, but at least you now know where it comes from.

How do prices compare to KrisFlyer?

Now that you know the ins and outs of searching, the next question is: what should you redeem?

The elimination of fuel surcharges means we can do closer like-to-like comparisons between Asia Miles and KrisFlyer. I say “closer”, because you still need to factor in:

• the additional time spent transiting in Hong Kong
• the additional costs (in cash, not miles) of a transit in Hong Kong- there’ll be additional airport taxes of ~S$80 on a round-trip Business Class itinerary

Assuming you’re alright with that, then you’re all set to experience Cathay’s Business and First Class products, not to mention their lounges in Hong Kong.

Here’s how award costs for Cathay Pacific redemptions through Asia Miles compare to Singapore Airlines redemptions through KrisFlyer.

	(Singapore Airlines)		(Cathay Pacific)
Round-trip Prices	J	F	J	F
New York JFK	198K	264K	170K	250K
San Francisco| Los Angeles	190K	260K	170K	250K
Barcelona | London | Manchester | Paris	184K	250K	170K	250K
Amsterdam | Brussels| Frankfurt | Milan| Rome | Zurich	184K	250K	130K	200K
Dubai	98K	150K	130K	200K
Tokyo	94K	140K	90K	140K
Beijing	78K	106K	90K	140K
Shanghai	78K	106K	50K	80K
Hong Kong | Taipei	61K	81K	50K	80K
First Class may not be available on all routes. I’ve excluded Australia & New Zealand because it doesn’t make sense to fly 3.5 hours north to Hong Kong, then all the way back down south.

The sweet spot for me is Europe, at least the destinations that just fall into the 5,001-7,500 miles band. Business Class redemptions on Asia Miles save up to 54,000 miles on a round-trip ticket, compared to KrisFlyer.

As the diagram below shows, the 7,500 mile line is an important one for Cathay Pacific awards to Europe. Slip to the wrong side of that line, and you’re paying up to 50,000 miles more on a round-trip Cathay Pacific award.

Cathay Pacific also serves some major cities that Singapore Airlines does not, such as Vancouver, Boston, Washington D.C, and Madrid. If you were flying on Singapore Airlines, you’d still need to make at least one stop, so you should be mostly indifferent between them and Cathay Pacific on these routes.

	(Star Alliance award)		(Cathay Pacific)
Round-trip Prices	J	F	J	F
Boston | Chicago | Toronto | Vancouver | Washington	211K	297K	170K	250K
Dublin | Madrid	184K	281K	170K	250K
Manama | Tel Aviv	142K	182K	130K	200K
First Class may not be available on all routes.

Cathay Dragon also serves a range of smaller cities that Singapore Airlines/SilkAir don’t. You can view a full list here, but one that stands out to me in particular is Okinawa, because it’s just shy of the 2,500 miles distance band. This gets you to Japan for just 25,000 miles in one-way Business Class.

So if you’re redeeming miles for multiple people and trying to stretch your balance without compromising on comfort, do see if a Cathay Pacific award can help. Sure, you’ll have to detour through Hong Kong, but if it’s the difference between Business and Economy Class…

Conclusion

I’m quite excited to start experimenting with Asia Miles, once travel becomes possible again. The removal of fuel surcharges has given it a new lease of life, and although I don’t think the in-flight experience can match up to Singapore Airlines (few can), it’s still a very high quality way of getting from A to B.

What awards are you looking forward to redeeming with Asia Miles?