Cathay Pacific’s frequent flyer program Asia Miles is offering up to 4x bonus miles on stays with numerous hotels.

These include:

• Anantara Hotels, Resorts & Spas: 3x miles
• AVANI Hotels & Resorts: 3x miles
• Best Western: 3x miles
• eslite hotel: 2x miles
• Fairmont Hotels & Resorts: 3x miles
• Hotel Éclat Taipei: 4x miles
• karaksa hotel: 3x miles
• Minyoun Hotel: 3x miles
• Tivoli Hotels & Resorts: 3x miles

While the majority of these hotels are international, AVANI and Best Western have properties here in New Zealand.

Visit the Asia Miles offers website for more information on each of the offers above, including minimum stay requirements (click on ‘Stay’).

Many of these offers also come with other exclusive benefits, including discounted rates, free breakfast, etc.

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Guide to earning Asia Miles from hotel stays

There are a large range of hotel partners where you can earn Asia Miles when you stay.

Asia Miles can be used towards award redemptions with Cathay Pacific, Qantas, British Airways, Air New Zealand (between AKL-HKG), and a large number of other partners.

This guide is intended as an overview of the various options for those wanting to earn Asia Miles when staying at hotels when travelling for leisure or business.

Asia Miles Hotel Partners

The Asia Miles program is partnered with a huge number of hotels and resorts inside and outside New Zealand. If you book directly with one of these partners, you’ll earn Asia Miles for your stay, if on a qualifying rate.

To earn miles with most of these partners, just show your membership card during check-in and try to add your membership number to the hotel booking over the phone or online before you stay.

Note that spend rates are usually exclusive of taxes.

* Excludes China. ^ Excludes these properties

You’ll see that some hotels offer a fixed number of Asia Miles regardless of stay length, others tie it to your total spend. So you’ll need to calculate what hotel will offer the best return on your spend, based on room rate and length of stay.

Make sure you refer to each hotel partner’s website for more information on how to earn Asia Miles and specific terms and conditions.

The key terms are:

• Hotel reservations booked through a travel agent or online booking site like Hotels.com or Agoda may not be eligible to earn Asia Miles.
• Some stays or rates are not eligible to earn miles and some properties within each brand do not participate in the Asia Miles program.

If you’re unsure, and earning Asia Miles is important to you, make sure to always check with the hotel for further information. It’s often as simple as a quick email.

Stay a night at the Grand Millennium Auckland, and earn 500 Asia Miles

Earn Asia Miles from hotel stays by transferring hotel loyalty program points to Asia Miles

You can also earn Asia Miles when you transfer hotel loyalty program points from participating hotel partners to your Asia Miles account.

The table below shows the transfer rate for the relevant hotel partner, and how much you need to spend to earn the minimum number of points required to redeem for Asia Miles. You usually won’t earn points on the tax component of hotel stays.

Note that these numbers are based on you not having elite status with any of these programs. If you have status, you’ll usually earn a lot more:

While these hotels offer the ability to convert their own membership points into Asia Miles, most also let you choose to earn Asia Miles direct (excludes Hilton come April 2018).

So which option is best? We’ve run through some of the more popular programs below to show how you can collect the highest number of miles from your stay, whether that is direct earn, or miles transfer. Note that all of these assume that there are no bonus miles offers on, which can affect the assessment.

Best Western Rewards

You can choose between one of the following for each eligible stay:

• 500 miles; or
• 10 Rewards points for each US$1 spent

If your qualifying stay will cost over US$250, you’ll ‘earn’ more miles by opting to earn Rewards points, and then converting. Cheaper stays will see you earn more miles by opting to earn directly.

Note that you’ll need at least 5,000 points to convert to 1000 miles. The transfer rate works out to be 1 mile per 5 Rewards points. You can change your earning preference here at any time before a stay.

Best Western Resort Bali Kuta

Shangri-La Golden Circle

You can choose between one of the following for each eligible stay:

• 500 miles; or
• 1 Golden Circle (GC) Award point for each US$1 spent

If your qualifying stay will cost over US$500, you’ll ‘earn’ more miles by opting to earn GC Award points, and then converting. Cheaper stays will see you earn more miles by opting to earn directly.

Note that you’ll need at least 2,500 points to convert to miles. The transfer rate works out to be 1 mile per GC Award point.

Shangri-La Sydney

Taj InnerCircle

Thanks to Taj InnerCircle’s Warmer Welcomes partnership with Shangri-La Golden Circle, you can earn Golden Circle (GC) Award points when staying at any Taj Hotel.

This provides an opportunity to earn a higher rate of Asia Miles on more expensive stays than you otherwise would have if you earned miles direct.

Golden Circle members will earn 3 GC Award points per US$5 spent on eligible charges, including room, F&B etc. on stays at any Taj hotel if they have linked their account to Taj InnerCircle. You’ll then be able to transfer your GC Award points to Asia Miles at a conversion rate of 1:1.

