How to Redeem American Airlines AAdvantage Miles on Cathay Pacific
Cathay Pacific is a top airline with an extensive network. It has won awards for having a great business class seat and is a great airline for a comfortable trip to Asia. The best part is that flights on Cathay Pacific can be booked with American Airlines AAdvantage miles. Unfortunately, you won’t find their award availability on the American Airlines website when searching for award space. To find those seats, we have to do a little extra legwork and search for award seats on other websites. In this post, I am going to explain how to find Cathay Pacific award availability and book it with your American Airlines AAdvantage miles.
Cathay Pacific operates flights to Hong Kong from Los Angeles, San Francisco, Chicago, New York, Toronto, Vancouver and Newark (starting March 1, 2014). From there, it connects to a wide array of travel destinations all over Asia. Cathay Pacific also flies to Europe, Australia and even Africa. The airlines has some of the best award availability to Asia (perhaps because it’s not shown on the American Airlines website so many of those award seats are being left untouched). It also has a top-notch Business and First Class product and is a very highly rates airline. I keep trying to find the time to fly Cathay Pacific first class to Vancouver from New York; hopefully, someday it will work out.
While we can use our American Airlines miles on Cathay Pacific, American Airlines does not display Cathay Pacific award availability on its website. The American Airlines website will only display award space on flights operated by American Airlines, Alaska Airlines, Hawaiian Airlines, airberlin, Finnair, Qantas, or British Airways. In this post, I will explain how we can use the Qantas award search website to find award availability on Cathay Pacific and use your American Airlines miles to book the ticket. I previously explained how to use the Qantas website for award searching in my guide to using American Airlines AAdvantage miles on Iberia Airlines. You can also search for Cathay Pacific availability on the British Airways website, but British Airways will only show one day at a time and British Airways is not very good with flights requiring connections.
There are a few exceptions where the Qantas website will not show Cathay Pacific award availability for segments that Qantas itself cannot sell individually. While it is quite good at showing flights that go through Hong Kong, it does not show award availability for JFK-Vancouver on Cathay Pacific, for example. You will have to look on the British Airways website for that.
The Steps to Searching And Booking Award Space on Cathay Pacific
1. Create a Qantas frequent flyer account. Qantas only allows members of its frequent flyer program to use its search engine so you first need to register for an account. It’s free to join (except for Australia and New Zealand residents) and only takes minutes.
2. Search on the Qantas website for award availability for your dates.
3. Book the flight with your American Airlines miles by calling customer service.
Create a Qantas Frequent Flyer Account
Creating an account with Qantas is easy. You just go to the Qantas main website, click on the Frequent Flyer dropdown and click on Join Now.
You then select your country of residence, fill out your information and submit. You will then get an email with your account number and temporary PIN. You will need this to log into your Qantas frequent flyer account to search for award availability.
Searching for Award Space on Cathay Pacific
Once you have your Qantas frequent flyer account set up, you are ready to return to the Qantas website and start searching!
Again, go to the Qantas main website, but this time, click on Using Points.
Next, click on Book Now under Qantas and Partner Classic Awards.
The next page will ask you for your Qantas frequent flyer account login. Enter your account information and you will get to the Award Bookings page.
I am going to try to search from Los Angeles to Hong Kong in October. To make sure I can see the whole month when I look for awards, I am going to check ‘Flexible with dates’.
On the next page, I get a calendar view of the available classes for the time around the date I selected. I can actually check which classes I want showing. I checked all of them and hit ‘Go‘. To see the actual
To see what is available, I will select September 29 for the flight from Los Angeles to Hong Kong and October 5 to return. On the next page, I see the actual flights. So for the date I wanted for the outbound, there is an economy seat and a first class seat. Both are direct. Going back, if I want the direct flight on Cathay Pacific, it’s just economy. Of course, I can always try different dates, but you get the idea.
That’s it. You’ve found availability. Don’t price them on Qantas, don’t book them, just write down the flight numbers and move on to the next step, which is booking the flights.
