Originally Posted by
msmi1433
Another data point:
Currently on day 5 of waiting for a transfer from Amex UK to Asia Miles. Amex say they have sent the points, and Cathay are telling me that it can take up to 1 week for the points to be credited to my Asia Miles account.
This applies to 2x transfers (myself and my partner), both new Asia Miles accounts. I'll update this post again when the points have landed.
Thankfully, the Cathay booking agents have been very understanding of the delay and seem to be willing to hold the award seats that we are trying to book indefinitely, free of charge. They do it in 48hr blocks, and I just call to extend the hold period again if the points are not in towards the end of a 48hr period.
I would therefore recommend giving them a call to see if they will hold any award seats you are hoping to book whilst waiting for a points transfer to go through - I have absolutely no status with Cathay and this transfer is to a brand new Asia Miles account, so if they'll do it for me I presume they'll do it for anyone.
Actually, the Amex miles are already there, but you don't see them. What they need to do, is verify the Amex account does match with the AsiaMiles account, which is a manual process and not done every minute. Once that link is established and registered, transfers go as fast as you manage to log in to the AsiaMiles account.
Why the manual verification: Because CX wants to know, the Amex miles are indeed corresponding with that AsiaMiles account.
And, I also think, there is an initial automatic verification and IF there is a perfect match, the OK comes automatically and if not, a manual verification process.
My first transfer was slow, since there is some difference in naming of the Amex card and the AsiaMiles account. Subsequent transfers went fast. How fast, I can't tell, because I didn't /don't monitor on that.
Why do I think, they already "see" the deposited miles: I transferred, while an award booking was on-hold to be ticketed, once the miles would come in. And the AsiaMiles desk wasn't nervous or pushing, or whatever, that I would send the miles. Or so to say, they just "new" the miles were there, but only needed to be verified at the account level.