If you’re one of the people who was able to take advantage of the killer Hong Kong Airlines deals last August, your trip is likely approaching soon, and you might be wondering where to credit the miles. I originally wrote this post right after the fare was published, but a few things have changed, so I figured we were due for an update.
I personally booked tickets to Vietnam — a trip with our moms that my cousin Heather and I have been wanting to take for a few years — and did so without giving too much thought to the points accrual.
After all, this isn’t a fare you book for the miles you’re going to earn.
But it turns out there are some interesting possibilities.
Virgin Australia Velocity
We’re going to get this one out of the way quickly, because it’s not practical for most of us.
Virgin Australia is a partner of Hong Kong Airlines, however — and it’s a critical exception — you cannot earn Velocity points on HX flights to or from North America.
That means you can credit the shorter segments between Hong Kong and your final destination to Velocity, but that’s only going to be ~3,000 miles in most cases.
Now, Virgin Australia does allow family pooling, so if you are taking a family on this trip you could combine all the points into a single account, but that’s still only going to be about enough for a domestic economy flight in Australia.
Alternatively, you can transfer Velocity points to Singapore KrisFlyer miles at a 1.55:1 ratio, so that’s an option as well.
If you already have some orphaned Velocity points, or if you’re in a market where you can easily accrue Velocity points otherwise, this might make sense for you, but otherwise I don’t think it’s worth it.
To avoid confusion, if you do decide to credit a portion of your miles to Velocity, I would refrain from listing any frequent flyer program on your reservation during travel, and just submit the boarding passes to the relevant programs afterwards.
Fortune Wings Club
Similar in concept to Miles & More or FlyingBlue, Fortune Wings is the frequent flyer program for several airlines, including:
- Hong Kong Airlines
- Hainan Airlines
- Grand China Air
- Lucky Air
- Tianjin Airlines
- Capital Airlines
- Fuzhou Airlines
- Yangtze River Airlines
So, you’re going to need a Fortune Wings Club account. While it shouldn’t matter in theory which airline you sign up with, I’m going to suggest everyone sign up through the Hainan Airlines site. They’re the main airline in the program, and by default it seems they give you 500 Fortune Wings points just for signing up.
In 2019, however, it (potentially) gets even better.
Fortune Wings Club new member bonus
Hainan Airlines is currently offering a promotion where new members can earn up to 2,000 points.
If you are flying between March 2nd and March 31st, you’ll want to enroll in Fortune Wings using this link. For each qualifying segment you fly on “Hainan Airlines, Grand China Air, Tianjin Airlines, Hong Kong Airlines, Fuzhou Airlines, Suparna Airlines or Guangxi Beibu Gulf Airline”, you can earn additional points — most of us probably have four flights on Hong Kong Airlines, so would earn an extra 1,500 points.
You have to register on that page to even potentially be eligible for the bonus. Unfortunately, the terms say the promotion is valid from January 1st to March 31st, but flights between January 21st and March 1st don’t count, so there’s that.
If, like me, you made the bold decision to travel over Lunar New Year, you can still (theoretically), get 500 points just for joining through the regular Fortune Wings page.
It’s a few extra hoops to jump through, and I don’t know yet how any of this will work in practice, but you might as well try and get the extra points.
And this is a case where that handful of points can make a difference later on, so it’s worth a shot.
Seriously, if you’re reading this and have a Hong Kong Airlines ticket, just sign yourself and your travel companions up for accounts now so you don’t forget. I’ll wait here while you do.
How many miles will I earn for these Hong Kong Airlines flights?
The first thing you need to know about points accrual with Fortune Club is that all values are in kilometers, not miles.
I was pretty happy with the potential redemption rates in a “we’re going to SE Asia for ~$600 in lie-flat business class, so I think we can make the best of it” kind of way, but this is all way more fun in kilometers.
All the fares I saw were booking into J, which means you’ll earn 130% of the flown distance.
So for my itinerary, with flights from Los Angeles to Hong Kong and then Ho Chi Minh City (and back), that’s ~26,000km. With the bonus for flying J class, we’ll each earn ~34,000 Fortune Club points.
