Originally Posted by
eastend405
Best Miles Program - I am moving from New York City to Hong Kong and will use Cathay Pacific a lot to fly back home and for flights in Asia. What is the best program for me to sign up for to earn and redeem miles? I am an Asia Miles member, but wanted to know if I should join marco polo club and if there are better miles programs that I should credit my flights to and from NY with and also the best mileage program for when I am traveling in Asia. I also earn points from Chase Sapphire Reserve which I can transfer to airline miles.
I did the same exact thing (moved NYC to HK). The first two years in HK, I banked everything with AA as I am lifetime Platinum. I have remained EXP since and a year ago got DM on top of it. I used the two interchangeably and found that DM was not significantly better. Very seldom was I upgraded (twice altogether if memory serves correctly). On the other hand, EXP offers better mileage bonuses and still does the SWUs (albeit now four instead of eight per year). Plus I got invited to several of the AA HK marketing events, which are actually lots of fun. I now live in a different Asian country and still fly CX, but only banking AA these days.