Back in December 2019, Cathay Pacific announced an overhaul of the Asia Miles expiry policy: All miles earned from 1 January 2020 onwards would never expire, so long as a member earned or redeemed at least one mile every 18 months.
This was a welcome change, but since Cathay applied the new policy prospectively, any miles earned up till 31 December 2019 would still follow the old policy and expire after three years.
For members who wanted to rejuvenate their pre-2020 vintage Asia Miles, Cathay Pacific launched a “Mileage Renewal Offer” at the start of 2022. This allowed members to convert expiring Asia Miles into non-expiring ones by transferring at least 30,000 miles from credit card points.
This offer was originally set to lapse on 31 March 2022, but has now been extended till 30 September 2022.
Convert expiring Asia Miles into non-expiring ones
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| Asia Miles Renewal Offer |
From now till 30 September 2022, Asia Miles members who register and convert at least 30,000 Asia Miles from credit card points will have their entire balance (regardless of when it was earned) brought under the new activity-based expiry scheme.
Take advantage of our exclusive mileage renewal offer, and the balance of miles you earned before 1 January 2020 will be renewed, free of charge!
That way, all your miles will fall under the activity-based system and stay active as long as you earn or redeem miles at least once every 18 months
To illustrate:
- Suppose I’ve earned 100,000 Asia Miles before 1 January 2020, and 50,000 Asia Miles from 1 January 2020
- During the promotion period, I convert 30,000 Asia Miles from credit card points
- I will now have 180,000 Asia Miles, all of which are under the 18-month activity-based expiry policy
Cathay Pacific will also renew any miles that expired from January 2022 onwards, should you meet the 30,000 miles conversion requirement. I suppose they’ve included this clause to cover any miles that may expire in the period after you’ve transferred your bank points, but before Cathay Pacific does the extension.
This offer is available worldwide, and all Asia Miles partners in Singapore are participating:
| Bank | Conversion Rate | Conversion Fee |
| American Express | 450 MR points= 250 miles* | N/A |
| Bank of China | 27,000 BOC points= 6,000 miles | S$30 |
| Citibank | 25,000 ThankYou points= 10,000 miles | S$26.75 |
| 10,000 Citi Miles= 10,000 miles | ||
| DBS | 5,000 DBS points= 10,000 miles | S$26.75 |
| HSBC | 25,000 HSBC points= 10,000 miles | S$42.80 |
| Maybank | 12,500 TREATS= 5,000 miles | S$26.75 |
| UOB | 5,000 UNI$= 10,000 miles | S$25 |
| *400 MR points=250 miles for AMEX Centurion or Platinum Charge | ||
All renewals will take place within 6 weeks after the promotion period, i.e. by 11 August 2022
The full T&C of this offer can be found here.
Should you take up this offer?
If this offer came around pre-COVID, I’d almost certainly have taken it up without second thought. I have 212,264 Asia Miles that were earned before 1 January 2020, and if converting 30,000 more makes them all evergreen, why not?
But COVID has thrown a whole new spanner into the works. With Hong Kong’s obsessive COVID-zero approach, I have major concerns about the future of Cathay Pacific. The recent decision to ban all transit passengers through Hong Kong Airport suggests that the COVID-zero goal outweighs even Cathay’s survival, and I think the smart money might be on minimising your Asia Miles balance as much as possible.
In that sense, Asia Miles expiry should not be a concern, because you shouldn’t be holding on to a significant-sized balance for any extended period of time.
Asia Miles certainly has some sweet spots, although these have been undermined somewhat by the return of fuel surcharges on Cathay Pacific flights. It’s been long rumoured that Air China may acquire Cathay Pacific, and should that happen, who knows what the fate of your Asia Miles will be?
Conclusion
Cathay Pacific is offering Asia Miles members an opportunity to convert their expiring Asia Miles into evergreen ones, simply by transferring the equivalent of 30,000 Asia Miles from credit card points.
This would have been a lot tempting pre-COVID, but with all that’s happened to Cathay since then, I’d be very hesitant about holding on to more Asia Miles than I have to.
Do you plan to convert your expiring Asia Miles into evergreen ones?
(HT: William)
Probably not. Asia miles are useless if not booked with Cathay. And HK made it very clear flying is not an option for a few years.
So I’m planning on redeeming my 160k on hotel nights in Singapore when the family visits.
No need to transfer extra just contact them they transferred my old ones into activity based due to covid when I complained in Dec 👍
Eh I asked them for the same and they gave me a hard no.
for me they just extended the old miles for another year, but did not convert them into activity based ones.
