Review: The Ultimate Guide on Philippine Airlines (PAL) Mabuhay Miles Program
There are two main airlines within the Philippines, the flagship carrier Philippine Airlines (PAL) and the low cost carrier, Cebu Pacific. Traditionally, Philippine Airlines has been the only Filipino carrier to offer any sort of frequent flier program, which has resulted in a relatively lackluster program. However, with Cebu Pacific’s recent launch of its GetGo program and Etihad Airlines & ANA partnering with Philippine Airlines, there is finally some resemblance of choice for Filipino frequent flyers.
How do I earn Mabuhay Miles?
Flyers typically earn a percentage of miles flown based off the fare type of the ticket you purchased. You can find the fare type of your ticket in your itinerary confirmation under “booking class”. You’ll also earn miles when you fly on select code share partners.
Philippine Airlines has published an award chart that can find here that shows exactly how many miles you’ll earn based on your booking class and where you’re flying to.
Tip: You can also find the distance flown using this free online calculator.
Alternatively, you can transfer miles from one of Philippine Airlines numerous bank partners, including CitiBank, BDO.
Low Elite Requirements
In order to earn Mabuhay Miles, you will first need to pay a 150 PHP membership fee. After joining, you’ll receive no benefits until you’ve flown either 30 Philippine Airline segments or earned 25,000 miles, at which point you become an elite member. Elite cardholders have access to both domestic and international lounges, along with priority boarding & check in, along with an extra 10 KG of luggage.
This is one of the lowest mileage requirement I’ve ever seen for a mid tier status of any airline. For comparison, you’ll need to earn 50,000 American AAdvantage miles to earn Platinum status that grants similar benefits.
How many Mabuhay miles will my trip require?
Philippine Airlines uses a distanced based zone chart in which different cities are grouped together by how far they are from Manila or Cebu.
There are two separate award charts for domestic and international flights.
Philippine Airlines seems to have taken a page out of American Airlines and uses a multi tiered award chart with a saver award and different levels of “FlexiFlyer”, which don’t have seat capacity restrictions.
Domestic Award Chart
For domestic flights, cities are grouped in three tiers based on how far they are from Manila, Cebu, or Iloilo.
You can view the award chart here, but for most of the popular destinations like Borocay & Cebu will start at 4500 miles one way from Manila.
Flights are sold on an individual level and connections are not allowed. For example if you’d like to fly from Coron (Busuanga) to Cebu, you’ll have to redeem two separate tickets: Coron to Manila (4500 miles) and then a separate ticket from Manila to Cebu (4500 miles), which equals a grand total of 9000 miles.
Philippine Airlines does have a history of “enhancing” their award chart by increasing the amount of miles needed for award tickets. However, with the advent of a multi-tiered award approach, I am quite confident the miles for saver tickets won’t change in the near future.
You could theoretically upgrade your ticket to premium economy for 3000-4500 miles depending on where you’re flying to but for such a short flight I find it hardly worth it.
International Award Chart
For international flight award redemptions, cities are also grouped into different zones based off the amount of distance flown. The economy saver rates are reasonably priced if not spectacular, with biggest benefit being the extensive non-stop flight network out of Manila & Cebu.
If you prefer to fly in business class, I find the business awards to be overpriced; especially given the standard business class hard product is light years away from the modern, top of line business class products on most Asian airlines. For example, a one way ticket from Manila to New York is around 134,000 miles round trip. A similar trip booked with ANA miles (a Philippine Airlines partner) would cost you only 95,000 miles round trip, and you are allowed one free stopover along the way.
Fly in style on Eva Airway’s Royal Business Class
How to Find Award Space
By far the biggest drawback to Mabuhay Miles is the fact that there’s no way to search or book award space on Philippine Airlines’ website. In fact, the only way to redeem your miles is to actually go to the nearest Philippine Airlines office in person.
You can find a full list of the PAL’s office location here:
Typically getting to a nearby office is already a hassle given Manila’s terrible traffic, but once you get there wait times are typically in excess of 30 minutes if not an hour. To be fair, the waiting area is very well organized with a guard handing line numbers once you enter the door.
My friend and I actually went to the Makati office to redeem her miles during a 50% off sale. As expected there was a huge queue and it as a minor miracle that we could even get a parking spot, thanks for some parallel parking and a helpful lot attendant.
Once she got her number called, it was a fairly quick process to book the award, and the fees charged were minimal.
But here’s the catch: You don’t know if there’s going to be saver space available before heading to the neared Philippine Airlines office. So its best you come in with a few different dates, so your time spend getting to the office and waiting in line is not wasted.
Partner Redemptions for Ultra Luxurious Travel
One of the Mabuhay Miles best current secret’s is actually points redemption on Philippine Airline’s partner ANA airlines.
While the economy & business class redemption rates are quite average, if not a bit high compared to the competition, Mabuhay Miles has fantastic rates for first class flights
For example, a one way flight between Los Angeles and Tokyo is only 65,000 Mabuhay Miles, which I believe is the cheapest current redemption currently on the planet!
In general flight redemptions between Tokyo and the US / Europe are bargains and represent probably the best redemptions possible with Mabuhay Miles.
ANA’s amazing first class product
However, you will first need to fly to Tokyo first to take advantage of these bargains.
To find award space is also quite easy as you merely need to search on United.com, which should display all available ANA first class flights that can be booked with points.
Etihad
You may have read my trip report featuring my $23,000 trip aboard the Etihad Apartment & Residence for $300. The good news is its actually possible to do something similar, even if your Filipino. The bad news it would cost a LOT more miles. Where a
Althou
You can actually fly Etihad’s first class apartment from Sydney to . Unfortunately, there are no flights to Manila that feature a first class cabin, so you’ll need to fly to one of the few gateway cities that feature this amazing product.
If you’re dead set on flying the world’s biggest commercial first class seat, I’d recommend crediting your flights and transferring your credit card points (eligible CitiBank customers only) to Etihad’s Guest Miles program.
Overall Verdict
In general Mabuhay Miles are a poor value for international flights, especially for premium travel, however, they do occasionally run getaway sales which has select routes at 50% off. Keep in mind these award sales come with quite a few restrictions, but present some extremely lucrative mileage redemption opportunities.
The most recent sale for example has flights from Manila to Cairns (Australia) in business class at a mere 15,500 miles one way, a fantastic value.
Partner redemptions for ANA’s first class are probably the best use of Mabuhay miles, but require you to first fly to Japan.
Domestically, Philippine Airlines does have a huge network of nonstop flights, and if you can find saver award space, generally costs a lower amount of miles. I’d recommend you save your Mabuhay Miles for international redemptions, but if you’re not planning on traveling internationally, the 50% off getaway sales are a great use of points.
If Philippine Airlines made award redemptions possible online or even over the phone, the value of Mabuhay Miles would rise significantly. Until then, the hassle of actually having to go to a physical office to redeem your miles is a major drawback, and makes it essentially impossible for foreigners to redeem their miles.
Rethinking Loyalty outside the Box
Philippine Airlines use to control a monopoly on where you can credit your flights, but with the recent additions of two new partners, Etihad & ANA, Filipino business travelers finally have a few options to choose when crediting their PAL flight.
I’ve broken it down and you can read the full analysis here: