I think this is a great post. When I was reading through it, it did seem a bit biased towards CX but given the restrictions (Y flights only), it makes sense.

I think its still unfair to compare CX DM to KF EG though. If you are flying exclusively on economy, KF in the first place is probably the wrong program to credit *A miles to, when considering you can get lifetime *G with OZ for example for only 500k accrued (that's only 5 years of CX DM level flying), not to mention 12 years mileage expiry.

One thing that SQ trumps CX on is with the fleet. The CX hard product across Asia is so inconsistent due to frequent aircraft swaps, including to medium haul destinations like DXB. Not so much a problem on Y, but it still is an issue, and SQ is far more consistent in this aspect.

And the quality of the lounges outside of the home HKG/SIN ports respectively, I think the Silverkris lounges are generally better than CX counterparts.

Lastly, one thing that that is a plus for the KF program is the ability to do Y -> J upgrades with miles. Its not great value in terms of miles spent, but I feel it is much more accessible than CX Y -> J upgrades due to two reason:

-No PE so you can upgrade straight from Y -> J (obviously not a huge issue for CX intra-Asia flights however)
-There's less difference between the super saver Y fares vs. upgradable Y fares, unlike CX where the difference is larger

So yeah, I'd agree that CX still wins out, but I don't think its as one-sided as its been said above.