Given that the alternative is earning zero points, I’ll take it!
Great, what do Fortune Club points get me?
This seems like a good time to remind everyone that we’re going to SE Asia for ~$600 in lie-flat business class. 😉
Actually, Fortune Club doesn’t look as bad as I was expecting. Granted, I haven’t dealt with them at all yet, and my expectations were extremely low, but on paper the numbers look decentish.
In addition to the above mentioned carriers that use Fortune Club for their frequent flyer program, there are a few international partners:
- TAP Portugal
- Alaska Airlines (oh, hello!)
- Etihad Airways
- Virgin Australia
So let’s dig into which of these might be worth pursuing.
Use Fortune Club miles on TAP Portugal
Let’s just get this one out of the way. You’re probably not going to use Fortune Club miles on TAP, because the fuel surcharges are ludicrous.
For domestic/economy flights in Portugal, roughly 70% of the fare is taxes and surcharges, so you’re not really saving much there. Business class flights at a short enough distance to be interesting enough for Fortune Club redemptions are in a similar situation, so…meh.
But, here’s the chart if you’re in a pinch:
Use Fortune Club miles on Alaska Airlines
This is a great mental exercise, as thanks to years of Avios bookings I have the flight distance between most Alaska-serviced cities roughly memorized.
In miles.
Not in kilometers. So I’ve had to look every route up to check my math.
Seattle > Los Angeles is, annoyingly, 1535km, if anyone was wondering, and Portland > San Diego is even worse, at 1501km. But there are other city pairs up and down the coast that fit nicely into the Fortune Club bands.
I will happily use my future Fortune Club points for flights between Seattle and Spokane at 5,000 points for each economy flight! Those aren’t always cheap (and would require 7,500 Avios), and last-minute award availability is usually great, so this will be perfect for getting my niece home from college and for other positioning flights.
You’ll need to call Fortunate Club to book at 312-374-3700 (between 8AM and 8PM U.S. Central time). Redemptions must be made at least 24 hours prior to departure. The taxes and fees should be minimal.
Use Fortune Club miles on Etihad Airways
I’m pretty sure Fortune Club passes on fuel surcharges on Etihad award tickets, which means even on regional flights you’ll likely pay at least a few hundred dollars should you choose to redeem on Etihad.
To make matters worse, the award chart is still distance-based, and the prices are rather steep:
For a bit of context, this map is shaded to show destinations 850km, 1500km, and 2000km from Abu Dhabi, as you’ll reasonably have enough points (or very close to enough) for a one-way in business class at those distances:
I know, there’s not a lot there. But having nearly enough points for a business class ticket between Abu Dhabi and Baku for a ticket you bought because it was a steal is hardly a bad deal.
The greater limitation here is that you must call the Fortune Wings Club hotline at least 14 days before your reservation for an Etihad Airways award ticket which is just not at all compatible with my life.
Still, it’s an option. And we’ll talk about how to top off your account below.
Use Fortune Club miles on Virgin Australia
If you want to use your Fortune Club miles on Virgin Australia, you’ll need to call a comparatively reasonable 24 hours before departure, at a minimum.
The chart is again distance-based, and you’ll have enough points for up to a 2,000km flight in business class (or several shorter economy flights). 
Again, I suspect that there are some fuel surcharges on these tickets, but Virgin Australia doesn’t list their YQ separately on domestic flights, so I don’t really know what that will look like. For a flight between Melbourne and Brisbane, for example, the tax breakdown in business class is as follows:
So you’d pay 25,000 Fortune Club points, along with ~$84USD (at least) for that business class flight. You’d pay 15,000 Avios for that same ticket, in comparison.
But, again, given the circumstances…
Use Fortune Club miles on Fortune Wings Club Member Airlines
So I’m not going to go through all of these, because they’re only specifically applicable, but you can find all the award charts here.
