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 between New York JFK and Hong Kong between January and March 8th, which you can use 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:
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.
Don’t sleep on Vancouver. 84K Asiamiles one-way business class to BKK and other SE destinations past HKG. Fewer miles (<110K) than from most US originating cities.
Cathay Pacific First class is a great product. The seat is dated but the space is huge and the service all around is excellent. I find it to be a huge leap over business class. Some airlines the product is very similar and it doesn’t matter. This one is a big upgrade.
CX need to get back to releasing these award inventory to partners, especially AA.
It’s a shame because these awards were so consistent and reliable pre COVID.
This is great but remember that HKG immigration is now chicom immigration. So there is always a risk that an arriving passenger could be subject to indefinite detention if they post bad things about Xi or China. Low risk, but not zero.
@Boraxo states a good reason for not flying through Hong Kong.
Like most of the Far East carriers, unless you are a hub captive, their mileage programs aren’t worth engaging in due to draconian expiration policies, disastrous technology, and many other issues.