Cathay Pacific Asia Miles - 500k Club Miles upgrade

I know this is not a guaranteed/published benefit but since I have heard from many people here and also from my friends...so I guess I'll see what experience some of you have on this.

Many people have said that they get an op-up upon reaching 500k lifetime Club miles (they were told this when the op-up was given). for those who had this experience before, was it (1) the flight that got your over 500k, or (2) the first flight right after you have already passed 500k ?

while it's not guaranteed, I'm just trying to time it so that I can maximize the chance of getting it for my next long-haul instead of short-time flight...thanks !!

I received an op-up on the flight putting me through 500K Club Miles, but my original cabin was overbooked. I do not know what that op-up was for. I forgot the details. I don't think I got an op-up the flight afterwards.

In my experience, a checkin agnet explicitly says an upgrade with 500k miles achivement. That occured after I have flown over 500,000 Club miles of CX flights.
In my calculation, this upgrade occured after I flew 500,000 Club miles of CX flights rather than 500k whole Club miles. There was 80k miles difference in my case.

Never happened to me when I reached 500K, I was also DM back then. Good luck with it.

In my experience, a checkin agnet explicitly says an upgrade with 500k miles achivement. That occured after I have flown over 500,000 Club miles of CX flights.
In my calculation, this upgrade occured after I flew 500,000 Club miles of CX flights rather than 500k whole Club miles. There was 80k miles difference in my case.

I was counting whole Club Miles in my case. It seems to be on the flight that put me over 500K. As this is an documented benefit, it is up to CX to op-up at their discretion.

Never happened to me when I reached 500K, I was also DM back then. Good luck with it.

Hard to say, they might already have op-upped you without mentioning that, or you did not receive an op-up because the upper cabin was full.

Hard to say, they might already have op-upped you without mentioning that, or you did not receive an op-up because the upper cabin was full.

You do have a point there.:(

Well, I hit the million next trip. Wonder if I'll get one.....

Well, I hit the million next trip. Wonder if I'll get one.....

Good luck! I did not get much when I hit 1 Million. A thank you note and a few inflight sales vouchers. May be they will be more generous now that times are rough.

Good luck! I did not get much when I hit 1 Million. A thank you note and a few inflight sales vouchers. May be they will be more generous now that times are rough.

As a DMP, you must travel in F often. Were you in F (or the highest available cabin) already? They probably could not op-up you anymore.

As a DMP, you must travel in F often. Were you in F (or the highest available cabin) already? They probably could not op-up you anymore.

If that's the case, I believe he/she might not expect one either.

As a DMP, you must travel in F often. Were you in F (or the highest available cabin) already? They probably could not op-up you anymore.

I'm not sure if this is Optm's experience or not, but when I chatted with the head of MPC he was saying you didn't necessarily have to fly F to get DMP (although I'm sure obviously it helps). He said many of their existing DMPs were actually flying J class long-haul, usually weekly. I suppose if that were the case it would be great if you got additional op-ups...does DMP ever get op-up for a non-operational reason?

that's right - you only need to be traveling mostly in J/F, not necessarily mostly F, in order to get DMP - but of course traveling in F often would help you reach the top 1% revenue threshold more easily.

Good luck! I did not get much when I hit 1 Million. A thank you note and a few inflight sales vouchers. May be they will be more generous now that times are rough.

I have over 500k miles, I was just on the phone with the WP platinum elite line... I asked if they did anything special... She said "not really".

Note that we are talking about Club (i.e. bum in seat) miles here, so it's worth rather more to the airline than miles collected through credit cards etc.

I'm a Diamond member and I'll hit one million club miles this year. In a lot of programmes, I guess you would be looking at the possibility of life-time membership? Do you get anything from MPC at all? - I presume not many people hit the million miles mark and are Diamond tier too, and it would seem pretty cheap not get some recognition of this- a single op-up would be almost insulting...