This gives you an effective earn rate of 0.6 miles per US$1 spend at Taj Hotels.

Thus:

• If your qualifying stay at a Taj Hotels Resorts & Palaces property will cost more than US$834, or your stay at a Taj Vivanta or Gateway property will cost more than US$417, you’ll ‘earn’ more miles by opting to earn GC Award points. Make sure to specify at check-in that you want to earn GC Award points.
• Cheaper stays will see you earn more miles by opting to earn directly.

Remember, you’ll need to accrue at least 2,500 GC Award points before you can make a transfer to Asia Miles.

The Pierre, A Taj Hotel, New York City

Starwood Preferred Guest (SPG)

With SPG, you can either earn miles directly, or earn Starpoints.

You can earn either:

• 2 miles or 2 Starpoints per US$1 spent as a Preferred Guest member; or
• 3 miles or 3 Starpoints per US$1 spent as a Gold or Platinum Preferred member.

Earning Starpoints can work out to be way better value – while 1 Starpoint will convert to 1 Asia Mile, which is the same rate as earning miles directly, you’ll receive a 5,000 mile bonus for every 20,000 Starpoints you decide to transfer to Asia Miles.

There is a minimum transfer requirement of 2,500 Starpoints.

Remember, Amex Platinum cardholders are entitled to complimentary SPG Gold Preferred status, which reduces the minimum transfer requirement to 1,500 Starpoints.

The Sydney Westin, a Starwood Hotel

Marriott Rewards

Whether it’s better to earn miles or points with Marriott Rewards can be a bit complicated, and could change once the SPG and Marriott merger is complete.

To summarise, you can earn either:

1. 2 miles or 10 Marriott Rewards points per US$1 at JW Marriott, Marriott, Ritz-Carlton, Renaissance Hotels, Autograph Collection, Marriott Vacation Club International, Delta Hotels, Gaylord Hotels, and EDITION properties;
2. 1 mile or 10 Marriott Rewards points per US$1 at AC Hotels, Courtyard, Fairfield Inn, SpringHill Suites, Residence Inn, Moxy, and Protea properties;
3. 1 mile or 5 Marriott Rewards points per US$1 at Residence Inn and TownePlace Suites properties.
4. 1 mile or 2.5 Marriott Rewards points per US$1 at Marriott Executive Apartments.

If you earn Marriott Rewards points and then want to convert these to Asia Miles, convert your points to SPG Starpoints first.

1,000 Marriott Rewards points will transfer to 333 Starpoints, which in turn equals 333 Asia Miles. You’ll also earn a bonus 5,000 miles for each 20,000 Starpoints you transfer to Asia Miles.

Using this transfer method will mean that each Marriott Rewards point will be worth at least ~0.33 Asia Miles.

Thus:

• If you’re staying at any of the hotels listed under 1, 2 and 3 above, you should opt to earn Marriott Rewards points, and then convert these to Asia Miles via SPG.
• You’ll earn more miles by opting to earn directly at Marriott Executive Apartments.

You can change your earning preference at any time before a stay.

Note that you’ll need a minimum of 8,000 Marriott Rewards points for this to work, as there is a minimum transfer requirement of 2,500 Starpoints.

If you are an SPG Gold Preferred Guest member thanks to your Amex Platinum, you’ll only need a minimum of 5,000 Marriott Rewards points, as the minimum transfer requirement drops to 1,500 Starpoints.

Sydney Harbour Marriott Hotel at Circular Quay

World of Hyatt

You can choose between one of the following for each eligible stay:

• 500 miles; or
• 5 World of Hyatt points for each US$1 spent

If your qualifying stay will cost over US$250, you’ll ‘earn’ more miles by opting to earn World of Hyatt Points, and then converting. You’ll also receive a 5,000 mile bonus for ever 50,000 points that you convert.

Cheaper stays will see you earn more miles by opting to earn directly.

You can decide when you check-in whether you’d like to earn World of Hyatt points, or Asia Miles.

Note that you’ll need at least 5,000 points to convert to miles. The transfer rate works out to be 0.4 miles per point.

Park Hyatt, Sydney

Club Carlson

Club Carlson will let you earn:

• 500 miles per qualifying stay at Radisson Blu, Raddison, and Park Plaza properties; and
• 250 miles per qualifying stay at Country Inns & Suites By Carlson and Park Inn by Radisson properties.

Alternatively, you can choose to earn 10 Club Carlson Gold Points per US$1 instead, and then convert to miles at a rate of 10:1. This is the equivalent of 1 mile per US$1 of spend.

You require a minimum of 2,000 Gold Points to convert to 200 miles. This is a pretty low minimum transfer rate compared to most programs.

