Cashback vs Air Miles: One Formula to Settle It
1% cashback or HK$4 per mile? The answer depends on your spend and travel habits — compute yours here.
'Cashback or miles?' is the eternal credit card debate. One side prizes instant, no-strings cash; the other swears business-class redemptions are king. The truth is computable — through three variables: your annual spend, the value per mile, and your travel appetite.
Start with mile value. In Asia Miles, a short-haul economy round trip (Tokyo, say) runs about 30,000 miles against a HK$4,500 ticket — roughly HK$0.15 per mile. Business-class redemptions push HK$0.20+. Vouchers and products, by contrast, yield only HK$0.06-0.10 per mile. Mile value depends heavily on what you redeem.
On the earning side, top miles cards grant one mile per HK$2-4 of spend; typical cashback cards pay 1-1.5% base and 4-10% in categories. The formula: miles card return = value per mile ÷ spend per mile. At HK$0.15 per mile and HK$4 per mile, that's 0.15 ÷ 4 = 3.75%.
See the point? Used well, miles cards (3-5%) generally beat base cashback (1-2%) — with two conditions: you actually redeem flights (not vouchers), and award seats exist on your dates and routes, which hot seasons make scarce.
The practical answer is a two-card strategy: a cashback card as your everyday workhorse guaranteeing flat returns, and a miles card concentrated on boosted categories such as overseas and online spend. Each does its job; combined returns peak.
One final note: the denominator of any reward rate is your spending. Earning 1% back on a 100% impulse purchase is still a 99% loss. Rewards reward you — they don't pay you. Spend money you were going to spend anyway; that's how sharp players play.