As a DMP, you must travel in F often. Were you in F (or the highest available cabin) already? They probably could not op-up you anymore.

Fair point. However I heard that CX used to make a big deal out of hitting 1M. Not only upgrade but also a few other perks.

I'm a Diamond member and I'll hit one million club miles this year. In a lot of programmes, I guess you would be looking at the possibility of life-time membership? Do you get anything from MPC at all? - I presume not many people hit the million miles mark and are Diamond tier too, and it would seem pretty cheap not get some recognition of this- a single op-up would be almost insulting...

Haha I agree with your point in principal, but I can tell you that as a not even a 2 year MPC member I'm already around the 500k club miles mark. And I don't think I'm alone...HK seems to have tons of people who just have to travel a lot to North America/Europe/Oz, and seem to be able to rack up extraordinary amounts of miles. Sadly I don't think 1mm for CX is much of a milestone at this point (given the heyday of 2004-2007 in Asia), if you think if it from CX's point of view...take someone like me, who could potentially hit 1mm sometime in the next few years. So I earn that say in 5 years at a 200k/year pace. And that's 5 years of not even being that loyal! I give miles to Star, EK, Qatar, etc. Chances are still, based on my line of work, that I move somewhere else at some time. So then I've got lifetime on CX...but am not really a long-term revenue source. I'd probably just use my benefits for cheap tickets for holiday or something like that. It's more like a "thank you" instead of a real incentive to earn it. I could see lifetime at 5mm, maybe even 3mm, but 1mm seems a little too easy. I'm guessing a lot of the FFs on CX are (or were, before this whole economic disaster) people like me who aren't from HK, and may not be in HK forever. I think the lifetime membership should really reward people who are dedicated to CX in the long run, haha not people like me who are more victims of circumstance than anything else. I would really prefer they put their efforts or dollars into getting the overall experience...more FAs in F, better lounge offerings, personalized service that actually treated DMs like they mattered ...instead of whatever they determine the cost of lifetime membership at 1mm is.

Given the economic downturn this could change the calculus of their MPC program completely (aka, if it's really ugly maybe they do start lifetime memberships again at 1mm or 2mm or something), but it doesn't seem like CX should do it at 1mm. The US airlines do....but they're likely not a good example to follow

There was life membership before I flew CX regularly. I thought that was pre-OW and is 2MM.

When I hit 1 million Club Miles, CX sent 100 USD in-flight shopping voucher.
That's all.:)

agree with QRC3288 that 1M Club Miles probably is too low a threshold. I have only been serious with MPO since the KA merger (2 years ago?) - before that I probably have <100k Club Miles - so I also clocked up ~400k in 2 years being maybe 40-50% loyal to CX/MPO (vs. AAdv and LH).

and just as a comparison - some 10+ years ago when they still had the Lifetime tier - it used to 2M km Club Miles (~1.2M miles) and consecutive 10+ years as an MPO member (at that time being an MPO member is similar to the current Silver level - so consecutively 10+ years as an elite member). at that time there's no oneworld, and so all these 1.2M had to come from CX (and KA too; only initial qualification needs to come from all CX flights, afterwards for re-qualification KA also ok; but there's not that many KA flights at that time). so I guess if CX were to re-introduce lifetime status, with the current definition of Club Miles (including all oneworld), they would probably require ~3M miles or more. or they can use a narrower definition of Club Miles, and restrict lifetime threshold calculation to flights operated by CX/KA only and make it say ~1.5-2M miles...

for me, I'm from HK and will likely be here forever...so I really would like to see some lifetime recognition from CX (instead of me now working to get this recognition via the AAdv way by putting everything beyond 120k every year into AAdv to reach their 1M/2M marks)...

Agree that MPO should re-introduce their Lifetime membership to encourage us to put our miles into the account once we reach a certain threshold each membership year (be it GO or DM). If not, we will bank our miles to other OW or even *A accounts.

