UPDATE: I was able to get my Asia Miles renewed by following these steps. If you have expiring Asia Miles check it out and see if that works for you
Asia Miles are the proprietary miles currency of Cathay Pacific Airlines, a oneworld alliance member based out of Hong Kong. Cathay Pacific flies to many destinations from its Southeast Asia hub, but using Asia Miles on partner awards can be one of the more lucrative ways to use your Asia Miles.
(SEE ALSO: Cathay Pacific Business Class Review: 4 Short-Haul Flights, ICN-HKG-BKK Round Trip)
(SEE ALSO: Cathay Pacific 777-300ER Business Class Review: Hong Kong to San Francisco)
How to Get Cathay Pacific Asia Miles
Cathay Pacific Asia Miles are fairly easy to accumulate. In addition to flying on Cathay Pacific, there are a variety of other ways to get Cathay Pacific miles, even if you’re not currently flying internationally. You can get Asia Miles by flying on its partners such as American Airlines, Alaska Airlines or British Airways. You can also transfer to Cathay Pacific Asia Miles from several transferrable currencies:
- American Express Membership Rewards points
- Citi ThankYou points
- Capital One Venture miles
- Marriott Bonvoy points
Basically everything except Chase Ultimate Rewards. Cathay Pacific also has a co-branded credit card through Synchrony Bank (not an affiliate link). At the time of this writing, it’s offering 40,000 Asia Miles but it has gone as high as 50,000 miles in the past. My wife and I both signed up for the card a few years ago, so we each have about 53,000 Asia Miles.
Do Asia Miles Points Expire?
Historically, Asia Miles expired after 3 years of inactivity, regardless of any activity. That meant that there was no good way to extend the expiration of your Asia Miles. Cathay Pacific changed their expiration policy back in December 2019, moving to an inactivity policy, which is much more common in the miles and points world. It meant that miles earned don’t expire if there’s any activity in an 18-month period. What I didn’t realize then is that this was not a retroactive policy. Instead, any miles earned before January 1, 2020, still expire after 36 months, no matter if there is activity or not.
I thought I’d be able to simply transfer 1,000 Membership Rewards or ThankYou points to my Asia Miles account in order to keep the Asia Miles active, but that doesn’t seem like it will work.
What to Do With Expiring Asia Miles
So, what can you do with expiring Asia Miles? First, the good news is if your miles were earned on or after January 1, 2020, you can easily extend them by just transferring over some Membership Rewards or ThankYou points, like I mentioned earlier.
If you’re in the same boat as me, here are a few ideas I thought of. I figured I’d share and see if anyone else has better ideas.
My first thought — and really the best use of Asia Miles — would be to use them to fly either Cathay Pacific or partner airlines. Cathay Pacific actually has an amazing award chart with a ton of good value.
(SEE ALSO: 6 best uses of Asia Miles: including business class to Europe for 80k round-trip!)
The problem is that I don’t see myself flying anywhere any time soon. Certainly not by the end of May, which is when they expire.
You can “renew” your miles, which will transfer them from the old system into the new system of expiration. That would be a fantastic option except … it’s $20 for every 2,000 miles.
I have no plans to spend more than $2,000 to extend both my and my wife’s miles. There are also a variety of “lifestyle awards” and transfers to random Hong Kong programs that also seem like pretty bad ideas.
So unless anyone here has better suggestions, my best thought is to book a flight before my miles expire. If I can find something that I think that we might actually be able to use, that would be best. If I can’t find anything like that, then my best idea is to book a flight that I think has a high chance of being canceled or changed. Something with a lot of connections maybe? I’m not sure — I’ll have to think about that. Then, I hope that the flight gets canceled or drastically changed. Once the flight is canceled, I think (hope?) the Asia Miles that will be refunded to me will be the “new” miles that don’t expire as long as there is some activity.
The Bottom Line on the New Asia Miles Expiration Policy
Cathay Pacific Asia Miles changed their expiration policy in January 2020 to one where Asia Miles don’t expire with any activity within 18 months. But any miles earned BEFORE January 2020 still expire after 36 months, regardless of activity.
