How I Booked My Cathay Pacific First Class Flight?

In this post I’d like to show exactly how I managed to book my Cathay Pacific First Class flight. The reason I’m doing this, is I’m receiving a TON of traffic from all kinds of media outlets where my video of the trip was featured.

Here are some of the links where I was featured 🙂 Very thankful!

Travel And Leisure: How One Frequent Flier Snagged an $18,000 Flight for $76
MSN: Experiencing the high life: Man flies first class from Hong Kong to New York for just 50GBP, saving a staggering 13000GBP
Daily Mail: Blogger reveals how he managed to fly first class from Hong Kong to New York for just $75
Mirror: How I blagged a £20,000 first-class holiday to and from Hong Kong for just £103
The SUN: CLASS! Man flies first class from Hong Kong to New York for just £50 – saving £13,000
News.com.au: The insane in-flight luxury this passenger experienced for $100
Khaleej Times: Man flies first class for just Dh275
Live Leak: Experiencing the high life: Man flies first class from Hong Kong to New York for just 50GBP, saving a staggering 13000GB
Story Trender: EXPERIENCING THE HIGH LIFE: MAN FLIES FIRST CLASS FROM HONG KONG TO NEW YORK FOR JUST 50GBP, SAVING A STAGGERING 13000GBP

Earning Alaska Airlines Miles:

I earned most of my Alaska Airlines miles from opening Alaska Airlines credit cards from Bank of America. The Alaska Airlines Visa Signature® Card currently offers 30,000 bonus miles after you spend $1,000 in the first 90 days from account opening.

You can also transfer Starwood Preferred Guest (SPG) points to Alaska Miles. I recommend you transfer in increments of 20,000 points since SPG offers 5,000 bonus miles for every 20,000 points you transfer. The maximum number of points you can transfer per 24 hours is 79,999. Therefore, I suggest you transfer 60,000 points at a time in order to receive 15,000 bonus miles for every 60,000 you transfer.

Alaska Airlines Award Chart:

Alaska Airlines charges the following for one-way travel between the U.S and Asia on Cathay Pacific:

Coach: 30,000 miles
Premium Economy: 35,000 miles
Business: 50,000 miles
First: 70,000 miles

The taxes and fees for this flight is only $76

Finding Cathay Pacific First Class Award Availability:

In order to find availability in Business or First Class on Cathay Pacific, you’ll need to book either way in advance – about 10 to 11 months out – or very last minute; within 1 week of departure. In my case I booked way in advance.

I searched on British Airways website for the award availability. (You need an account with British Airways in order to search for award seats)

Once logged in you want to hover over “Executive Club” tab and click on “Spending Avios”

Under Reward Flights section; click on “Book a reward flight”

Enter your departure and arrival airport, date and class

When prompted to “Break your journey” select “NO” and click continue. This option is for British Airways flights only.

Once you find your desired flight; mark down the flight number and call Alaska Airlines at 1-800-252-7522 to book.

Bottom Line:

Hope this was helpful if you’re looking to book a similar flight. This is as straight forward as it gets when it comes to booking an award flight on Cathay Pacific using Alaska Airlines miles. You can book the same flight with American Airlines AAdvantage miles. However, a one-way flight between the U.S and Hong Kong will cost you 110,000 AAdvantage miles.

If you have any questions, comment below or tweet me @pointspointers or email me at pointspointers@gmail.com

SUBSCRIBE to my New YouTube Channel HERE. Videos with credit card points and frequent flyer miles tips and tricks released every THURSDAY at 12 PM Eastern Time.