Cathay Pacific returns to American Express partners and launches Cash+Miles option
Scare past for all American Express users intent on planning a trip with Cathay Pacific, the airline is [...]
Cathay Pacific
Oneworld
Scare past for all American Express users intent on planning a trip with Cathay Pacific, the airline has reappeared among the amex travel program partners and even more surprising news with the same conversion rate.
In this article:
The ability to convert membership points to Asia Miles, the program's currency loyalty of the Hong Kong-based company, had disappeared over the past few months, and today it has officially reappeared.
Why Cathay is an important partner
For all travel lovers, the company represents one of the most luxurious on the market, moreover, thanks to the presence of one of the most exclusive first classes in the world, it is one of the most coveted and difficult targets for those who practice the reward travel.
However, there is a second reason, even more valid than the first, that had made people fear the worst when the company disappeared from American Express channels. Cathay Pacific is, arguably, the best option present for Italian users who want to book a prize ticket to go around the world.
What is the Cash+Miles proposal
Did you get your flight cancelled, miss your connection, land late?
You could get up to 600€ compensation per person
The serial hoarder might turn his nose up at the sight of this option; the purist of this mode of travel wants to get the ticket without spending anything or at most fees.
This option but as of today, however, it makes it more affordable to detach an award ticket to fly to Asia or any of the destinations served by the company.
In fact it opens up greater use of miles by giving the possibility of booking a ticket even on dates that do not have standard award seat availability. In fact, as all frequent flyers know, available seats are few and far between.
But when you buy a ticket using the cash+miles formula, you can use points to reduce the cash price completely or only in part. Unlike tickets booked exclusively with points, these are available for virtually any seat on any flight, which makes the offer easier to use, though rarely "better."
To redeem points for a flight in business class from Milan to Hong Kong you could pay 220,000 Asia Miles for a ticket costing no less than 4/5,000, while using cash+miles will never reach that value, since 100k Asia Miles points generate a discount of about 1,000 off the cost of the ticket.
When it makes sense to use the cash+miles formula
I would not recommend the use of this formula to anyone, except in rare special cases.
- You have so So many points that you don't know how to waste them, but let's be serious on this site we have proposed dozens of better ways
- During special promotions, sales, and other times such as black friday you might find a first-class ticket at an "unheard of" price and decide to invest your Asia Miles to reduce the cost of the ticket. By doing so you would eventually pay more, but you would have a flexible ticket, on your dates of interest, and most importantly being a paid trip could earn you miles, points, and status
In conclusion
Only good news from Cathay today. Partnership reestablished and conversion rate unchanged as opposed to Singapore Airlines, which has deteriorated. Cash and miles is a formula that Alitalia has been offering for years and obviously has never caught my attention.
