Cathay Pacific has launched a new mileage bonus promotion:
- Registration is required.
- Promotion period: 9 November to 4 January
- Earn a 10% bonus when collecting miles through participating hotel, travel and retail partners
- The bonus is capped at 3,000 mile
Do pay attention to which partners are eligible, as credit card points transfers and similar transactions are excluded. For most people, Marriott Bonvoy is probably the most relevant option. The standard transfer ratio is 3:1, and transferring 60,000 Marriott points normally gets you 20,000 Cathay miles, plus a 5,000-mile bonus for every 60,000 points transferred in one go. With the additional 10% bonus from this promotion, that’s a total of 27,500 Cathay miles for 60,000 Marriott points.
Interestingly, according to the promotion page, some partners are running their own promotions with Cathay as well. For example:
- Hilton: double points on transfers (10,000 points = 2,000 miles)
- Hua Run Tong (华润通): double points on transfers (50 points = 2 miles)
- Badazhou: 20% bonus on transfers (5,000 points = 240 miles)
- Shinsegae Duty Free in South Korea: double points
All of these offers can be stacked with Cathay’s own 10% bonus, although the latter is subject to the 3,000-mile cap, and each partner promotion has its own terms and conditions.
Hua Run Tong points can actually be obtained through Ping An E-wallet, which means there’s indirectly a transfer deal from Ping An to Cathay as well. I did a quick calculation based on Taobao listings for 500,000 Ping An points at RMB960. This works out at roughly 1.07p per Cathay mile, provided you stay within the 3,000-mile bonus cap.
The offer I find most interesting, however, is from Airalo, the eSIM provider we’ve covered before. During the promotion, buy any eSIM through this dedicated page and the first 100 customers will receive 1,000 miles, while everyone else will get 200 miles.
Remember to enter your Cathay membership number at checkout:
If you’re planning a trip and need an eSIM anyway, this is perfect. Otherwise, the cheapest one-day roaming plan seems to cost just US$4, which is an absolute bargain for 1,100 Cathay miles!
If you decide to give it a go, enter my referral code KAI2510 when signing up. You’ll receive a US$5 account credit after your first purchase. You can also enter promo code MASTERCARD20 at checkout for a further 20% off. Cathay’s promotion terms don’t appear to prohibit the use of discount codes, but if you’d rather play it safe, feel free to skip this one.
There doesn’t seem to be any way to check whether the allocation of 1000-mile slots has already been used up, so it’s a bit of a gamble. That said, even if you miss out on the 1,000-mile bonus, getting 200 miles back is still a nice little return if you genuinely need the eSIM. The miles will be credited within 60 working days of purchase.
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