China Airlines has partnered with Agoda to launch StayMiles, a new hotel booking platform that lets its loyalty members earn and redeem miles on accommodation worldwide, signaling a major evolution in how airlines design and monetize their loyalty programs.
A Strategic Tie-Up Between China Airlines and Agoda
The StayMiles platform is the product of a strategic collaboration between Taiwan-based China Airlines and Agoda, whose partnerships division, Rocket Travel by Agoda, powers the new service. Announced in mid-February 2026, the launch reflects both companies’ ambitions to position loyalty as a central pillar of the travel experience, rather than a peripheral add-on tied only to flights.
Rocket Travel by Agoda serves as the sole digital travel partner for StayMiles, managing the end-to-end customer journey from search and booking through to post-stay customer support. For China Airlines, this effectively plugs a global hotel inventory directly into its existing loyalty infrastructure, removing friction for members who previously had to juggle multiple platforms or partners to maximize their rewards.
Industry observers note that the move puts China Airlines in closer alignment with global carriers that treat loyalty programs as diversified travel ecosystems. By partnering with an established digital travel platform instead of building its own hotel marketplace from scratch, the airline accesses ready-made technology, inventory and data capabilities while keeping its brand and frequent-flyer program at the forefront.
The collaboration also strengthens Agoda’s position as a white-label provider to airlines looking to deepen customer engagement beyond the flight. StayMiles becomes a showcase for how hotel content, loyalty currency and airline booking flows can be integrated into a single environment, with Rocket Travel by Agoda acting as the connective tissue.
How StayMiles Works for China Airlines Members
At its core, StayMiles allows members of China Airlines’ loyalty program to earn miles every time they book a qualifying hotel stay through the dedicated platform. According to launch details, travelers can earn up to 10,000 miles per night on selected properties, depending on the destination, dates and promotional offers. This earning potential significantly accelerates mileage accrual for frequent travelers who might otherwise only accumulate points when they fly.
The platform is designed as a fully integrated experience: members sign in using their China Airlines credentials, search for accommodation across a broad range of price points and property types, and see mileage earnings clearly displayed alongside nightly rates. Because the platform sits within the airline’s loyalty framework, miles earned on hotel stays are credited directly to the same account used for flight rewards and status.
StayMiles also supports redemption, allowing members to use their miles to part-pay or fully cover hotel stays. A key feature is an intuitive slider tool that lets travelers start redeeming from as few as 1,000 miles, adjusting the mix of cash and miles in real time. This flexibility caters to both high-balance frequent flyers and more occasional travelers who may want to use smaller mileage amounts without saving for a long-haul award ticket.
Crucially, the platform is not limited to trips involving a China Airlines flight. Members can earn and redeem miles on standalone hotel bookings worldwide, whether for local staycations, regional business trips or long-haul leisure travel. That breadth makes StayMiles a daily-life loyalty tool rather than something only activated at the airport.
Global Reach: From Taipei to North America and Europe
StayMiles debuts with access to more than 600,000 properties worldwide, drawing on Agoda’s extensive hotel network. For China Airlines customers, this means they can now seamlessly earn or redeem miles on stays across key markets in Asia, North America, Canada and Europe, as well as within Taiwan itself.
The geographic spread is strategically aligned with China Airlines’ route network and passenger flows. Taiwan remains a central hub, but the carrier serves major cities across Northeast and Southeast Asia, as well as long-haul destinations in North America and Europe. StayMiles effectively mirrors this reach on the ground, giving members options to collect miles at both ends of a journey and on trips where the airline is not the operating carrier.
For travelers in Taiwan and across the region, the ability to earn up to 10,000 miles per night on some stays could make hotel bookings as important a source of rewards as flights, especially for frequent domestic and short-haul travelers. Local weekend getaways or business overnights now contribute meaningfully toward the same mileage balance used for international redemptions.
The partnership is also framed as a way to broaden choices in secondary and tertiary markets, not just flagship cities. By tapping into a mix of global chains, regional brands and independent hotels, StayMiles aims to offer mileage-earning opportunities in both classic tourist hubs and less-trafficked destinations, reinforcing China Airlines’ positioning as a carrier for both mainstream and niche itineraries.
Reinventing Airline Loyalty Beyond the Boarding Pass
The launch of StayMiles illustrates a wider trend across the airline industry: loyalty programs are evolving into comprehensive travel and lifestyle ecosystems that extend well beyond the boarding gate. While hotels have long been a peripheral earning option for frequent flyers, the integration seen here brings accommodation to the center of the airline’s loyalty proposition.
By embedding hotel content inside the airline-branded platform, China Airlines shifts the customer mindset from “earn miles only when I fly” to “earn miles whenever I travel.” Every stay becomes a potential mileage boost, which in turn increases engagement with the loyalty program and reinforces the perceived value of membership.
