IN BRIEF | Asia Miles, the frequent flyer program of Cathay Pacific, will no longer allow free stopovers on award bookings from Wednesday, 1 April 2020.
Currently, when booking an Asia Miles award ticket for travel on Cathay Pacific, Cathay Dragon or partner airlines, you are entitled to one free stopover on one-way bookings. On return bookings, you can stop over for free in both directions.
From 1 April, only one transit of up to 24 hours is permitted on one-way award bookings, or in each direction on round-trip awards.
The new flight award rules are outlined on the Asia Miles website, which says:
Stopover duration will now be limited to a maximum of 24 hours for Asia Miles Awards and Airline Partners Awards. Please note that all waitlist bookings made before 1 April 2020 are bounded by this change.
For example, if you redeem an itinerary with Cathay Pacific from Taipei to Bangkok, transiting through Hong Kong, the maximum duration for your stopover in Hong Kong is 24 hours. If the duration is more than 24 hours, you are required to make two separate bookings, with Taipei to Hong Kong as the first booking, and Hong Kong to Bangkok as the second.
Asia Miles Oneworld multi-carrier awards, which can be used to fly around the world, are not affected by this change.
Asia Miles is also making changes to waitlisting. From 1 April 2020, Asia Miles members will only be allowed to have up to 10 bookings on waitlist at a time. If this limit is reached, members will be required to cancel one of the waitlist bookings before adding a new one.