The more interesting aspect is that the “discounted redemption campaign” for Hong Kong Airlines flights in 2018 has been extended until March 31st of 2019 (without announcement or fanfare):
If you’ll be spending more time in Asia this year, some of those short-haul redemptions could be compelling.
Or, if you really wanted (say, if you’re positioning to Hong Kong to pick up a five-shower Emirates award through JAL), you could transfer in some more points for a longer flight.
Given that you’ll have more than half the miles needed, it’s not a terrible value, and fees shouldn’t be too bad.
Exchange Fortune Club points for other currencies
I’d forgotten about this, because it’s typically not a good value, but reader Jay reminded me that you can actually exchange Fortune Club points for other program points through points.com.
The rates aren’t incredible (sing along if you know the words), but you can trade those ~34,000 Fortune Club points for:
- ~13,500 Air Canada Aeroplan miles
- ~9,000 JetBlue TrueBlue points
- ~15,900 Amtrak Guest Rewards points
- ~20,000 IHG Rewards Club points
Using Ben’s current valuation of miles, the best deal there is probably Aeroplan. But even ~$110 worth of JetBlue points is better than nothing, particularly for those who just don’t want to deal with Fortune Club. And with the updated TrueBlue pooling option, JetBlue can be an even more interesting option for groups — we could certainly make use of ~$450 worth of JetBlue points!
What if I don’t have quite enough Fortune Club points for the award I want?
Fortunately, Marriott is here to help!
In theory.
Hainan Airlines is a transfer partner of the new Marriott program, with a published 3:1 transfer ratio, and a bonus of 15k Marriott points (which are instantly converted to Fortune Club points) when you transfer 60,000 Marriott points.
That being said, given that Hainan works in kilometers, I don’t know how this works in practice. If you’re actually trading 3 Marriott points for 1 Fortune Club point, that’s a very poor value compared to the other transfer partners.
So, if you go this route, I’d only transfer the bare minimum of points for the award you want.
Ideally everyone will get the 500 points for enrolling, which will reduce the number of Marriott points they might need to transfer by 1500.
Advanced play: try a status challenge
Full disclosure: I have no idea if this will even work, but the thought that it’s even a possibility makes me giggle, so I figure it’s worth sharing.
Like last year, Fortune Club is offering a status challenge:
Fortune Wings Club members who are also VIP members of other airline clubs or airline alliances, or who hold platinum or higher credit cards, may apply to take part in the Fortune Wings Club VIP Status Challenge and win Fortune Wings Club VIP status.
The terms seem pretty simple. Within 100 days of starting the challenge, you have to earn 15,000 Status Qualifying Points to become a Gold member. You’ll meet that with just your outbound flight from Los Angeles to Hong Kong, so that part is easy enough.
Surprisingly, flights on Alaska and Virgin Australia will also earn Status Qualifying Points that can be applied to this challenge, though I’m not sure I’d recommend it.
Regardless, to request the challenge you just have to provide documentation of one of the following:
- VIP membership of another airline with Silver Card or higher grade
- VIP membership of any airline alliance with Silver Card or higher grade
- Bank-issued platinum or higher grade credit card holder
I suspect finding one of those won’t be too hard for most OMAAT readers. 😉
Scan your challenge documentation, and email it to [email protected], along with the following information:
- Fortune Club number
- Full name
- Current Fortune Club Member status (Standard, if you’re new)
- Other airline name/Bank name
- Membership level/Bank card level
- Challenge level (choose Gold)
- Applicants who do not hold a Gold Card: do you wish to upgrade to a Silver Card? (say yes)
- Date of application
- Date of start of Challenge
I have no idea how quickly these are processed, but from what I’ve heard the team handling them is pretty responsive. If you’re flying in the coming weeks, it’s probably still worth emailing over your credentials and giving it a go.
Um, why would I want Fortune Club status?
Pancakes.
