An Asian Holiday: Part 4 – By Air and Sea – Cathay First Class to Hong Kong, Ferry to Macau

March 24, 2014 By Million Mile Secrets

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Emily Jablon: Daraius and I celebrated Christmas in Macau and Hong Kong with his family for ~8 days. It was our 1st time to Macau and Hong Kong and we were very excited to visit!

An Asian Holiday – Trip Report Index:

An Asian Holiday Part 4 – By Air and Sea – Cathay First Class to Hong Kong, Ferry to Macau

Daraius booked us on Cathay Pacific from Mumbai to Hong Kong. We treated Daraius’ family to First Class since we don’t see them that often and had extra American Airlines miles.

How You Can Do It Too!

We redeemed 45,000 American Airlines miles for a 1-way flight in First Class (plus $26 in fees and a $25 telephone booking fee, per person) from Mumbai to Hong Kong. Coach costs ~$350, Business Class costs ~$935, and First Class costs ~$1,665. So you are getting a lot of value for your points!

How Many Miles You Need:

Coach Class: 22,500 American Airlines miles
Business Class: 30,000 American Airline miles
First Class: 45,000 American Airlines miles

But you can’t find Cathay Pacific award seats on the American Airlines website. You have to check for award seats on British Airways’ website and then call American Airlines to book your ticket.

How to Get the Miles:

1. Citi® / AAdvantage® Executive World Elite™ Mastercard®

You get 100,000 miles when you spend $10,000 within 3 months using the Citi American Airlines Executive card. So this is the easiest way to get the points to fly First Class on Cathay Pacific.

Here are 40+ Ways to Complete Minimum Spending to help with the high minimum spending requirement.

2. Citi American Airlines Cards

The Citi® / AAdvantage® Platinum Select® World Elite™ Mastercard® and CitiBusiness® / AAdvantage® Platinum Select® World Mastercard® each get you 50,000 miles when you spend $3,000 within 3 months.

The information for the Citi AAdvantage Platinum and CitiBusiness AAdvantage Platinum has been collected independently by Million Mile Secrets. The card details on this page have not been reviewed or provided by the card issuer.

3. American Express Starwood Hotel Cards

The Starwood Preferred Guest® Credit Card from American Express and the Starwood Preferred Guest® Business Credit Card from American Express each get you 25,000 Starwood points when you spend $5,000 within 6 months. Starwood points transfer to American Airlines at a 1:1 ratio. And you’ll also get a 5,000 point bonus each time you transfer 20,000 points to American Airlines.

If you earn the bonus on both cards you will have 60,000 Starwood points (50,000 points from the sign-up bonus + 10,000 points from completing the minimum spending). You can transfer Starwood hotel points to American Airlines. 60,000 Starwood hotel points transfers to 75,000 American Airlines miles (60,000 miles + 15,000 transfer bonus).

That gets you more than enough for a 1-way First Class ticket on Cathay Pacific, 2 Business Class tickets, or 3 coach class tickets!

Pre-Flight: How Was the Mumbai Airport and Lounge?

Emily: We stayed in Mumbai with family. We went to the same restaurants and did the same activities as before, so we’re not writing about them again! We flew from Mumbai to Hong Kong on Cathay Pacific.

We went to the Mumbai airport 2 hours before our departure, which was more than enough time to pass through security and spend a few minutes in the British Airways lounge.

Cathay Pacific uses the British Airways lounge for flights from Mumbai. The British Airways lounge had lots of food, but it seemed stale and wasn’t very appealing.

I opted for packaged foods – Lay’s tomato chips and a chocolate biscuit.

Daraius’ family used the computers while Daraius did some work, and I ate my snacks.

On the way to the gate we realized that the security check did not stamp Daraius’ carry-on bag, which was required, so we went back to security.

Luxury Suites: Cathay Pacific First Class

Our seats (suites) were in the nose of the Boeing 747.

Daraius and I sat directly across from each other…

…but couldn’t see one another unless we got out of our seats.

The seats were the largest I’ve seen.

Each suite had an extra wide seat that could be laid flat.

There was lots of storage for our belongings.

There weren’t many people in the First Class cabin.

The TV screen extended outwards.

The controls were located next to our seat.

There were controls to adjust the seat and for the TV.

There was more storage space next to the controls.

There was 1 outlet to charge your electronics.

There were reading lights on each side of the seat.

There were also fresh flowers.

The flight left Mumbai at 1:45 am, so we slept as much as we could. We were given pajamas…

…and amenity kits for this short 4.5 hour flight.

I received a women’s Trussardi kit.

And Daraius was given a men’s Ermenegildo Zegna kit.

There were Aesop brand toiletries in the amenity kits.

The flight attendant made my bed before we took off, so that it was faster to go to sleep.

The beds were very roomy.

While the Cathay Pacific flight was nice, I prefer the service and cabin on Etihad. I could see Daraius throughout the journey, and it felt like we had our entire suite to ourselves. Also, the amenity kits and pajamas were given before takeoff so that you could save time changing clothes and get more sleep if needed.

The Business Class seats also looked relaxing.

The seats also lie flat, but are smaller than the First Class seats.

We did not eat on this flight because the flight left at ~2:00 am Mumbai time.

Ferry to Macau

After arriving in Hong Kong, we purchased our tickets for the ferry to Macau (a 1 hour journey).

Getting to Macau was very easy since the ferry terminal is located in the airport. All you have to do is take a few escalators down, and you’re there!

We were able to buy our tickets quickly at the counter.

As a big added bonus, they transfer the luggage for you so that you don’t have to worry about lugging heavy bags on and off the ferry. Just go straight to the ticket counter (do NOT go through immigration in Hong Kong) and give them your bag tags. They will transfer the bags to the ferry!

The ferry has 3 classes, but we opted for the cheapest economy class. The TurboJet ferry costs 246 Hong Kong dollars (slightly more on weekends) or ~$32 per person.

We got our tickets and were on our way!

There was food available if you wanted a snack.

We walked past the temperature check…

…and on towards the ferry terminal.

We took a shuttle bus over to the ferry and followed the directions on the signs.

The ferry was huge!

It was only about an hour ride. There’s no miles redemption for the Macau ferry! The inside was very spacious and well maintained.

There was not much legroom.

There are big windows so you can look outside. The ferry was all enclosed because it was cold outside at 50 degrees.

I fell asleep for almost the entire boat ride. When we docked, we walked through immigration and to the baggage claim area. Everything went very smoothly, but the baggage claim area was crowded and chaotic.

We took a free shuttle bus to our hotel, the Grand Hyatt in Macao. There are signs everywhere to direct you.

We walked just a few minutes to the shuttle bus transfers, and the signs were well marked.

However, there was no sign for the Grand Hyatt. The Grand Hyatt is located within the City of Dreams. So we got on the City of Dreams bus, and the Grand Hyatt was the 2nd stop.

The driver helped us get all of our luggage on board the small bus. And sooon we were at the Grand Hyatt, Macau!