Booking the Flights with American Airlines or British Airways Miles
American Airlines:
Of course, since the American Airlines website does not display award availability on Cathay Pacific, I can’t book any of this flight on the American Airlines website. In fact, if I even try to search for a flight from LAX to Hong Kong on September 29, I get a nice red message saying there is no availability.
So I have to call customer service at 1-800-882-8880 and ask them to book the award space. Fortunately, I already performed the search and I know the exact flight numbers that I need. I can tell those exact flight numbers to the agent and he or she can book them for me.
To find out how much the award will cost, I need to use the American Airlines Partner Award chart.
For example, Hong Kong is in Asia Zone 2. A flight from Los Angeles to Hong Kong will cost 35,000 miles each in Economy, 55,000 each way in Business and 67,500 each way in First Class.
Notes on the Qantas Website
The Qantas website is not perfect.
- It does not display all partner award availability. For example, you won’t find Japan Airlines or Malaysia Airlines, two other American Airlines partners serving Asia, award availability on Qantas. You’ll have to go to the British Airways website for that. You also won’t find availability for Air Pacific published online anywhere. You’ll have to call American Airlines customer service and have them check. We all know how much I love doing that, but we really have no choice here!
- There is an occasional, though rare, inconsistency between what is actually available and what Qantas shows. This has been known to happen a few times with Cathay Pacific. Just, if you’re planning to transfer miles into American Airlines, make sure to call the agent first and make sure the availability you’re seeing really is there.
- Qantas is not always best at coming up with routes with many connections. It is often best to break up your award search into segments. Say you want to fly from Chicago to Bangkok. This may require two stops. Chicago to Shanghai on American Airlines is often available if you look on the American Airlines website, but that’s as far as the American Airlines website will get you. If you then go over to the Qantas website, you can then see if you can find Cathay Pacific flights from Shanghai to Bankok with a stop in Hong Kong. It may take extra steps, but often essential for planning your perfect trip.
Of course, if you are going to be using American Airlines on international awards, make sure you optimize your miles by adding free one-ways:
How to Add Free One-Way Trips on American Airlines Awards
Or reader my other posts about how you can maximiZe your American Airlines miles!
From Caribbean in Winter + to Europe in Summer for 20,000 American Airlines miles TOTAL!
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The Qantas site is fast and easy but it sometimes shows phantom availability and occasionally fails to show available space. I find that BA.com is better for avoiding phantom availability, and for avoiding both issues (as BA.com will sometimes not show flights that are available) the best is the Japan Airlines website.
Agreed and thanks for the additional advice, Gary :) For more reliable and comprehensive availability (such as the JFK-YVR route on Cathay Pacific, for example), Japan Airlines and British Airways are superior though do require more patience. The main draw of the Qantas website is the monthly availability calendar view and ability to search multiple classes at once, but it is important to double check for potential phantom availability before transferring any miles or making additional travel plans.
Cathay also flies Hong Kong to Chicago.
Thank you for catching that! I fixed it.
Great walkthrough of using the Qantas website! I have to agree with Gary, though, about avoiding the Qantas website for phantom availability.
Excellent post, thanks! When booking over the phone what kind of taxes and fees does AA charge for booking inter-Asia flights with Cathay? I’ve long used my UA miles to book Singapore but it seems like Cathay might be a great option as well.
I like Singapore airlines too, but lament that business class can’t be booked with United miles. :( American Airlines actually does not charge any fuel surcharges on Cathay Pacific so the only fees should be the Hong Kong departure fees. I believe these are about $35, but I am not certain. They also charge a phone booking fee, but they should waive that once you explain that Cathay Pacific flights cannot be booked online.
One can also sign up for as little as 30 days of the KVS tool. After a couple of instances of phantom availability on Qantas, I went there. Result? I got three biz class with AAdvantage miles for 110,000 each, with a 10,000 mile credit, for travel ATL-ORD on AA, AA-HKG on CX, CX-JFK on CX and LGA-ATL on AA. The tickets on my dates would have been $7,041 a pop. And, yes, the seats on CX are that good.