No joke. Fortune Club Gold members get access to Alaska Board Rooms when connecting to/from Hainan and Alaska, even on overnight connections:
If one Platinum Card or Gold Card member with real card of Elite card and flight itinerary or boarding pass for that day (flight itinerary must include: at least one flight segment operated by AS, and connecting to/from an HU-operated international flight within 24 hours of the AS segment, with at least one of the segments occurring on the current day; besides all flights should except charter and code-sharing flights) depart from Anchorage (ANC), Los Angeles (LAX), Portland (PDX) and Seattle (SEA), they each can enjoy Alaska Airlines’ Board Room service with at most one accompanying passenger.
I mean, you also get enhanced points-earning, some better upgrade opportunities, waived award fees (which could definitely come in handy, since you’ll actually have a reasonable number of points), and some other perks.
But with the Priority Pass crackdown in Seattle, how else are you going to get airport pancakes?
And Hainan has tremendous award availability, with very reasonable 50,000 mile business class awards to Asia if you’re using Alaska miles.
I had originally missed that a Hainan flight had to be included on the ticket in order to have lounge access, which is too bad. I was really looking forward to explaining to my mother that she should show her Fortune Club card to get access to the Alaska lounge on a ticket paid for with Avios. 😉
Bottom line
Seriously, thank you to everyone who asked where to credit miles for this deal. My first instinct was that Fortune Club wasn’t going to have anything worthwhile, and it’s definitely not an insanely lucrative option, but it’s been a delightful few hours digging into a new program.
I love doing this stuff, and have so little opportunity to do so these days — hopefully it’s fun learning for you too!
How will you use your Fortune Club miles?
Could I get an update please on transferring the points via Points.com? Hainan doesn't seem to be listed as a partner airline. Do other Fortune Wings Club members apply?
Cheers,
Mike
I actually qualified for gold card status. Looking at my options, there are several airlines serving the Hong Kong to Bangkok/Chiangmai route, starting at $170 round trip on Air Asia. I may use the points instead on Alaskan Air flight, particularly LAX to LAS.
I tend to go to Thailand once a year. I just got back on my $640 business flight and already have 35,500 miles in account and an upgrade to silver status. I may spend 9 weeks in Thailand next year and may split it up with a 1 week trip to Hong Kong after the 30 day Thai visa runs out . What does the silver status mean to me, in practical terms?
Hope I can snag the gold status match retrospectively. I enrolled in their program before leaving on my trip, but did not know about the status match until now, having returned from Bangkok two days ago. What was tremendously difficult for me though, it was phone support evening just checking in to my flights. Be persistent. I liked the business class very much in Hong Kong alliance. For single people they have a single row...
Hope I can snag the gold status match retrospectively. I enrolled in their program before leaving on my trip, but did not know about the status match until now, having returned from Bangkok two days ago. What was tremendously difficult for me though, it was phone support evening just checking in to my flights. Be persistent. I liked the business class very much in Hong Kong alliance. For single people they have a single row of seats one behind the other, The “cubby” is well thought out with storage spaces for small personal items large overhead compartments for your carry-ons, and a nice interactive monitor. The food selections were good both in western and eastern offerings, I am in the business class bathroom pretty standard but seem to of been kept clean and some higher end products. To me, the Comfort level and overall experience exceeded that of United Business Class, and was equal to business class and Turkish Air Lance or us with Sarah. I know some people don’t like Swiss air I liked it. I also used the Hong Kong airlines club lounge in Hong Kong which has showers sleeping areas of very nice buffet it’s large well laid out comfortable I thought that was exceptional. The generic club lounge offered at LAX was not so good.
Pauline, try entering your phone number as XXXXXXXXXX
As a datapoint I have completed my two flights from LAX-BKK with a gold status match: 95,981 points total.
Brilliant analysis. And well written.
Call me stupid (I'm sure feeling that way), but I've spent an hour trying to sign up for Fortune Wings club. Using the link above for the 500 points, I filled out all the info but the form just won't accept my cell phone number in XXX XXX-XXXX or (xxx) XXXXXX form. Any suggestions would be appreciated. Also tried to sign up for the club via Hong Kong Airlines website. They want you to input...
