« Gulf Air Offers Triple Miles Promo | Main | Hiatus »
May 24, 2005
Cathay Pacific Visa for Canadians
Canadians can get a Cathay Pacific Visa Platinum card from RBC Bank.
The annual fee is stiff at CA$150, but the card earns 1 AsiaMile per Canadian dollar spent -- pretty good earning -- on top of the 5000 AsiaMiles with first purchase.
The AsiaMiles program permits upgrading on British Airways and American in addition to Cathay Pacific, and some of its awards are incredible values. 60,000 AsiaMiles buys you a business class award of less than 5000 miles each way. That would yield a British Airways ticket from the U.S. East Coast to most destinations in Europe. American charges 50,000 miles in coach for that.
AsiaMiles is my program of choice for transferring eBay Anything Points, by the way, since 1 eBay point yields slightly more than 1 AsiaMile.
Posted by gleff at May 24, 2005 7:36 PM
Trackback Pings
TrackBack URL for this entry:
http://blogs.flyertalk.com/mt-tb.cgi/146
Comments
I think I read somewhere, one of the best ways to earn AsiaMiles is to earn them through ebay credit card. No annual fee.
Posted by: Ehtesham Qamar at May 25, 2005 6:07 AM
True, you need to do the math but this card will earn 1 AsiaMile per CANADIAN dollar spent rather than just over 1 AsiaMile per US dollar spent (a la the eBay card).
So this card seems a good solution for Canadians, while the eBay card is a reasonable solution for Americans.
That said, you can also earn AsiaMiles via the Starwood Amex -- and if you transfer 20k points at a time to Cathay Pacific you wind up with 25k AsiaMiles, or an earning rate of 1.25 miles per dollar.
Posted by: Gary at May 25, 2005 7:20 AM
wait, so cant i just buy 60k ebay points for $600, transfer to cx, and have a business ticket from jfk-lhr?
Posted by: dan at May 25, 2005 8:31 AM
I don't believe you can just buy anything points from eBay @ 1 cent apiece.
I understand that some folks have been known to set up dummy auctions that they win themselves and award ebay points in the process. I counsel against that, and it's certainly against eBay's terms and conditions.
Posted by: Gary at May 25, 2005 8:35 AM
is there anyway besides for paying points.com $10 a month to do the ebay points to asia miles transfer?
Posted by: dan at May 25, 2005 11:13 AM
Since Asia Miles just joined Petro-Canada Petro Points program, you can transfer 10 Petro Points to 1 Asia Miles and Citi MasterCard has introduced their no annual fee Petro MasterCard with an earn ratio of $1 = 10 Petro Points, you essentially can earn $1=1 Asia Miles @ no annual fee and save 2 cents at the gas pump on top of that. Save the $150 that RBC charge and get the Citi Petro Card. This is the best Asia Miles earn ratio in Canada.
Posted by: Johan at June 18, 2005 1:57 AM
Post a comment
Thanks for signing in, . Now you can comment. (sign out)
(If you haven't left a comment here before, you may need to be approved by the site owner before your comment will appear. Until then, it won't appear on the entry. Thanks for waiting.)