That’s a great redemption! :)
I am planning on flying from ORD to HKG RT on Cathy Pacific in First Class using miles in June 2014. Can I add a Free oneway from OGG to ORD in First in March 2014 before my Hong Kong trip begins? Are their distance rules as I appear to be backtracking?
Qantas have updated their website now.. I’m having problem with booking from NYC to HKG!! Is it only me or some else also?
I stumbled upon this offering through an extremely attentive AAdvantage awards booking agent who clicked with me and was very generous as we joked and discussed options.
I snapped up my first class tickets LAX to Hong Kong and Beijing (second flight through Dragonair) and return Hong Kong to LAX. It cost a whopping $65 plus 135K miles.
Your blog post is excellent and thorough. Wish I found it earlier.
Thank you :) And enjoy your first class on Cathay!
is it possible to fly NYC->HKG and then do a stopover in another asian city for 55k miles for business class? In my case I would like to go NYC->HKG->TPE->NYC
With American Airlines, you cannot have stopovers outside of North America. Only in your international gateway city in North America. So you can do MIA-NYC(stop)NYC-HKG if you have a direct flight NYC-HKG. You can also do HKG-NYC (stop) NYC-MIA-GCM all for the same miles.
If you do find award space on Cathay, the flight from HKG to TPE is just 500 miles so it can be redeemed for just 4,500 British Airways miles plus taxes and small fuel surcharge. British Airways has a distance based award chart where short flights are very few miles.
This post has the details on stopovers and creating free one-ways with American Airlines: How to Add Free One-Way Trips on American Airlines Awards
Hi,
Do you know if BA.com charges fuel surcharge on CX flights intra Asia flights while redeeeming Avios?
Thanks,
Vamsi.
I just used avios to book DEL-SIN on CX J through BA.com and paid less than $100 in taxes/fees.
Hi,
I’m planning my honeymoon to Thailand in late April/early May 2014, flying from San Francisco connecting through Hong Kong. The departure flight from SFO->HKG is operated by Cathay, but the second leg is operated Emirates. I went to the Cathay website and found a connecting flight from HKK to Bangkok, which wasn’t listed on the Qantas website. My question is: do I need to book two different flights (which will cost me additional AA miles) or can I book as a single transaction with a layover in HKG?
You won’t need to book two different flights and can just call customer service and give them the flight numbers at once to price as a single leg. You may actually find my two-part post on helping my cousin Roman plan a trip to Asia with his American Airlines miles useful! Planning a Trip to Asia with American Airlines Miles: Part 1 of 2.
Thanks! By the way, your website is very helpful and informative – you just saved our honeymoon!
Thanks for the site compliments and I hope you two have a great honeymoon. I forgot to mention your connection in Hong Kong cannot exceed 24 hours for it to count as a single leg. But if you want to spend a few days in Hong Kong, you can use 7500 British Airways miles to proceed to Bangkok like my cousin Roman did. It’s all in the post!
I can’t seem to find LAX-HKG on the Qantas webpage. It does not bring up HKG as an arrival airport – any advice?
Qantas has recently changed its award search engine which makes it harder to use for partners. On the bright side, British Airways has improved it. It is best to search on the British Airways website now one segment at a time. In addition, British Airways is actually more reliable.
Hello, Love your blog and your direction is so clear
I just have a quick question. I also find out that cathay tends to hold on to their business class until the last min to open them up for award booking. so what happen if i want to book an award ticket that’s like within 3 or 4 days then i called AA, isn’t there a late booking fee go along with that?
thanx
AA will charge a $75 close-in booking fee for any award tickets issued within 21 days of departure. Glad you like the blog :)
I have over 100k miles on AA and want to book a trip to India . Could you please suggest the best way to redeem it ?
A slightly different Sanrio: If I purchase a Cathy Pacific economy or business class tickets, how can I upgrade to business class or first class with American Airline miles?
This methodology doesn’t seem to work today. I think Qantas has changed their site. I can’t seem to get the award booking page to appear with the given steps.