Call me stupid (I'm sure feeling that way), but I've spent an hour trying to sign up for Fortune Wings club. Using the link above for the 500 points, I filled out all the info but the form just won't accept my cell phone number in XXX XXX-XXXX or (xxx) XXXXXX form. Any suggestions would be appreciated. Also tried to sign up for the club via Hong Kong Airlines website. They want you to input a verification code at the end, which they send to you by email, but none of the 4 digit codes worked. Thanks in advance.
@Harry, you can first create account as usual, then click the "register" at the bottom in the page. The "register" should be better translated as "enroll in this promo", so you need an account first
The English wording is a bit confusing.
This may be a silly question. I clicked the link from the article to register for Fortune Wings to get the new member bonus. It took me to the Fortune Wings website and at the bottom there was a link to "Register". When I clicked that, it said I need to login first. Do I create an account and then register or is registering in itself supposed to create my new account?
Awesome research and article, Tiffany! Incredibly valuable for OMAAT readers who got in on the HX deal.
Take everything below with a huge grain of salt. IIRC, on flyertea (Chinese flyertalk), there was one post sometimes ago saying that you can redeem HU miles for Etihad Residence. One of the reply even had the amount of tax for AUH-LHR presumably got from customer service. The cost of Residence is supposed to be the same as first class. The poster claimed that one ticket can let two people travel in residence.
In reality,...
Take everything below with a huge grain of salt. IIRC, on flyertea (Chinese flyertalk), there was one post sometimes ago saying that you can redeem HU miles for Etihad Residence. One of the reply even had the amount of tax for AUH-LHR presumably got from customer service. The cost of Residence is supposed to be the same as first class. The poster claimed that one ticket can let two people travel in residence.
In reality, just to make the customer service agent understand that you want to redeem for EY flight is hard enough. Beyond that you also need to let them understand what Residence is. Also this is before all the HU financial crisis.
I will try to find the post again if I can.
I booked with Expedia and Fortune Club's online CS team says that because of that I cannot link my account to the reservation. Does that make sense?
More of this, please! One's got to love to be able to pick the beehive's mind. Thanks Tiff and all the co-authors in the comments section.
I got a similar steal although from Air Serbia's EUR 500 J return promo deal to JFK available shortly before Christmas last year. I don't think it's been covered by OMAAT, just saying. :D
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Is FWC redeemed AS tickets eligible for elite complimentary upgrades?
I got a OW GEG - SEA for 68 USD on DL
@NR, have you tried it without using a space?
There are two updates that this article could do with regarding crediting to Velocity:
1. The transfer rate from Velocity to KrisFlyer has changed as of 1/Jan/2019 and is now 1.55:1.
2. Family pooling allows for more than just pooling of points - it also allows pooling of Status Credits which is a wonderful feature for families looking to secure status for at least one member (and providing the benefits of that status to...
There are two updates that this article could do with regarding crediting to Velocity:
1. The transfer rate from Velocity to KrisFlyer has changed as of 1/Jan/2019 and is now 1.55:1.
2. Family pooling allows for more than just pooling of points - it also allows pooling of Status Credits which is a wonderful feature for families looking to secure status for at least one member (and providing the benefits of that status to all persons on the same reservation). As Velocity only allows long-haul upgrades on VA metal to elite status holders, there's value to be had here.
@ UA -- Thanks!
Tiffany, I’m really surprised that your article didn’t mention that Fortune Wings Gold and above members get access, +1 guest, to a large selection of VA Domestic and International lounges when flying on a VA flight no.
In addition to lounge access a generous 30kg luggage allowance and priority boarding and checkin.
https://ffp.hnair.com/FFPClub/en/jpjh/jlbxw/3860.shtml
I'm having trouble adding the middle name to the Fortune Wings Club account creation. The field asks for First Name and Middle Name and when I tried to do that it will not allow me to put in a space between my first and middle name. Does anyone have this problem? How do I get around this?
What lounge do they use at LAX?
@ Mike Miller -- They use the "International Lounge" https://onemileatatime.com/los-angeles-international-lounge-lax-review/
Ok so when are we finally seeing a review of lucky air ??
