Cathay Pacific Award Chart Changes Are Coming in April

Updated: March 20, 2025, 1:42pm CDT

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What Goes Up (and Down) With the Cathay Pacific Award-Price Changes?
Final Thoughts

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Cathay Pacific is making changes to its loyalty program that are, for the most part, negative for U.S. flyers. The number of Asia Miles required for award flights is going up — but there is a bit of good news.

Let’s look at the changes Cathay Pacific is making to Asia Miles next month.

What Goes Up (and Down) With the Cathay Pacific Award-Price Changes?

There are changes coming to the Cathay Pacific loyalty program. The number of Asia Miles required for awards is going up in many cases — typically increasing by almost 5%.

The Hong Kong-based airline announced that the changes will take effect on April 15, 2025.

The good news here is that Cathay Pacific provided weeks of advance notice and didn’t raise award prices massively. In fact, some mileage requirements are even decreasing.

The airline has provided a notice on its site with a table containing some examples of the changes, and we can see that business-class awards from the U.S. West Coast to Hong Kong (HKG) are going to cost 4.8% more. From the East Coast, the price is increasing by 4.5%. This is balanced by a drop of up to 10% in the price of economy awards within Asia.

The changes apply only to flights on Cathay’s own airplanes. The airline hasn’t communicated any changes to award prices on partner carriers, which is another piece of good news — for now, as there’s no guarantee those won’t change through another announcement.

Pricing changes are as follows:

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Examples (from/to Hong Kong)	Class	Asia Miles required one-way until April 14	Asia Miles required one-way from April 15
Hangzhou, Manila, Taipei	Economy	7,500	7,000 (-6.7%)
Bangkok, Shanghai, Singapore	Economy	10,000	9,000 (-10%)
Denpasar, Osaka, Tokyo	Business	12,500	13,000 (+4%)
London, Los Angeles, Vancouver	Business	84,000	88,000 (+4.8%)
Boston, New York, Toronto	Business	110,000	115,000 (+4.5%)

Awards can be booked at current prices until April 15 at midnight Hong Kong time, which is noon Eastern Time in the U.S. on the same day. If you have a trip planned to destinations served by Cathay Pacific and can book before April 15, we recommend doing so to take advantage of current prices.

This gives you a lot of lead time since Cathay Pacific awards can be booked up to 360 days in advance. Booking on April 15, 2025, means you will be able to book flights with Asia Miles until mid-April 2026.

This devaluation is relatively benign compared to the slashing we saw in October 2023 when Asia Miles hiked award prices, hitting long-haul business class especially hard. For example a flight to/from Hong Kong between 5,001 to 7,500 miles, covering much of North America, went from 70,000 to 84,000 miles — a jump of 20%.

Hot Tip:

Asia Miles isn’t the only currency that can be used to book flights on Cathay. Alaska Airlines and American are possible alternatives, as we explain in our step-by-step guide to the best ways to book Cathay Pacific business class.

Final Thoughts

Devaluations of mileage awards are a fact of life. Not all of them are deep cuts to the value of points and miles, though. The one Cathay Pacific just announced isn’t as radical as the devaluation its Asia Miles currency had in 2023. It’s even accompanied by a decrease in the number of miles needed for some intra-Asia flights.

For most flyers based in North America, though, this is a hit. You can prevent its effect by booking before April 15, which is when higher prices take effect.