Between my wife and I, we have more 100,000 Asia Miles expiring in a few months and we’re trying to figure out how to not let them go to waste.
Anyone else in this situation? What would you do with expiring Asia Miles?
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Dan Miller travels with his wife and 6 (SIX!) children. He loves to help families travel for free / cheap, especially larger families. If you are looking for help, drop him an email at 
I am in same boat but apparently there is an easy way to convert them as new non expiring miles by two transfers once they expire.
https://www.flyertalk.com/forum/cathay-pacific-marco-polo-club/2014842-asia-miles-expiration-time-coronavirus-5.html
Awesome. Comments like these are the main reason I wrote this post :-). Thanks a ton
Glad it is helpful. I need to do this in May.
More generally, have other airlines extended their expiration dates became of the pandemic? Like American?
Yes – many airlines and hotels have loosened, extended or paused their expirations
Excellent post! I too have 100k miles expiring within the next few months and have been trying to book a quick trip to CAI on QR to at the end of the month to no avail. I’m not sure if allowing them to expire if I can’t use them and try getting them back with a “challenge.” Thanks Sam for the idea.
I just booked a flight with Cathay with expiring miles under the old rules. They canceled the flight but they reinstated the miles exactly how they came out of the account, with the original expiration dates. So your strategy sounded good but it won’t work unfortunately. I called them to plead an extension due to their fault…but no good
I have expiring miles too and I called them and they extended my miles to 18 months free of charge because of the pandemic. The only problem is that they said because is expiring in two days, the miles will show 0 but it will be back in a week. The line is recorded and I asked like three times to make sure I won’t be loosing my miles. Also, I contacted them a few hours later via online CHAT option and asked if my extension request went through. They said that it went through fine so I made a couple of screenshots of the conversation just in case they come up with an excuse later on if my points doesn’t show up again. Fingers crossed.
Just realized I had 95000+ asiamiles that expired last Aug 31. Did online chat they credited it back immediately…I checked before we ended the chat. New expiry date is in 2023.
That’s awesome! Glad the info was able to help you keep your miles.
My miles expired today, and I tried for the second time via Asia Miles chat support. My first time (earlier this week) did not work. They would not budge and only responded with pre-set responses (“sorry… you can redeem the miles instead… etc… etc…”). Requested a special arrangement. Got no help at all.
But this time, they immediately responded with this:
“Under the impact of COVID-19, many countries and regions implied travel restrictions. We understand that the opportunity for you to redeem tickets is significantly affected.
Due to the current situation, we are able to offer a special arrangement for you to renew your #### miles, which was expired on 30SEP2021.
The #### miles will be restored to your account later. Once restored, those miles will be valid until 30APR2023 (activity-based) and will be auto-renewed if there is any earn or redeem transaction in your account, please check your Asiamiles balance around 2 weeks later. Thank you.”
Not sure if this is a new policy or just a lucky exception…. but try it anyway!
54000 divided by 2000 is 27, times $20 is $540 not $1080. The $1080 would be the total for two people each with 54,000 expiring.
I have 170,000 expiring on May 31, 2022. I have emails the CEO Augustus Tang twice in the last year and then sent a letter in mid December 2021. No response at all from CX!! Today I posted a complaint about CX on my FB page asking them why are they so QUIET on this subject.
Try the steps I outlined in this followup post – it worked for me and I think it will be more effective than emailing the CEO or posting on their FB page.
I had booked flights with air miles on Cathay for next month The flights have been canceled and the miles restored. Cathay advised me that the restored miles have an 18 month redemption period. The miles used for the original booking were pre 2020. I have asked if I can “renew” the miles by buying gifts on their air miles website. Awaiting response
Can I request for an extension of my 6684 expiring miles? I have recently book trip to HK, Japan and LAX paying for it.
You can book a flight up to 12 months in the future. That way you have 12 months to figure out where to go. I did this.