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Sound too good to be true? It’s not.
It just takes knowing where to look. Enter, Cathay Pacific’s Asia Miles program. Asia Miles is a great program that is mileage based ( meaning redemptions are based on how far you travel, not particularly which regions your traverse), has great routing rules, isn’t regularly talked about, and is where we’re going to highlight a sweet spot. Asia Miles has different award charts depending on which carriers you combine, and today we’ll work with their One-World Multi Carrier awards chart. It’s here that we’ll find the way to fly roundtrip in business to South America for 85k miles.
Asia Miles One World Multi-Carrier Awards chart
What qualifies?
- 2 different airlines not including Cathay Pacific/Dragon
- 3 different airlines including Cathay Pacific/Dragon
- Max distance 50k
5 stopovers, two transfers, and two open-jaws.
These are incredibly generous routing rules and allow for some very creative trip construction. We won’t get into those today because we’re highlighting a very straight forward booking that capitalizes on a sweet spot.
What’s the chart look like?
How can we fly roundtrip from the US to South America for just 85k miles?
Both American and Latam offer direct business class flights from Miami to Buenos Aires, and last night I was searching avail and found a fair amount of availability. So it got me thinking about doing a #weekendwarrior trip and I started thinking how I could use my miles, but also maximize the miles of my friends to make it happen.
According to Milecalc.com Miami to Buenos Aires is just 8812 miles roundtrip.
If we bring back the above chart, we can see that this creates a great opportunity…
So we would have to book this roundtrip with 2 different airlines in order to qualify for the Multi-Carrier Award chart
We could fly down on American’s 777-200 or American’s 777-300ER, both of which, are extremely nice ways to fly.
and then to fly a different carrier on the way back…LATAM Business Class
Don’t have Asia Miles? You can Transfer to get them
- Amex is a 1:1 Partner
- Citi Thank You is a 1:1 Partner
- SPG is a 1:1 partner, and every 20k you transfer nets 25k Asia Miles.
*Last Year, Citi Thank You had a 20% bonus when transferring to Asia Miles which would drop this ticket down to just 71k Points. Unreal.
Don’t have Asia Miles? Here’s how you can buy them…roughly $1550/roundtrip
SPG is offering a 35% bonus on purchased points, bringing the per point rate down to 2.28cents a piece. Every 20k points you transfer to Asia miles nets 25k. That equates to buying Asia miles for 1.82 cents a piece. you need 85k….
Additional Ideas for your trip.
This idea revolves around using Miami are your starting point…Clearly, if you don’t live there you’d need to get there. Miami is a large hub with tons of deals in/out of it, so finding a cheap positioning flight shouldn’t be too difficult. But, let’s say, you aren’t looking for a quick weekend trip like me…say you want to visit the Iguazu Falls, add in routing from the States, or maybe even add in Brazil.
For 115k miles you could Visit Argentina, Iguazu Falls, and Rio in Business…Here’s how:
Adding in just the Iguazu Falls will bump you up to Award Zone 8. This means you’d need 115k miles for your trip. Still a steal, but that award zone gives you up to 14k miles to travel. If you have the time, you might as well see some more stuff…
Like staying at the iconic Belmond Hotel Das Cataratas
You could conceivably book tickets from Miami to Iguazu falls with a stopover in Buenos Aires. Asia Miles allows 5 Stopovers. Then your return from Iguazu Falls back to the States could route you via Rio. If you needed to fly back into JFK, you could do so, as Asia Miles allows 2 open jaws. Just 10,600 Miles – You still have 3400 miles left…
You trip could look like this then…
- MIA to EZE on AA 777-300ER in business class
- EZE to IGR on LATAM business
- IGR to GIG on LATAM Business
- GIG to JFK on AA 777-200
This would allow you to fly the longhauls on AA, which is better business class, and still qualify for the multi-partner award because your intermediate flights are on LATAM.
Hope this got your creative juices flowing…
Opinions, reviews, analyses & recommendations are the author’s alone, and have not been reviewed, endorsed or approved by any of these entities.
Chase Sapphire Preferred® Card
Welcome Offer
Earn 60,000 bonus points after you spend $4,000 on purchases in the first 3 months from account opening.
Annual Fee
$95
Points Earned
Transferrable Chase Ultimate Rewards
- 5x on all travel purchased through Chase Travel℠
- 3x on dining, including eligible delivery services for takeout & dining out
- 3x on select streaming services
- 3x on online grocery purchases
- (excluding Target, Walmart and wholesale clubs)
- $50 Annual Chase Travel Hotel Credit via Chase Travel℠
- The begins immediately for new cardmembers and after your account anniversary for existing cardmembers
- 2x on all other travel
- 10% Anniversary Bonus
- Every year you keep the card, your total spend will yield a 10% points bonus. If you spend $10k in a year, you’ll get 1k bonus points
- Chase Sapphire Preferred continues to redeem at 1.25c in the Chase Travel℠ and the slew of other benefits remain in tact including Auto Rental Collision Damage Waiver ( primary ), purchase protections, etc.
- Points are transferrable to 14 Ultimate Rewards partners
- Redeem in Chase Travel℠ for 1.25 cents per point
- No foreign transaction fees
- Suite of Travel and Purchase Coverage
- Auto Rental Collision Damage Waiver is my favorite
- Get complimentary access to DashPass which unlocks $0 delivery fees and lower service fees for a minimum of one year when you activate by December 31, 2027.
- $95 Annual Fee
We keep an up to date spreadsheet that lists the best ever offers: You can find that spreadsheet here.
Historically 80k is a very, very good offer and hit in both 2022 and 2023. In 2021, we saw the offer hit an all time high of 100k. Who knows if that will ever come back.
Main Cast:
Cards that earn flexible points and should be used on the bulk of your purchases.
Supporting Cast:
Cards that earn fixed points in the currency of the airline/hotel and can not be transferred at attractive rates. These cards yield benefits that make it worth keeping, but not necessarily worth putting a lot of your everyday spend on.
The Chase Sapphire Preferred® is exceptional starter card and offers transferrable Ultimate Rewards, and pairs well with other Chase cards.
If you carry this card alongside Chase’s cashback cards like the Chase Freedom Flex® and Chase Freedom Unlimited® or the business versions: Ink Business Cash® , Ink Business Unlimited® you can combine the points into Preferred account and transfer into hotel and airline partners
Annual fee is quite low at $95 a year + you get a 10% anniversary bonus on points + $50 hotel credit in Chase travel.
The responses below are not provided or commissioned by the bank advertiser. Responses have not been reviewed, approved, or otherwise endorsed by the bank advertiser. It is not the bank advertiser's responsibility to ensure all posts and/or questions are answered.