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How much is an Asia mile worth?

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  1. #1

    How much is an Asia mile worth?

    My standard chartered rewards 360 points are about to expire at the end of this month. My wife wants to get 8000 HKD worth of PK shop coupons while I'd rather redeem them for 56,000 Asia Miles. Are the PK shop coupons the better deal or the Asia Miles?

    Thing is I'm not sure how much an Asia Mile is worth. Does anyone know? My wife also claims that it's cheaper to buy a package with hotel + flight tickets bundled together than buying them separately. And she claims that I can't use my Asia Miles to upgrade to first class if we bought a bundled vacation package where the hotel and flight is bundled into one. Is this also true?

    I actually am a complete Asia Miles newb, so I really have no idea how it all works. But I'm interested in upgrading to a business class flight to Europe, and I'm wondering how many Asia Miles that would cost for 2 people.


  2. #2

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    Depends a lot on how much premier cabin is worth to you. I flew twice to Haneda in Business on points (45K) which is worth close to 20K HK - but then I'd never shell out 20K if I had to pay. If PK=ParknShop, i.e., something that is basically as good as cash to use, then it's likely the better deal (since 45K is only enough for one of you anyways )

    HK_Katherine likes this.

  3. #3

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    take the Park n Rob deal


  4. #4

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    You can apparently buy Asia Miles for HKD 0.14 per mile from brokers.

    I think one of our members told me that someone bought cheap first class tickets for the family by buying a million miles from a broker for $14K - I could be wrong. I am not sure how it works and have not tried it myself. We had this conversation when debating if it was worth switching some US$ accounts that I have to credit card and bear the surcharge of 2% in return for miles.

    Also, I was once offered 0.25 cents a mile by CX about 10 years ago for a retail program.


  5. #5

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    Their value is entirely down to how YOU value stuff. Your wife is almost certainly right that standard package tours are cheaper than buying a hotel + flight separately and if you don't care where you stay or which airline you fly, you save money. If you DO care about hotels and airlines (I do) then a package is a complete anathema.

    The most valuable use of asia miles is usually to upgrade. You can get really good deals on upgrades on relatively long haul routes (like UK or US). Companion tickets are also a great deal. But if you don't want to fly in Business class and just want to save money, this makes no sense at all!

    On the other hand, vouchers for shopping you do ever day (park and shop) is basically cash. You don't have to take a trip to "get the value" and you can save your money to take the trip you want, when you want it, not when the Asia miles seats are available.

    So given how many miles you have I'd go for the PK vouchers. (And listen to your wife next time, her comments made a lot of sense and women are usually better at calculating voucher values than men IMHO )

    7jai likes this.

  6. #6

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    Quote Originally Posted by shri:
    You can apparently buy Asia Miles for HKD 0.14 per mile from brokers.

    I think one of our members told me that someone bought cheap first class tickets for the family by buying a million miles from a broker for $14K - I could be wrong. I am not sure how it works and have not tried it myself. We had this conversation when debating if it was worth switching some US$ accounts that I have to credit card and bear the surcharge of 2% in return for miles.

    Also, I was once offered 0.25 cents a mile by CX about 10 years ago for a retail program.
    HKD .14 per mile would work out to 100k miles for 14K HK. This can be a good deal (120K miles can get you to SFO in biz, 14kHK can't) but not too great.

    Yeah, I guess if you can buy miles directly from CS it must be a bargain. DBS credit card points offer you the chance of 1K miles for 48HKD cashback, i.e., 1 mile for HK0.048 / 4.8c. I guess they get it even cheaper. At that rate, I'd only fly biz .

  7. #7

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    Sorry, must have been 20K USD for the million miles.


  8. #8

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    Speaking of Asia Miles - I always wondered if it is a better value to redeem the points for flights? Or is it better to redeem for their products/items?

    Anyone know?


  9. #9

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    Also, banks average out the cost with their processing fees and interest charges over a large number of customers. Figure their cost is about 8-10. For Co brands I figure there us a Rev share.


  10. #10

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    Quote Originally Posted by 7jai:
    Speaking of Asia Miles - I always wondered if it is a better value to redeem the points for flights? Or is it better to redeem for their products/items?

    Anyone know?
    See my answer above. Its the same points.
    7jai likes this.

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