How Hongkongers can make frequent flier programmes pay: meet the blogger who lives on air miles

Frequent flier programmes still have huge "value" for Hong Kong travellers despite global airlines devaluing schemes to focus on the biggest-spending customers, a top travel blogger says.

US-based writer Ben Schlappig, who has traded sleeping at home for hotel suites and first class seats and writes about his experiences for a living, said Hongkongers were well placed to exploit the programmes despite airlines making it harder to qualify for the benefits.

This summer, Cathay Pacific revamped its elite Marco Polo frequent flier programme, focusing on rewarding bigger-spending customers, instead of by distance or regular travelling.

"There's a huge amount of value to get out of airline loyalty," said Schlappig, 25.

"Airlines make huge amount of money from them and consumers can gain quite a bit by understanding the systems."

He said "extremely profitable" airline loyalty programmes were evolving, especially because "they're not frequent flier programmes any more. They are frequent buyer programmes. The airlines want to incentivise people to fly with them, but they don't want to give away miles unnecessarily. And so that is a tough trend to counter as a consumer."