Therefore, to maximise your miles earning:

• If your stay at a Radisson Blue, Radisson, or Park Plaza property will cost over US$500, or your stay at a Country Inns & Suites By Carlson or Park Inn by Radisson property will cost over US$250, you’ll ‘earn’ more miles by opting to earn Gold Points, and then converting.
• Cheaper stays at these properties will see you earn more miles by opting to earn directly.

You can change your earning preference at any time, so make sure you do the maths before your stay so you can work out what will earn you the highest number of Asia Miles.

It is important to note however that if you have an existing balance of at least 10,000 Gold Points, these will automatically convert to miles when you change your preference – so don’t choose switch if you’re otherwise banking your points for free nights, for example.

Radisson Blu, Sydney

AccorHotels

Le Club AccorHotels give you the ability to automatically convert your Rewards points to Asia Miles. Every 2 Rewards points you earn will automatically be converted to 1 Asia Mile.

Alternatively you can convert 4,000 Rewards points to 2,000 Asia Miles at your convenience.

The number of miles you’ll earn between the two options is exactly the same.

If you’re staying at AccorHotels properties regularly and are likely to collect more than 4,000 Rewards points, then it’s best to rely on the conversion option – you won’t lose any value, and you’ll also have the flexibility of converting to other partner programs, like KrisFlyer, Qantas Frequent Flyer, and Virgin Velocity.

A real positive of the Le Club program is that if you have elite status, you’ll be earning ‘bonus’ miles for each Euro of spend in accordance with your tier level, regardless of whether you opt into earning Rewards points, or automatic miles conversion.

Sofitel Auckland

IHG Rewards Club

With IHG Rewards Club, you can earn either:

• 500 miles per eligible stay; or
• 10 Rewards Club points per US$1 at InterContinental, Kimpton, Crowne Plaza, Hotel Indigo, Holiday Inn, EVEN Hotels, and Hualuxe properties; and 5 Rewards Club points per US$1 at Staybridge and Candlewood Suites properties.

If your qualifying stay will cost over US$250 (with the exception of Staybridge and Candlewood Suites), you’ll ‘earn’ more miles by opting to earn Rewards Club points, and then converting. At Staybridge and Candlewood Suites properties, the spent target is US$500.

Cheaper stays will see you earn more miles by opting to earn directly.

Note that you’ll need at least 10,000 points to convert to miles. The transfer rate works out to be 1 mile per 5 Rewards Club points.

You can change your earning preference at any time before a stay.

Intercontinental Wellington

Conclusion and Common Rules

Out of the nine major programs we’ve reviewed above, I find SPG and AccorHotels to be the most simple. Both programs give you the same mileage earn rate, regardless of whether you choose to earn direct, or earn points with their rewards programs and transfer later on.

With Marriott Rewards, it is better value to earn points and then convert these to miles via SPG – with the exception of Marriott Executive Apartments, where you should earn miles directly.

For all the others, you’ll need to do some quick maths before your stay, because the scenarios can work out different depending on the cost of your stay.

Also keep in mind these common rules:

• There are often hotel bonus promotions that allow you to earn extra points, which will often affect whether direct earn or conversion is the better deal.
• If you are an elite member of some of these programs, the minimum spend to earn points and redeem for Asia Miles will be even less – take this into account when doing the maths.
• If you’re only staying at a hotel or brand on a one-off basis, you should opt to earn miles directly in almost all cases. This is so you’re not left with an account balance that you cannot otherwise use. SPG may be the exception to this rule, especially if you plan to buy Starpoints to then convert into frequent flyer points.

Earn Asia Miles from hotel stays booked through aggregators

Is the hotel you’re wanting to stay at not an Asia Miles partner? Well you’re in luck, because you can also earn miles for booking via varying aggregator sites, which gives you access to literally thousands of additional hotels, villas, and apartments around the world.

In some cases, booking a partner hotel via these sites will see you earn more miles than you would otherwise earn by booking direct, but keep in mind that you likely won’t receive any status benefits by using an aggregator, and direct bookings can often be cheaper.

Missing Points?

Asia Miles advises that you should allow up to 8 weeks for your miles to appear in your account, and to retain your original receipts or invoices in order to claim any missing miles. This is often not a problem with most of the hotel chains as your receipts and stay information tend to be tied to your account and available to access online.

Should you find yourself needing to make a claim, you can do so by completing the form at this page. You must claim missing Asia Miles within 6 months of your stay. The form will advise whether Asia Miles can help with the claim, or whether you need to contact the hotel directly.

Summing Up

There are a huge selection of hotels that you can earn Asia Miles at, and your earning ability is extended through their partnership with hotel booking aggregators like Rocketmiles.

The number of Asia Miles you will earn will depend on how much you travel, whether it’s predominantly domestic or international, and the nightly rates of individual hotels. Make sure you do the maths.

Keep an eye on your hotel bookings to make sure you’re not missing out on Asia Miles for your next stay.

Photos courtesy of respective hotels.