HK Express (UO, Hong Kong International) has announced in a press statement that it will replace its existing in-house loyalty programme reward-U with Asia Miles, a programme owned by the LCC's new parent Cathay Pacific (CX, Hong Kong International).

The carrier will stop issuing reward-U points for tickets purchased after August 20, 2019. Members of the programme will then have until the end of 2019 to either use their points with HK Express or convert them to points in the Asia Miles programme.

reward-U will subsequently cease to exist at the end of 2019.

Cathay Pacific completed the full acquisition of HK Express on July 19, 2019.

The switch in frequent flyer programme follows the de facto end of the regional LCC alliance U-Fly alliance. ch-aviation understands from internal sources that the cooperation between HK Express, Eastar Jet, Lucky Air (China), Urumqi Air, and West Air (China) was suspended several months ago. The alliance's website is inactive and member carriers no longer display any U-FLY branding on their respective websites.

Besides Eastar Jet, all other members of the U-Fly alliance were affiliated with the debt-ridden HNA Group.