Beware of Asia miles! Check miles needed by phone call!

[VAG newbie]

Beware of Asia Miles. The points showing on their websites can be misleading. I tried to book a return flight from BNE to NRT in J, after confirming the miles needed was 80000, I transfered my credit card points to Asia Miles.

After I got my 80,000 points and tried to book (while still showing 80,000), I couldn't proceed as it shows I don't have enough miles. I tried to contact them and they say its because their awards are based on distance, the 80,000 shown was based on direct flights between BNE to NRT, but if I transfer in HKG, the total distance is longer and will require 120,000 miles. Of course there is no direct flight between BNE and NRT, and I know with CX you need to transit in HKG. They should know that when they design the award chart! There was no way I could've known the total miles needed was 120,000 and requested them to either honour the flight at 80,000 or give my points back. They couldn't do any of that, instead offered me to fly to HKG only or try economy! They can't even give me some bonus miles to help me reach the 70% needed for miles top up.

So I am stuck with 80,000 miles in Asia Miles that I can't really make a good use of it other than trying to gather more points to complete the redemption.

I just thought I would like to share this with everyone before another victim fell into the trap! You can try to search it yourself and see if I am telling the truth (although CX might change it after my complaint). Or I am happy to send you the screenshots I took showing its 80,000 miles between BNE and NRT.

My advice, stay away from Asia Miles and CX

 

[teezu2]

I too have recently experienced a similar fate whereby taking it up with several senior personnel at AM and ending with..... Zippo, 0, nil....,, "sorry sir, we will address it internally with our website people".....

Not good enough Asia Miles, you've lost me!

 

[VAG newbie]

I thought I was the only unlucky one. I can't believe there are other victim out there! This is practically a scam!

It's like, an iPad is listed at $200 on a particular website, but the only way to do buy it is purchase a voucher which is non refundable. After you purchase the voucher, they'll tell you that it was misprint and you need extra $1000 to complete your transaction. You decided not to go ahead and want a refund, then they tell you "I'm sorry sir, it's non refundable! How about buying something instead? Maybe this No Frills tablet for $200?"

This should be illegal! I will try to use this 80k miles and that's it! No more CX for me!

 

[teezu2]

.........and me makes 2.....lol

Just hope someone with time on their side takes it up proper.... Fraud by deception Asia Miles

 

[Mwenenzi]

Just read the t&c's Its not new https://www.asiamiles.com/am/en/redeem/charts
If you cannot fly direct you have a connecting sector

General Conditions

1. Award zones are based on the one-way distance between the origin airport and destination airport. If connecting sectors are involved, the sector distances should be added together to determine the total one-way distance and the applicable award zone. Unless indicated otherwise, the awards in the table apply to round-trip flights.

 

[VAG newbie]

Darn! They got it all covered haven't they? Obviously they know it has misled many people but instead of fixing the website they just put it in T&Cs. This doesn't change the fact that it's a scam, but just legal scam. Otherwise they could've easily fix their website and display the correct miles needed. Instead they choose to continue displaying the lower miles needed, and attract people like me who don't read T&Cs carefully (which I suspect will be the majority of people) and fall for it. Now I am forced to fly CX anyway as I have to use the 80k points.

No wonder when I said to them other airlines would have done this and that, all they say is every airlines has different T&Cs.

But I guess we still need to warn our fellow Aussie FF who plan to use Asia Miles. Unless you are flying in and out of HKG, all other destinations will require connecting at HKG from Aus. The only way to find out the exact miles needed is by calling them first.

 

[yohy?!]

seems pretty clear to me online, agree they shouldve been better on the phone but hey a call centre is a call centre after all...

 

[teezu2]

Yeah, pretty clear POST transferring points to the program....

 

[VAG newbie]

seems pretty clear to me online, agree they shouldve been better on the phone but hey a call centre is a call centre after all...

View attachment 26725

If you have enough miles (in this case, >120k), then certainly at the payment page it will show 120k miles is the total miles required. That's what Asia Miles customer service has been telling me and thus claiming they were not at fault and refuse to take any responsibility.

However, if you are a little potato like me who don't fly enough to have millions of miles in the account, who depends on credit card points, then you won't be able to get to that final screen. All I got was an error message stating my miles was insufficient.

I had only 2000 miles before I transferred my CC points over. So I checked online to see how much I needed to transfer, and it showed 80k. If you tried to book the flight you will get the error message stating the miles was insufficient. Of course, I only had 2000 points, so it was insufficient, and the error message was appropriate.

As an average Joe, all I did was transfer enough points to make it up 80k. (This is where it is misleading! You wouldn't transfer more than what you needed unless you knew you will use it, otherwise the points expire in 3 years.) Then I still got the same error message! By then unless you call, you will have no idea why it's not enough, and how much more do you need, yet the 80k points is stuck there!

Anyway, I finally got my trip sorted out. It wasn't Asia Miles that helped me, I came up with the idea. Since direct flights will be 80k, I asked them if I can book from SYD to NRT using either Qantas or JAL as both are OW partners and both offer direct SYD-NRT flights. I managed to score JAL biz on their new 787 with only 80000 points (which is darn cheap, that's the same as United award chart! Although JAL biz is nowhere near CX standard...) on the dates I wanted. All I need now is to purchase a BNE to SYD rt ticket, which is very easy to get and cheap, and being just one hour flight I don't mind economy. As I have Qantas Club, I can still enjoy lounge access if I fly with QF or JQ. So not too bad after all.