I am flying mostly on CX/KA. I would also like to see that they introduce the life membership somehow. A lower threshold for CX/KA miles only will work well for me. I heard CX life membership used to be the equivalence of DM, but even GO is good (I can still do seat guarantee on Y, and in case I am not travelling one year, it will only take me 120K miles to get back to DM).

agree with QRC3288 that 1M Club Miles probably is too low a threshold. I have only been serious with MPO since the KA merger (2 years ago?) - before that I probably have <100k Club Miles - so I also clocked up ~400k in 2 years being maybe 40-50% loyal to CX/MPO (vs. AAdv and LH).

and just as a comparison - some 10+ years ago when they still had the Lifetime tier - it used to 2M km Club Miles (~1.2M miles) and consecutive 10+ years as an MPO member (at that time being an MPO member is similar to the current Silver level - so consecutively 10+ years as an elite member). at that time there's no oneworld, and so all these 1.2M had to come from CX (and KA too; only initial qualification needs to come from all CX flights, afterwards for re-qualification KA also ok; but there's not that many KA flights at that time). so I guess if CX were to re-introduce lifetime status, with the current definition of Club Miles (including all oneworld), they would probably require ~3M miles or more. or they can use a narrower definition of Club Miles, and restrict lifetime threshold calculation to flights operated by CX/KA only and make it say ~1.5-2M miles...

for me, I'm from HK and will likely be here forever...so I really would like to see some lifetime recognition from CX (instead of me now working to get this recognition via the AAdv way by putting everything beyond 120k every year into AAdv to reach their 1M/2M marks)...

Yea, I agree with this - say like 2 or 3mm (or more miles) and then people know what to aim for.

I can report back my own experience on my very first question now. just took HKG-JFK and it's a flight that put me over 500k. no upgrade, stayed in J. F seems quite full, but I didn't check if it's indeed 6/6. in fact, there's no usual greeting by ISM etc either - just the normal greeting by an SP/BC (don't remember) while giving out the menu, similar to what everyone in J gets.

I'll see if I'll get the 500k upgrade on my way back, if this HKG-JFK posts fast enough - my return is in 2 days - not too likely I guess...

(BTW - sorry to mention about this topic again - but now I finally had my first long-haul experience in the new J - I was lucky enough to have flown the new F some ~15 times long haul before and only tried the new J in short regional haul. but now I really can confirm I don't really like the new J even for long haul - well, maybe I didn't sleep much which is the value of the new J, and I'm wide/fat enough (~6'3" and ~90 kg), or maybe I was just too spoiled with the new F before. I worked ~10 hours on my laptop and really found the seat to be very narrow and I felt quite uncomfortable in terms of my shoulder-room, not really touching the partitions at all, but just feel that you can't really move much and are quite forced to be sitting still. I really very much prefer the old J...)

just to report back more - my HKG-JFK has indeed posted already very quickly and it's over 500k Club miles a day or two before my return flight, and they DID upgrade me on the return to F !!

the check-in agent said it's because of a "special occasion". she first said it's probably because of 10 years as an MPO member (she said it's most often the reason), but then she seems to read more from her screen and mentioned sth about 500k Club miles...so I guess it's indeed the reason. I don't really remember if it's exactly my 10th year as an MPO this month, probably around that, around 10-11 years now, but sounds too much of a coincidence with my 500k Club miles milestone - so I'd guess it's due to 500k.

BTW - my 500k Club miles does include oneworld flights, not just CX...

Wasabi Tofu, when you reached 1M Club miles, you just got a USD 100 voucher ? not even another upgrade ?

Wasabi Tofu, when you reached 1M Club miles, you just got a USD 100 voucher ? not even another upgrade ?

I checked my record.
I reached 1M threshold by DXB/HKG flight(Already upgraded to C by miles in advance).
I took HKG/NRT 2 day later. I was upgraded from Y to C.
However, that was the last day of Japanese holiday period, so flight was full.
I can not tell whether it was 1M upgrade or usual overbooked OP-UP.