Is this only if I booked the flight directly? I bought my mistake fare tickets on Expedia.
@ Allen -- Nope! It doesn't matter where you purchased the tickets, just what the fare class is.
Fantastic post Tiffany! I am Hong Kong based and even the short haul redemptions look decent value.
Since most of the tax on the VA domestic ticket is sales tax, I wouldn’t be surprised if it doesn’t apply to award tickets (since any % of $0 is $0)
I'm in for $640 to BKK as well in September.
@ Tiff - Also - just a note you can't utilize Priority Pass on arrival in International Airports - only domestic ones
@ JJ -- My comment was directed towards someone who is connecting onwards from BKK, so they should be set!
Thanks for the post Tiffany - its useful to know the options. I am UK based though, so none of the options would have been useful to me as I suspected. Fantastic deal though for a business class product!
How do non-Australians sign up for velocity when they require an Australian address?
@Tiffany - Points.com seems to be able to convert FWC miles to Aeroplan Miles or other useful program. Any thoughts? worth it ?
@ VK -- I addressed that in the post above! Not a great value, but maybe more convenient for some.
Great article! Thanks!
Also..any chance you'll be doing a lounge post? Trying to find info on which lounges if any we'll have access to in Bangkok with a 2:!5am arrival and then connecting on to a Scoot flight to SIN.
@ Sky -- I don't believe you'd have access to any lounge on arrival in Bangkok (assuming that's the end of your HX ticket). Bangkok has almost a dozen PriorityPass lounges though, so one of those will hopefully work!
So 27k mile for a one way LAX-HKG in economy? Thats not a bad deal assuming award space is there. The Amtrak option is also nice.
Great article once again.
LAX-SJC is 495km! BUR-SJC is a little shorter. LAX-LAS works too.
Just as a data point, I submitted my status challenge last night before bed and got an email from them by the time I woke up. They seem to be moving fairly quick!
Handing all of your personal data and info to Chinese government. Nice!!!!
@Tiffany I believe if you have status you get bonus miles too. At least you should get bonus on the return leg if they upgrade your status in time.
Great article and very timely.
+1 @David W :)
@ David W @ Ben Holz -- Awww, thanks! I'm planning to finish up some trip reports next month, maybe sooner if someone wants to come manage my household and run my Weimaraner! I would happily write and research 10 hours a day if I could, but with everything else on my plate the time to do so at all is really a luxury.
@Tiffany: hah! I was wondering where Lucky found the time had to write such a long thoughtful article. ;)
That was a fun read!
Reminds me of how much I enjoy your posts - more flight/hotel review from you, pretty please? :)
Just an FYI that Alaska flies mainline to SBA from SEA, which could be a good alternative to LAX/BUR to get in the under 1500km award redemption range.
1) How long do FWC points stay active?
2) From what I can tell, you can exchange FWC points on points.com to another program, albeit, probably for less value than some other options... but maybe useful if you have no other use for them.
Tiffany, great article.
It’s worth noting you can also convert these miles on points.com to more useful currencies like B6 and IHG.
Of course the ratios aren’t stellar, but it might be useful for some.
@ Jay -- Excellent point, adding that!
@Hal Ditto on the no 500 bonus
Good article. Crap, I should've read this first. I signed up for Fortune wings thru HK Airlines. No 500 bonus :(
Thanks Tiffany, this is an extremely useful post! I am going LAX-BKK in November for $640.
Sorry to burst your bubble Lucky, but access to AS Board Rooms with Hainan status is only granted if you have a same-day boarding pass for transpacific travel on Hainan. It's clearly written in the terms.
@ keitherson -- Oy, thank you! When I asked Ben to check my work because this was all new and I was afraid of missing something dumb, this is the kind of thing I was thinking of ;)
Fantastic article Tiffany. So clearly laid out and written in an easy to follow and fun way.
i sent off for the gold challenge Fri, Aug 17, 9:12 PM pacific, received a (ok, you're signed up) response Sat, Aug 18, 12:23 AM