I guess I learned a lesson here. Asia Miles is a bit odd the award zone they display online is based on direct distance between 2 destinations yet the actual miles needed will depend on if there is a transit flight, which will totally mess up the miles needed. Just to warn our fellow Aussie FFers, I'm sure there are many like me who depend on CC points rather than actually flying to get the points. If you know how it works, overall it's not too bad a program, and it's points are relatively easy to accumulate.

 

[Reggie78]

I have to say, in fairness, I too was looking at this flight (SYD-NRT) on Asia Miles website, and it did say 80000 points. The difference not mentioned above is that as part of this quote, there is a drop-down list to choose which airline to travel, and only QANTAS and JAL are listed.

Fair assumption to say that CX would be included as part of any quote on Asia Miles, but I have been made an cough out of too many times by doing the same

All's well that ends well I guess - you get a 787 flight which should be nice!.

 

[Aussie Pete]

I got burnt on this by Emirates a few years ago. I had enough points to get SYD-BKK but when I went to redeem they said I had to hub via Dubai per the program rules wven though teh plane stopped at BKK on teh way so they wanted to charge points for SYD-BKK-Dubai-BKK.....

I think the issue of quote versus actuals should be clearer for people....

 

[Zulu0929]

I booked a trip from PER to BKK via HK return and it was 80000 points in J. Great value all the way with CX. I checked with QF at the time and they wanted twice as many points for me to fly in CX metal......! Now that is OW working together. Of course QF no longer fly from Perth to HK and just about to stop the SIN flight as well which makes it even harder to support QF when they don't fly anywhere from PER. The minimum flights on QF will also kick at some stage so the SCs will not count unless I have flown the minimum number of flights with QF.

It's a challenge!

 

[VAG newbie]

You are lucky as you live in Perth so you don't waste 3000 miles just trying to cross the continent. If you live in east coast, the miles needed may be 120k rather than 80k.

I think any FFP is better than QF in terms of miles needed to redeem flights. I guess partially it's because QFF points are relatively easy to earn. (Like the minimum earn of 1000 miles for any QF flights, although it will reduce to 800, still good earn) Asia miles will not earn any points for heavily discounted economy.

But if using credit cards points, I think using Asia Miles is definitely more worthwhile than QFF.

 

[mitwg]

Given your situation, you should also explore the situation of mixing OW carriers in your award. Sometimes, this will make the award cheaper than the CX only rates.

For example, as you know now, it would cost you 120k if you flew exclusively on CX from BNE to NRT (via HKG). But if you add OW carriers into the booking (which is very easy to do, given QF and JL) the price drops to 115k instead. Sure, you miss out going on CX but you also save 5000.

Btw, there is a way to check how much miles will cost online on CX's website even without having the required miles on your account. You just need to pick waitlisted sectors and this will let you proceed to the screen that will show the actual cost of the flight in miles, plus the applicable surcharges. Due to the same gimmick you experienced, I always do this before planning an award on CX.

 

[legroom]

I always check with Global Mapper for the required mileage.

Then I refer back to the Asia Miles award chart which is clearly based on miles and not destinations / zones (https://www.asiamiles.com/am/en/redeem/charts) to work out how many miles I'd need.

I'm sorry for your misunderstanding but it could have been avoided.

 

[zig]

Thanks to the OP for this thread. As a newbie to Asia Miles, I probably would have fallen into the same trap myself, however thanks to this I have now had the opportunity to check the miles and accordingly the number of points I would need to transfer from Amex to Asia Miles for the flights I need.

 

[Duffa]

Beware of Asia Miles. The points showing on their websites can be misleading. I tried to book a return flight from BNE to NRT in J, after confirming the miles needed was 80000, I transfered my credit card points to Asia Miles.

After I got my 80,000 points and tried to book (while still showing 80,000), I couldn't proceed as it shows I don't have enough miles. I tried to contact them and they say its because their awards are based on distance, the 80,000 shown was based on direct flights between BNE to NRT, but if I transfer in HKG, the total distance is longer and will require 120,000 miles. Of course there is no direct flight between BNE and NRT, and I know with CX you need to transit in HKG. They should know that when they design the award chart! There was no way I could've known the total miles needed was 120,000 and requested them to either honour the flight at 80,000 or give my points back. They couldn't do any of that, instead offered me to fly to HKG only or try economy! They can't even give me some bonus miles to help me reach the 70% needed for miles top up.

So I am stuck with 80,000 miles in Asia Miles that I can't really make a good use of it other than trying to gather more points to complete the redemption.

I just thought I would like to share this with everyone before another victim fell into the trap! You can try to search it yourself and see if I am telling the truth (although CX might change it after my complaint). Or I am happy to send you the screenshots I took showing its 80,000 miles between BNE and NRT.

My advice, stay away from Asia Miles and CX

I've just spent the last 2 hours doing dummy runs and thinking "Wow this is cheap compared to QF". Nearly dumped some cc points in Asia Miles but glad I checked old faithful, AFF prior!!
Thanks VAG!