Introduction to Asia Miles for Canadians

You can earn Asia Miles by flying on any of the Oneworld alliance flights. But for the most part, Asia Miles is associated with the Cathay Pacific airline.

Earning Asia Miles:

The reason why Asia Miles can be valuable for Canadians is because you can use these points to fly on any Oneworld alliance member flights, even Alaska Airlines.

As a Canadian, you can earn Asia Miles through:

1. If you have American Express Membership Rewards point, you can transfer a minimum of 1,000 Membership Rewards Points for 750 Asia Miles, and increments of 100 thereafter.
2. Whenever you fly on a paid ticket with a partner airline, quote your Asia Miles membership number on your reservation. Points are earned as follows:
   • First Class = 150% x actual miles flown
   • Business Class = 125% x actual miles flown
   • Premium Economy Class = 110% x actual miles flown
   • Economy Class = 100%, 50% or 25% x actual miles flown (depending on which type of ticket you bought)

   For example, if you flew on a round-trip between Hong Kong and Toronto on Cathay Pacific, you would earn the following number of points:

   • First Class = 23,388
   • Business Class = 19,490
   • Premium Economy Class = 17,152
   • Economy Class 100% = 15,592
   • Economy Class 25% = 3,898
3. If you collect Petro Points, you can transfer your points to Asia Miles. Conversions must be in blocks of 10,000 PETRO-POINTS at a ratio of 10:1. 10 Petro Points to 1 Asia Mile.
4. Earn a 10,000 sign up bonus with the RBC Cathay Pacific Visa Platinum. You will also earn 1 point for every $2 spent on Catha Pacific plane tickets purchases on their website and 1 point for every $1 spent on all other purchases, (though this card comes with a $150 annual fee).
5. Convert your RBC Rewards® points (earned through RBC Visa Infinite Avion, RBC Royal Bank® Visa Platinum Avion, RBC Royal Bank Visa Business Avion) to Asia Miles at a ratio of 1 RBC Rewards point to 1 Asia Miles.
6. You can transfer Starwood Preferred Guest points at a 1:1 ratio.

Problems with Asia Miles:

Asia Miles expire 36 months after the day it was deposited into your account. So you will need to use your points within 36 months of when you earned them. That could be a major pain if you cannot accumulate points quickly enough.

I recommend on using Asia Miles for certain trips but in many cases it would be better to use AAdvantage miles. A trip from YVR to LAX on Alaska would be 20,000 Asia Miles.

I found that Asia Miles charged 15,000 miles to go from Victoria to Seattle, unlike 9,000 with Avios. So not the best value, it gives you other options if you are an RBC Rewards customer and it is always good to have options when redeeming frequent flyer miles.

Asia Miles are earned in the OneWorld alliance so you can have some good values.