[Update] This promotion is in full swing, but the Asia Miles Portal does not seem to reliably track cashback when redirecting to the Meituan app. Right now, the chance of tracking failure is fairly high. Fortunately, cashback tracking is very accurate when the Asia Miles Portal redirects to Ele.me and the Meituan website. We recommend clicking through to the web versions of both food-delivery services to place your orders; you can still use foreign credit cards there.

[Below is the 101 Express post from 2020/07/16]

Cathay mileage promotion

Asia Miles launched a new promotion on its Shopping Portal yesterday, adding rewards for orders placed with Meituan Waimai and Ele.me at a rate of 2.5 miles/usd. For full details, see the official Asia Miles WeChat post. That post includes detailed instructions, so we won’t repeat the how-to here. HT: WeChat reader CK

  • Asia Miles Shopping Portal: https://shop.asiamiles.com/sc/
  • Search for "Meituan Waimai" or "Ele.me"
  • Orders are limited to users with a Mainland China IP

If you’ve already returned to China, don’t miss this. If you’re quarantining in a hotel, definitely don’t miss it. A few friendly reminders:

  • If you use Ele.me inside Alipay, you generally cannot use a U.S. credit card unless you use Tour Pass, which charges a high fee (5%). However, through the Ele.me app and website, you can pay via WeChat, which allows WeChat + U.S. credit card payments (VISA/Master/Amex/JCB/Discover).
  • The Meituan Waimai app can directly accept U.S. credit cards (V/M, I’ll cover this separately), and you can also try routing the payment through WeChat Pay in the Meituan app, though that does not work in some areas. For both methods, V/M transactions code as dining, so you can use cards that earn bonus points on dining, such as CSR/CSP/Citi Premier/Citi Prestige.

Notes

You must follow the official requirements for linking/binding. You cannot place orders through Alipay or WeChat mini programs (in other words, you cannot order from within WeChat or Alipay), but you can still use WeChat Pay or Alipay to pay at checkout.

App signup links

  • Meituan Waimai: my invitation QR code is below:

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