I am afraid not. When calling the e-service hotline one of the recorded messages during menu selection was that redemption bookings need to be made through MPO.

I also have some very similar strategy, trying to maximize miles on every single transaction / promotion, using a combination of Amex, DBS Black, DBS Plat, HSBC etc depending on each circumstances, and keeping them in the banks' accounts unless they expire (HSBC, SCB). e.g. DBS Plat 3x for all dining/overseas, Amex 10x for some specific merchants/restaurants, HSBC recent promo of 4x overseas without cap, etc are really some very good ways of earning points.

I also like keeping them in DBS/Amex until I need them because they don't have expiration. Having some ~1M Asia Miles balance now...I don't see a need to use my 8-digit DBS/Amex points balance yet and it's great that they don't expire... that's also why I didn't use the old Citibank-CX card at all, not really good earning rate + points automatically transferred to Asia Miles every month.

my colleagues always ask me why I seem to have an unlimited supply of Asia Miles (and the fact that I'm DM also means it's relatively easier for me to use them), I always tell them I really maximize each purchase with the right credit card / Asia Miles Dining promo / 4x-10x promo / etc. e.g. in one of the recent business dinners with a ~HKD 10k bill, the admin person paying was using a Citibank-CX card (which most people are using and thought it's the best way of earning AM, although I repeatedly told people about DBS Plat etc), and getting ~1250 miles...vs. using DBS Plat it's 2500 miles. then I also reminded her it's an Asia Miles dining restaurant, and it's another 6250 miles...she didn't bring her MPO card with her all the time, and so another colleague immediately took out his card and earned that 6250...without me there it's another 6250 miles "wasted"... and in many dinners with friends etc...usually they pick the restaurants, and quite often for some reason they always pick some with Asia Miles affiliation without knowing it...and it always ends up I'm the one who carry the MPO/AM card and I always get the miles...

well, at least you actually fly on paid tickets - and you must fly a lot (being a DM is no small feat - you're clocking up at least 120,000 AM by actually flying)! i rarely fly on paid tickets and i've never bought a business/first class ticket on any airline. all my AM are from credit card purchases. but with the credit card spending i'm able to fly 3-4 longhaul flights in business. my job doesn't involve any flying around and so all the trips i make are holiday trips.

your remark about dining is very true - and it is definitely a good way to earn miles. as for the following question

suffice to say that one starts with a letter J and the other starts with a letter P ... i did have to pay a surcharge (to the car dealer) to charge the whole car to my credit card. plus a large deposit of money into the credit card in advance. the surcharge wasn't a small sum, but when you think about all the miles, it's worth it. HK$1.5 million / 6 = 250,000 miles.

Argh, I see you are into Indian cars then

Assuming the surcharge is 3%, that's HK$45,000! You can buy 2 discounted J tickets to LHR or YVR for that money or one RTW in J, both options would cost ~250,000 miles. But more importantly, you get to earn miles on if you spent the HK$45,000 on revenue tickets. There is no way round it guys, the actuaries in Asia miles's back office always win!!!

I would really like to maximise my mileage earning too (I spend around $1m each year) but it's all too rather complex and time consuming. After spending 10-15 minutes every day on this forum I don't have much spare time to understand credit card earning rules

I only paid an extra 1% service charge. Got the (official) dealer to pay the rest out of their pocket. Forgot to say that there was no service charge for the first $300,000 deposit (usually $100,000 but I argued $300,000 ). So the service charge paid was $12000. And the 250,000 miles got me 2 x LHR in J when it used to be 100,000 miles (connected BA Club Europe to other European cities with those) with 50,000 left over.

Called MPO again today regarding my South American flights .... on hold for 45 minutes (called around 2am HK time).

Is there such a HSBC promo? Is it still on? Is it by invite only? And is it limited to overseas spending only? Would appreciate details. Thank you.

see posts #51-53 here:

http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/showt...=806198&page=4

HSBC does lots of targeted promotions. The best so far : last June I received a mailer stating that I can get 4x reward points for all spending, capped at HK$50000 per month for 6 months. $50000 x 6 x 4 = 1,200,000 reward points = 100,000 miles.

I'm the only one in my family to get it - and we have 3 Premier cardholders in the family - all 3 are primary card members with separate bank accounts.

I didn't receive the overseas spending one though ...

HSBC outside HK is a different thing altogether. I have a Premier card too but unfortunately it doesn't credit into Asiamiles!

You can fix that to some extent - if you're Premier anywhere you can open a Premier account in any other country, so as a Premier in, say, Canada, you can ask them to open you a HK Premier account and get a HK Premier Credit Card which would enable you to get AsiaMiles. By default obviously that will bill in HKD, so there's an exchange cost there if the bulk of your transactions are in some other currency. I think you can also get a HK-based USD Premier credit card.

This is exactly the same problem I had last year and I posted here about my experience as well. It shouldn't really be too difficult to have enough people manning the phone lines.

I think the queue for the Cantonese speaking service is not that bad.

Hum. Japanese speaking lines are difficult to get even as a diamond member in some peak hours.
Once, an English speaking representative picked up my call to the Japanese line after long waiting time.
So, I usually call an English line.

Three months back, to arrange for a tour with CX Holidays, I spent more than 4 hours in total over 7 phone calls listening to that infuriating "I can fly..." music. My longest wait was 1 hour 20 minutes!

Being a process re-engineering consultant myself, I've personally written to Tony Tyler giving no less than half a dozen suggestions on how to shorten waiting time. Far from using my letter as a rage-venting tool (and believe me, anyone would've been in rage-venting mood after waiting for more than 4 hours) my letter was polite, objective and proactive.

Unfortunately, CX has no courtesy to even send back a reply...

I think you still have to have legal residency status to open bank accounts do you not? At least I know that the last time I enquired at HK they wanted to see my HKID card first! The same would apply for say, UK Premier credit cards? But back to the asiamiles question.... not every Premier CC credits to asiamiles. Which it should cos what, HSBC is somehow associated with Swire, and that in turn owns part of CX?