Qantas Frequent Flyer or Cathay Asia Miles

[NinnyPoo]

I am Singapore based and have already attained Qantas lifetime Gold. I tend to fly SQ more now, but fly to HK at least once a month (business). As Cathay is cheaper for business tickets I often fly them and accrue Qantas points. I also can fly to Sydney both business (two times a year) and twice in economy.

I can transfer credit card points to Asia Miles or Qantas.

My use of points is mainly trips to Australia and potentially a business class splash to Europe (from Singapore)
Thoughts on whether I should join Asia Miles as a better return? (Or potentially another One World carrier) and whether they would comp me to the Qantas gold equivalent.

 

[Anna]

I'm also QF LTG, and am in the process of shifting points earn over to Asia Miles for flights, cc's and hotels. Have been thinking for some time that it is too hard to redeem points for what I want on QFF and the taxes are ridiculous. The recent 'simpler and fairer' changes just make the QFF program worse.

On the ADL HKG route as an example, CX flies direct in 8.5 hours, I earn 8000 Asia Miles and to redeem that route costs IIRC about 48,000 miles. ADL HKG on QF takes all day via SYD and is a PITA. QFF points on the direct CX flight earns around 4,000 points and costs 72,000 points to redeem. So due to half the points earn and 2.5x the redemption cost (does that make AM 5 times better? ), bye bye QFF, at least for a while. Will assess after 12 months whether AM is a good deal for me or not.

YMMV of course, so do some comparison calculations on your usual routes.

 

[markis10]

I would be looking at DM if you want some variety when it comes to redemption with quite a few Star partners still playing or AA and do a challenge, card points can be washed through SPG in a lot of instances. Both are merging of course so eventually some of the unique aspects will go, but miles better redemptions.

 

[Limewood]

Must say I'm another thinking of ASIA miles with CX, being in CNS its easy for us to go direct via HKG only 7 hours or less then onward to Europe or USA, done this a few times, we go J long haul so status points don't mean much once I thought about it as can use lounges anyway, not flying as much these days but have big business spend on CC, so about to jump into the new ANZ black card and direct points to ASIA miles.