Cathay Pacific Boosts Adelaide-Hong Kong Seasonal Flights
South Australia will get a bigger slice of the Cathay pie
Cathay Pacific will expand its seasonal Adelaide-Hong Kong service for the 2026-27 summer season, adding additional flights on top of the schedule it ran previously. Cathay will return to Adelaide with three flights per week from 11 November 2026, increasing to five flights per week between December and February. The service is expected to run until 27 March 2026.
Seat capacity will increase by 50% over last year, with flights continuing to run on Cathay's Airbus A350-900. The aircraft offers lie-lat beds in Business, as well as Premium Economy and Economy cabins.
“After seeing a strong return to Adelaide last year, we are pleased to strengthen our commitment to the city through increased flight frequencies,” said Aldric Chau, Cathay Regional General Manager, Southeast Asia and Oceania.
“These additional services will make it easier for customers to experience Cathay Pacific’s world-class service while connecting onwards to destinations across Asia, Europe, North America and beyond.”
The schedule sees CX173 blast out of Hong Kong at 11:30pm, touching down in Adelaide at 10:30am the following day. The return leg CX174 departs Adelaide at a far more reasonable 12pm, landing back in Hong Kong at 5:40pm.
Booking Cathay’s Returning Adelaide Flights Using Points
Cathay is a member of the Oneworld alliance, meaning we have a few solid redemption partners to consider in Australia. Here's how one-way Adelaide–Hong Kong redemption rates stack up between three of the most usable programs:
Qantas Points are of course the easiest to earn in Australia by a wide margin. The trade-off is that you'll need more Qantas Points to book the same seat compared to other loyalty programs. This doesn't mean it's a bad redemption though, as you'd likely lose a lot of value in bank conversions going via other partners. If Qantas Points are what you've got sitting there already, it's still a good redemption.
Cathay’s own loyalty program, which is simply called Cathay (previously known as Asia Miles), offers the best redemption rates on this route. You can transfer bank rewards points to Cathay from a number of programs including Amex Membership Rewards (3:1), ANZ Rewards (3:1), Westpac Rewards (3:1) and HSBC Rewards (2:1).
As an example, the current 200,000 Membership Rewards Point bonus on the Amex Platinum Card would be enough to book this flight in Business Class with Cathay Miles.
Finally, Alaska Atmos Rewards Points aren’t that easy for Australians to earn with everyday spending. But Alaska does run regular points purchase promotions, and buying Atmos Points at a discount can make for a cheap way to book Business Class flights.