Miles expired recently on 31 Jan and after writing in, they renewed the miles. It seems from some people on FT, they only do so after expiry. I had written in earlier before expiry and wasn’t able to get an extension.
Yeah hard no for me, pre-covid would have been an easy sell but what’s the point (pun intended) of miles if I can’t use them – HK is closed for business with its senseless policy of trying to eradicate a virus with an R of 7/15. Like trying to go outside in the rain and not get a single drop of water on you – no thanks!
Dont bash me for asking: cant Asiamiles be used for other airlines such as Qatar?
Sure they can. But I don’t find the rates so competitive, and if it’s Qatar specifically, I’d use Qatar privilege club to avoid fuel surcharge
Also remember that Asia miles needs to be around to pay the partner airline. If you redeem on partner and cx folds, good luck flying.
Aaron, stop causing sensational news on CX folding as they won’t. They are amongst the strongest in Asia with good cash reserve and a better management (has performed better than SIA in this pandemic). My money is with CX on a strong recovery once the border opens and with their strong cargo business, they will edge out a profit in near term like they have in second half of 2021.
Converted my Asia Miles to Grab vouchers lol…
Am tempted to redeem 30k miles in order to convert 130k miles due to expire in August. This covid won’t last forever, even in Hong Kong, and I don’t think Cathay is going to disappear. But reading all the comments, it seems the smart money is on NOT converting or holding on to Asia Miles.
What seems to be the best use of Asia Miles then? Any suggestions? Last year I did convert a bunch of miles for Devialet speakers which went “on sale” … so sad we have to resort to this for expiring miles.
CX is still holding quite some amount of cash and have good access to credit. And it’s parent (except Air China) is deep pocketed and HK is pressing ahead it’s third runway and second (huge) terminal. I think CX will be around for a while, just while we can use the AsiaMiles on them
is the question.
I am planning to convert my 220k to something redeemable soon… I called them for a possible extension and was given a big NO.
It’s just crappy to keep these miles… ah well…
I requested a solution to expiring miles back in June last year. At the time was expecting to have to deposit some miles in (people on forums saying at the time they would do something if you add miles from 2 different sources – eg 2 different banks). Was pleasantly surprised when they replied converting all miles into the activity-based bucket. I had >250k miles. But yeah it is difficult to justify using Asia Miles. Can’t help but feel for Cathay and the predicament it is in, and the amount of hate coming from the public and govt towards them… Read more »
offer extended to 30 June
https://www.cathaypacific.com/cx/en_HK/offers/mileage-renewal.html?cxsource=TOP-NAV_OFFERS_4_2
thank you!
Seems like we need register via the online form to quality for it as well, and not simply just directly transferring an accumulated 30k miles? If that’s the case I just wasted this as I already transferred 20k miles 😮
thanks for pointing this out, i’ve added the registration link (not sure if it was there during the 1 jan-31 march period when it previously ran).
It takes some time for the miles to show up in your account, so I believe as long as you register right now, you should still be OK (assuming you did the xfer today)
I wonder if you transfer 30000 miles this will also fulfill the extension requirement for Marco Polo till end of 2023?
I had 120K AM expire in Mar 2022, wrote in and they wanted me to use this offer to extend the validity of the miles. I declined and asked them to extend anyway because I couldn’t redeem Cathay flights, and they agreed to extend for another 18 months.
oh wow, i called in asked the same and they insisted on the link above. I’ll try.
OMG I confirm this works!!! Just got extended without any questioning after mentioning this reason
Yes this still works!! FYI it’s only an automatic extension for folks outside of Hong Kong (eg Singapore). If you have a Hong Kong mailing address, you need to change your Asia Miles profile to a foreign address first before calling in to make the request.
Which email did you guys write in? I can’t find anything at all. It’s frustrating.
This promotion is fake! I received an email about the promotion from Cathay Pacific. I registered on June 4 and received the confirmation email from Cathay Pacific that they received my registration. Transferred 30k miles from AMEX in the US and they posted on June 28. On July 1 they expired my entire balance of miles except the 30k I transferred from AMEX.
Any update on your situation?
according to the asia miles promo offer T&C and this post the miles are supposed to post by 8/11/22, I’m in the same boat as Chris. I transferred 30k pts from AMEX and my July statement sits at 32k pts instead of 105k. I’m hoping to see the change in pts by next month’s statement. I’ll update you later.