The wife will be joining me in Asia at the tail end of a business trip. Can anyone advise as to the best Asia Air travel passes for the region. Furthermore, does one get miles from these passes?

check out if cathay pacific still has their asia offer. I believe it was $999 from the US including 17 cities you could visit ( i think unlimited trave within asia for a specific amount of time. Don't know about the details though

I believe Cathay's air pass does not accrue mileage.

The CX pass is great if you want to see a lot of places (though China and Vietnam and, I think, a few others require additional surcharges) for one low price. However, if your wife and you are only visiting a few countries (say HKG and NRT, NRT and PEK/PVG, NRT and ICN, NRT and BKK, or NRT and SIN), then it may make more sense to take advantage of a cheap UA V r/t (or open-jaw) fare and try to upgrade the key segments to biz with SWUs. You get the miles and a more comfortable seat for about the just a little more out-of-pocket cash (While I am not encouraging this, you can "acquire" the SWUs via various sources -- email me if you need suggestions). Obviously, there are a lot of variables in terms of timing and destinations, but this is what I would do if I were going to Asia this week and primarily wanted to visit cities that UA services nonstop or via their NRT hub. If your wife already has some status miles this year with Star Alliance carriers, then a transpacific r/t would probably take her over one of the elite thresholds for next year (or make a huge dent on 2002 qualification).

Also, the CX pass requires you to fly from one of the gateway cities, JFK, LAX, SFO, YVZ or YVR. You pay the add-on fare yourself to get to those airports if you are not there already.

Thanks for the replies guys. I should have been more specific however. I'll already be in the area on business (probably flying in CX or BA), she'll be coming cheapest viable carrier (looks like BA, CX, SQ or gasp!! AF).

Therefore I'm more interested in something more stand alone and probably not UA affiliated.

You might also consider redeeming miles for intra-asia trips. A handful of Airlines offer intra-asia rewards for 20K in Y and 30K in C and some permit free stopovers in their hubs, so you could potentially hit 4 cities for 40K miles.

If you and your wife don't mind flying economy, your best bet is probably the ASEAN air pass, sold by most ASEAN airlines, for instance Thai:
http://www.thaiair.com/flying/aseanpf.htm

It is somewhat limiting in that you have to buy your ticket 'overseas', in what appears to be Europe in your case, on an ASEAN airline, which seems to exclude CX.

However it is very flexible since you get to fly point-to-point on any ASEAN airline, as opposed to the CX pass which makes one transit through HKG every time.

If you need to go to North Asia, I would use miles for that, and do Southeast Asia on an ASEAN pass. The award levels on UA and NW intra-Asia are particularly attractive IMO (20/30K) compared to the ticket prices and, as their hubs are in Narita, quite convenient for Northern Asia.

Intra-Asian award levels on Asian airlines are rather high in comparison.

There are also some good deals in the European FF programs if you do your homework, eg. 20K points for most Asian segments on KLM (i.e. NW), including potentially not inexpensive routings such as ICN-NRT-HNL, or the odd HKG-MNL flights on AF or ex-SR.

I am unaware if the ASEAN pass fares are good for miles however, as I have not yet found the time to treat myself to an extended holiday there. Enjoy your trip!