Picture this: you’ve got a stash of Asia Miles sitting in your account, but life got in the way and you haven’t had any earning or redemption activity lately. Your miles are about to expire, and you’re scrambling for options. It’s a situation I found myself in just this month, having last redeemed way back in early 2024.

What if I told you there’s a ridiculously simple solution that takes less than two minutes and costs you just 100 miles? That’s exactly what I did, and it’s an option that could save the day for you as well.

Asia Miles expiry: A quick refresher

Since January 2020, Asia Miles operates on an activity-based expiry policy rather than the old fixed 36-month expiry rule. As we covered in our detailed analysis, this system is a significant improvement for most members, though it does require relatively regular interaction with the programme.

Here’s how it works: any qualifying activity resets your entire Asia Miles balance with a 18 fresh months of validity. That’s right – whether you have 500 miles or 500,000 miles, one simple transaction extends the entire balance for another year and a half.

Qualifying activities include:

• Earning miles through flights with Cathay Pacific or partner airlines
• Redeeming miles for flights, upgrades, or other rewards
• Transferring points from credit cards (e.g. Citi ThankYou points in Singapore)
• Making purchases with Asia Miles partners
• Converting Esso Smiles points to Asia Miles
• Converting LinkPoints to Asia Miles (temporarily suspended)
• Converting Asia Miles to LinkPoints (temporarily suspended)
• Converting Asia Miles to hotel points (e.g. Marriott Bonvoy)

The beauty of this system is that you don’t need major activity – earning or redeeming just 1 Asia Mile triggers the 18-month extension for your entire balance.

The problem: When you need activity, but don’t have any planned

Here’s the drawback of this system, especially for Singapore-based readers who may not transact with Asia Miles on a regular basis.

What happens when you have miles about to expire and none of these obvious activities are on your horizon?

Maybe you’re not flying soon, don’t need any redemptions, and the instant LinkPoints > Asia Miles transfer option is temporarily unavailable (as it is right now, since 22nd April 2025 – the LinkPoints team there told me some months ago that it would be back but with no timescale promised).

This exact scenario happened to me recently, and that’s when I recalled what might be one of the easiest validity extension tricks of any frequent flyer programme.

Checking your validity date

The first thing you’ll probably want to do is check when your Asia Miles balance is currently set to expire.

You can do this by logging in to your Asia Miles account, then under your account name navigating to ‘Asia Miles and Status Points’.

As you can see my balance was set to expire on 30th September 2025.

The solution: Carbon offset donations

Buried in Cathay Pacific’s sustainability initiatives is a carbon offset program that accepts Asia Miles donations – Fly Greener, but it’s not so easy to find anymore.

Here’s the important bit though – it counts as redemption activity for expiry purposes.

The process is simple:

1. Log in to your Asia Miles account
2. Navigate to this carbon offset donation page and scroll to the bottom of the page
3. Scroll down to the ‘Offset your carbon emissions’ section, then select ‘Lump sum contribution’
4. Under ‘Choose your contribution method’ select ‘Redeem Asia Miles’
5. Enter the minimum contribution amount (100 Asia Miles)
6. Agree to the terms and conditions then click ‘Contribute now’
7. Your entire balance will be recharged with 18 months of fresh validity

I tested this myself recently and can confirm it worked exactly as expected, with an immediate validity extension applied to my full balance.

The new expiry date of 28th February 2027 now reflects on my account.

Why this feels almost too good to be true

For the cost of just 100 Asia Miles (worth roughly S$1-2 depending on how you value them), you can extend potentially hundreds of thousands of miles for another 18 months. It’s legitimate, instant, and of course supports environmental initiatives – if that’s your thing!

The reason this works is simple: Cathay Pacific’s system treats the carbon offset donation as a standard redemption transaction. From a technical standpoint, there’s no difference between redeeming 100 miles for a carbon offset and redeeming 50,000 miles for a flight – both trigger the validity extension.

Are Asia Miles good value?

The value proposition for holding Asia Miles has taken a hit over recent years following some programme devaluations, but there are still some decent award options to consider.

These include:

• Cathay Pacific Singapore to Hong Kong for 28,000 miles in Business Class (including a Oneworld ‘lounge safari’ at Changi).
  SIA via KrisFlyer: 35,500 miles from 1 November 2025
• Qantas Singapore to Perth for 33,000 miles in Business Class.
  SIA via KrisFlyer: 42,500 miles from 1 November 2025
• Finnair Bangkok or Phuket to Helsinki for 63,000 miles in Business Class.
• Cathay Pacific Singapore to Frankfurt for 84,000 miles in Business Class (including a Oneworld ‘lounge safari’ at Changi and in transit at Hong Kong).
  SIA via KrisFlyer: 108,500 miles from 1 November 2025
• Finnair Singapore to a range of European destinations via Helsinki for 89,000 miles in Business Class.
  SIA via KrisFlyer: 108,500 miles from 1 November 2025

Cathay Pacific levies fuel surcharges on its own awards, for example from Singapore to Frankfurt via Hong Kong you’re also on the hook for around S$235 in total taxes and fees.

However, the airline does not apply this levy to Finnair and Qantas awards, so for example a Finnair Business Class award from Bangkok to Helsinki comes in at a very respectable 63,000 miles + S$57.

These good redemption options might make the 100-miles cost of this carbon offset extension trick worthwhile, rather than letting your Asia Miles expire.

A note on other programmes

Before you get too excited, this specific hack is unique to Asia Miles’ generous activity-based system.

KrisFlyer miles don’t work this way – Singapore Airlines maintains a fixed three-year expiry policy from the month of earning, regardless of account activity, unless you are a PPS Club member (no expiry). No amount of small transactions will extend older miles that are approaching their expiry date.

However, other major programmes do offer activity-based extensions, though with different terms:

British Airways Avios and Qatar Airways Avios both use activity-based expiry, but with a more generous 36-month window instead of Asia Miles’ 18 months. Any earning or redemption activity extends the entire balance for three full years. Note that transferring points between Avios accounts (like from British Airways to Qatar Airways) doesn’t reset the expiry clock – you need genuine earning or redemption activity, just like with Asia Miles.

Qantas Frequent Flyer Points use activity-based expiry, with points expiring after 18 months of inactivity; any earning or redemption resets the clock, but family or Business Rewards transfers don’t count.

Sometimes the simplest solutions are hiding in plain sight. If your Asia Miles are about to expire and you don’t have any ‘natural’ activity planned, consider this carbon offset donation approach. It’s quick, cheap, environmentally conscious, and will refresh your entire balance for another 18 months – just like any other activity.

Of course this whole process can be avoided if, for example, you are simply willing to transfer a credit card points balance across to your Asia Miles account, or have some other earning or redemption activity to make, which saves this loss of 100 miles.

There’s also the LinkPoints transfer option if and when it returns, though it’s now been missing for four months.

If you do follow the carbon offset process, just remember to set a calendar reminder for 18 months from now – since you might need to repeat this little trick again!

(Cover Photo: Cathay Pacific)