I'm sure CX gives out upgrades when you have become MPO member for 5 years--this was what I told when I flew HKG-BKK and got upgraded to J with a half empty Y cabin.

I also know that CX gives out special recognition for 2MMs--a friend of mine flew CX F on a flight which took him just over 2M, and the whole cabin crew wrote a special thank you card, and several weeks later CX mailed a plaque with the flyer's name and phrase "2 million miles" or sth similar inscribed on it--along were some CX log pins/medals of the different designs over the years--so I guess CX do recognize flyers...but perhaps there are just simply too many 1mm around.

Perhaps they do recognize 5 years of membership as a significant threshold. I got upgraded once CGK-HKG on a nearly full flight (but one GO member standing in front of me during check-in was not upgraded, I was only SL back then). Yet, it also happens during my birthday and the check-in lady specifically mentioned "Congrats, it's your birthday, so we upgrade u".

just very curious (if this is really true) as to what tier you have to be to be op-uped after 5 years... if you're mpc green for 5 years, would you get op-uped too? i mean, wouldn't that be a LOT of people?

just very curious (if this is really true) as to what tier you have to be to be op-uped after 5 years... if you're mpc green for 5 years, would you get op-uped too? i mean, wouldn't that be a LOT of people?

I think you have to be at least silver.

Just happened to me. CHecked in and was told that I had reached 500K miles and they have u/g me. and also "thank you for your loyal support"....so guess these rumor's were true, as she explicitly said that it was for the 500K.

Just happened to me. CHecked in and was told that I had reached 500K miles and they have u/g me. and also "thank you for your loyal support"....so guess these rumor's were true, as she explicitly said that it was for the 500K.

That's good news :) I am looking forward to reaching 500k Club Miles, still short by 300k miles though :D

after the 500k-Club-mile upgrade I had just last month, I also just experienced the upgrades (yes, "s") from being a Club member for 10 years. let me summarize what I found out for others' reference...

I completely forgot about being a Club member for 10 years (out of which, maybe 1-2 years at the beginning as Gold, 6-7 years as Green, then 4 months as Gold from KA comp and 2 years as Diamond). from my account the date is Apr 2. I had a KA flight on Apr 1 which wasn't flagged for this - so this 10-year seems to be according to exact date and not just the month. I then had a roundtrip during the Easter weekend (Apr 10-13) which also wasn't flagged for this, probably because it's in F already (good that they didn't just "congratulate" me during that trip, but did defer the upgrades to my next trip).

anyway, this past week I had a 4-flight booking. a few days ago, when I checked in for my HKG-TPE, expecting an upgrade already since the flight was so full, yes, I did get it, but then the check-in agent said, Mr tedhl, thanks for being a Club member for 10 years, we have upgraded your seat today. at that time I was almost saying fxxk to myself, how could I forget about this 10-year thing and waste the upgrade on such a short HKG-TPE flight, esp if the flight itself was so full already and I would get an upgrade anyway without reaching 10 years !! anyway, nothing more I could do...

on the next flight, I'm in J already on a 2-class plane, so nothing happened at all. but then on the 3rd flight, I'm in J on a 3-class plane - it wasn't that full as far as I could tell and yet I was upgraded to F, and on the plane I was congratulated by the SP as being a 10-year Club member again - so I would somehow relate the upgrade again to being a 10-year member. I talked to some colleagues and from one of them he said his experience was similar, flights in the whole booking would be upgraded, not just one flight - and in my experience it's done flight by flight a few hours before each flight.

on the 4th flight - I just booked Y and used miles to upgrade it to J (as part of a longer upgrade award) - from what I could tell now it seems this has made this flight into another booking (issuing an upgrade always means creating a new upgraded booking and the old booking/flight in lower class being canceled), so the 10-year-upgrade-in-the-same-booking doesn't apply anymore. but, luckily, this flight was again overbooked and I was op-up'ed to F (and the whole F cabin was full, and I suspect almost all are op-up's). I assume this is not due to 10-year because no one ever talked to me about this in this leg, check-in, inflight, etc - in fact, I looked at the manifest too and it doesn't seem like there's anything on this about me.

