Get 250,000 Cathay Pacific Asia Miles for 1.58 CPP with ASMALLWORLD

Limited-Time Promotion to Purchase Cathay Asia Miles

ASmallWorld (ASW) is currently running a limited-time promotion that lets you buy 250,000 Cathay Pacific Asia Miles with its Prestige Membership tier for $3,940 USD, down from $5,790 USD, a roughly 32% discount. PMB readers get an exclusive extra $50 off, as the sale otherwise runs at $3,990. At $3,940, the acquisition cost is 1.58 cents USD per mile.

This is the best price we’ve ever seen from ASmallWorld purely on a miles-acquisition price point, and it runs for an extremely limited time: until Tuesday, November 3.

There are multiple tiers of Memberships available, but the Prestige membership is the only one on promotion currently — specifically for Cathay Pacific Asia Miles — so it represents the best value right now.

Asia Miles are currently on sale from ASW

The Prestige membership also comes with the following additional perks;

• GHA DISCOVERY Titanium status
• Hilton Diamond status challenge — Diamond for 90-day trial, maintain with 10 nights or Gold for 5 nights
• Jumeirah One Gold status
• SIXT Platinum status
• The Bicester Collection Level 3 status
• CRURATED Membership
• ASMALLWORLD Membership (think exclusive ticket access to F1, Royal Ascot, and more)

Now, the issue is obviously many redemptions cost more than 55,000 miles and unless you have a nice stash of RBC Avion saved up, you’ll need to top up your Asia Miles account to make a long-haul business class redemption and Cathay Pacific also does not offer any miles pooling features between Asia Miles accounts.

Cathay Pacific Doesn’t Normally Sell Miles in Bulk

Cathay doesn’t routinely sell large quantities of Asia Miles directly, which makes ASMALLWORLD one of the easiest ways to acquire a six-figure balance all at once. You can buy limited Gift Miles and Cathay lets members top up an account when they’re already close to an award, but neither is a practical substitute for acquiring 250,000 miles.

Cathay will sell miles only as as top-up if you already have 70% of the miles needed in your account in blocks of 2,000 miles for $60 USD, aka 3 cents per point.

Buying through ASW at the current promotion costs 1.58 cents per mile. If you want to save your MR for other partners (like Aeroplan or Avios which transfer at 1:1) and would otherwise earn points at a slower pace via RBC Avion, buying 250,000 at once for $3,940 is actually not a bad deal.

I ran into this issue last month when purchasing a Cathay Pacific business class flight, and I was just a little short. My mom transferred all her Avion to make a booking, but was just a little short and didn’t have any Amex MR to top up. With no way to transfer my Avion or MR directly to her — and no free pooling feature for our existing Asia Miles — she ended up purchasing the last 6,214 miles needed for $186.42 USD.

Cathay sells miles at 3 cents per point, only to top up for an immediate redemption

Furthermore, ASMALLWORLD Prestige membership includes several additional benefits, such as GHA Discovery Titanium status, SIXT Platinum, and access to exclusive events.

Why Acquire Cathay Pacific Asia Miles?

There is one major reason to earn Asia Miles: the ability to book Cathay Pacific business and first class tickets.

In recent years, finding Cathay premium cabin space through AAdvantage or Finnair Avios has become something of a pipe dream. By contrast, transpacific business class availability in its Asia Miles program is excellent, and you don’t even need to book right at calendar open.

Cathay’s new Aria Suite business class flies from Vancouver and looks like an excellent product. The regional variant, Aria Studio, is also coming soon.

Cathay Pacific Aria Studio business class

A one-way business-class flight from Vancouver to Hong Kong costs 91,000 Asia Miles, while the same flight from Toronto costs 119,000 miles due to the longer distance. The silver lining of paying 119,000 miles is that is the top end of Cathay’s distance-based award chart, so flying onwards to somewhere in China or even to Sydney costs the same amount of miles.

Travel all the way to Sydney for 119,000 Asia Miles

250,000 miles from ASW is enough for one person to fly Cathay Pacific business class round-trip between North America and essentially anywhere on Cathay’s network, with at least 12,000 miles left over. Alternatively, it’s enough for two people to fly one way.

Link to Purchase Cathay Pacific Asia Miles with ASW

Takeaway

At 1.58 cents USD per mile, this is the best price we’ve seen for acquiring Asia Miles through ASMALLWORLD, and it’s a compelling opportunity for anyone looking to build a substantial balance quickly. Cathay Pacific’s reluctance to release premium cabin award space to partners makes Asia Miles particularly valuable, considering its own members have much better access to business class availability.

That said, $3,940 USD is a significant upfront commitment, and I wouldn’t recommend buying 250,000 miles speculatively just because they’re on sale. If you have a specific Cathay Pacific redemption in mind and/or can make good use of the additional ASMALLWORLD membership benefits, the math can work out quite favourably. If you’re unsure, stick to earning RBC Avion, which can transfer to not just Asia Miles, but also British Airways Avios and American AAdvantage.

Featured Image Credit: Cathay Pacific