Originally Posted by
anythursday
I am based in HKG but fly home to Toronto every summer. Cathay econ tickets are priced at 2600. Air Canada fluctuated between 1400-1900 CAD for econ. I could fly Air Can and bid for upgrade by as its peak season, I wonder what the chances are.
Is it it worth purchasing lifemiles to fly business?
IMO if you have plenty of time to wait for a deal and you are fairly flexible with travel then it usually isn't worth it. Lifemiles is great for lastminute tickets when cash tickets are usually pretty expensive and award availability is often at its best. I would never ever suggest buying lifemiles with the intention of using them in the future... Only buy them to use immediately provided you can prove to yourself using maths that it is relatively cheaper than paying cash (bear in mind that cash tickets earn miles which have value).
If I were you I would look at tickets out of TPE, China and MNL. There are lots of bargains to be had. For example there is a
CX fare available from PEK for £2000 (3400CAD). Get yourself a cheapo to PEK, start your trip there and then drop the HKG-PEK on the way home. Credit the miles to Alaska and you will get a total of 38,000 AS miles. Thats nearly enough for a free HKG-EU award on CX (42,000). Or add another 12,000 for about $250 during a sale and you have a HKG-YYZ award direct in business.
Now think about lifemiles... If you buy in say a 120% bonus you would need to buy 36k miles (+ bonus) for $1188 to be able to buy a one-way in J. Add to that about $120 in tax and service charge and you are paying about $1850CAD for a one-way. Then you have the hassle of using lifemiles, trying to find availability etc and you are still paying more than the CX fare above and you won't make any miles either.
If you planned on buying miles during promos then AS miles would be your best bet. In a 50% promo it would cost about $2000USD without tax for a HKG-YYZ return award on CX.