so, some key points of the learning from my 10-year-upgrade are (again, all only based on my own experience and my own interpretation from all the interactions)

it applies to your first booking after your 10-year-anniversary date (not just month), and you won't lose out if your first booking is already all in the highest-class-possible as they would then just give it on your next booking
it seems to apply to the whole booking, all the flights; but not in advance, only 2-3 hours in advance, maybe like other op-up's but I guess it has higher-priority
if you upgrade some of the flights already, it would make it into another new booking and so this 10-year-upgrade privilege won't be applied to the new booking / for those flights - so be careful about this


would be interested in hearing others' experience about this too. enjoy !!

tedhl, thanks for taking the time to describe your 10th MPO anniversary. ^

I wonder if CX would honour 10th anniversary upgrades for both flights in the same booking but streched over a lengthy period of time - say for example Apr outbound and Dec inbound (with some other flights flown in between that period)?

Does anyone know where i can find the date of joining MPC, is it the date shown in the Membership Summary titling "Member since :"? I am not sure because the date appeared on that membership summary seems to be the date that I joined Asia Miles instead of MPC which should be at a later date.

Also, can anyone tell whether we can get a free upgrade on the date of birthday? Anyone had such an experience before? I presumed that's the norm rather than a must, rite?

Appreciate if you can answer my queries above.

As I had written earlier, I did receive an op-up (Y->J) on the day of my birthday last year.

:td:After 20 Years of membership I expected at least an upgrade but it was one of the worst flight ever.
I was on CX288 FRA-HKG in Y. F/C half full / Y quite full.

:td:After 20 Years of membership I expected at least an upgrade but it was one of the worst flight ever.
I was on CX288 FRA-HKG in Y. F/C half full / Y quite full.

Would you mind sharing you experiences which you think it's your worst flight ever?

And please don't mind me asking; what's your 20 years status with MPC?

Would you mind sharing you experiences which you think it's your worst flight ever?

And please don't mind me asking; what's your 20 years status with MPC?

I'm Lifetime/IN.
There was no attention from any crew member, no seat blocking, running out of favorite food.....
CX is going down and down, it's not the same as 10 Years ago.

wow...i would have imagining an IN/Lifetime memeber would get way more recognition as a DM....and hearing this.....really discourages one from working hard to maintain even a DM status....

I'm sure CX gives out upgrades when you have become MPO member for 5 years--this was what I told when I flew HKG-BKK and got upgraded to J with a half empty Y cabin.


It happened to me HKG-LAX. It was the reason given.

wow...i would have imagining an IN/Lifetime memeber would get way more recognition as a DM....and hearing this.....really discourages one from working hard to maintain even a DM status....

Maybe, maybe not. Perhaps depends on the Lifetime member's travel patterns. Maybe they don't travel much anymore, or maybe only in Y, so their business is not very important to CX but the cost of providing service is high, so they stick to published benefits only and no extras.

The high cost of serving lifetime members who may not spend money in the future, is the reason why there are no more lifetime memberships in the first place and now status always has to be earned.

However, hard to say why this should affect your experience inflight as I don't think the cabin crew have access to your importance revenue wise to CX (except the sector you are travelling on only).

I checked in for my TPE-HKG Y flight a few days ago, and the agent said that I was eligible for an upgrade because it was my 10th year as an MPC member. I then told her that I was actually transiting in HKG to go to PVG that day, but this second flight was on another PNR. So, the agent proceeded to get authorization to upgrade both sectors TPE-HKG-PVG (one on KA, the other on CX) to J.

The good thing is that, checking my account balance online just this morning, both sectors have posted 1.25 sector credits each (instead of 1.0 credits each) AND the mileage per J-class flight, not Y-class!