The model also aligns with a broader movement toward “everyday earning,” in which airlines seek to capture value from non-flight categories such as hotels, credit cards, car rentals and retail spending. StayMiles leans into that strategy by turning hotel bookings, a large and recurring travel expense, into a primary mechanism for mileage accumulation and redemption.
For China Airlines, this diversification carries financial implications too. Loyalty programs have become significant profit centers for many carriers, with miles sold to partners and redeemed by customers forming a distinct revenue stream. StayMiles adds another dimension to that equation, allowing the airline to derive value from hotel transactions, while Agoda benefits from increased distribution through a premium airline channel.
Customer Experience: Seamless Booking and Flexible Redemption
From a traveler’s perspective, the success of StayMiles will depend heavily on how easy it is to use. Rocket Travel by Agoda has been tasked with managing an end-to-end digital experience, meaning customers can search, book and support their stays without leaving the airline’s loyalty environment. Behind the scenes, the technology connects hotel inventory, pricing and loyalty mechanics so that miles show clearly and reliably in the booking flow.
The adjustable slider for redemptions is a centerpiece of the user experience. Instead of committing a fixed block of miles, members can experiment in real time, watching how price and mileage requirements change as they move the slider. This transparency is designed to encourage experimentation and reduce the frustration sometimes associated with opaque award charts or limited hotel redemption availability.
The platform also promises responsive customer service across the booking lifecycle, from managing last-minute changes to resolving post-stay issues. Because Rocket Travel by Agoda oversees the customer journey, travelers benefit from a unified point of contact for hotel-related questions while still dealing inside a China Airlines-branded environment, minimizing confusion over who is responsible for support.
Over time, StayMiles is expected to learn from customers’ preferences and behavior, with the potential for more personalized recommendations and targeted mileage offers. The integration of booking and loyalty data gives both partners insight into where and how members travel, opening the door to more finely tuned promotions and bundled flight-hotel deals.
Competitive Context: A New Benchmark for Airline-Hotel Partnerships
Airlines and hotels have collaborated on mileage earning for decades, but many traditional arrangements are limited to generic accrual rates or indirect conversions of hotel points into airline miles. StayMiles represents a more tightly integrated model in which the airline controls the front-end experience and the loyalty currency, while the travel technology partner manages inventory and operations.
Other carriers have experimented with hotel booking engines that sit alongside their main sites, but they typically position them as ancillary services with separate logins or weaker loyalty links. In contrast, China Airlines is signaling that hotel stays booked through StayMiles are a core way to earn and burn miles, with highly visible mileage propositions and aggressive per-night earning opportunities.
This approach may raise expectations among frequent travelers who increasingly compare loyalty programs across airlines. If members come to see hotel-earning opportunities and flexible hotel redemptions as standard features, carriers that lag behind in integrating accommodation into their loyalty platforms could face pressure to follow suit or risk losing high-value customers.
For hotels, particularly independent properties and regional chains, appearing on an airline-integrated platform such as StayMiles offers another channel to reach engaged, higher-spending travelers who place a premium on rewards. As programs like this expand, the lines between airline and hotel loyalty ecosystems are likely to blur further, with customers navigating a more interconnected rewards landscape.
Implications for Taiwan and Regional Travel Markets
StayMiles also has specific significance for Taiwan’s travel market. China Airlines is one of the country’s flagship carriers, and its loyalty program plays an important role in connecting Taiwanese travelers to regional and global destinations. By turning hotel stays into a powerful mileage-earning tool, the airline is effectively encouraging members to keep more of their travel planning within its ecosystem.
This could prove especially impactful for short-haul and intra-Asia travel, where competition between carriers is intense and customers often have several high-quality options. If a traveler knows that a weekend stay in Taipei, a business trip to Tokyo or a family holiday in Thailand can all generate substantial miles via StayMiles, the perceived value of staying loyal to China Airlines increases.
The platform may also support Taiwan’s wider tourism ambitions by making it easier to combine flights with hotel stays packaged under a single loyalty umbrella. As inbound tourism recovers and outbound travel patterns normalize, integrated rewards on both air and hotel components can make destinations more attractive and itineraries easier to assemble.
In the longer term, success in Taiwan and neighboring markets could position StayMiles as a template for similar collaborations elsewhere in Asia, where travel demand is robust and consumers are increasingly savvy about maximizing loyalty benefits across every part of their trip.
A Glimpse of the Future of Travel Rewards
With StayMiles, China Airlines and Agoda are not simply launching another booking engine; they are testing a deeper vision of what airline loyalty might look like in the coming decade. The emphasis on globally available hotel inventory, flexible redemption, and meaningful earn rates on non-flight spending presents a model in which airline mileage programs occupy a central place in the broader travel economy.
For travelers, the immediate benefits are tangible: more ways to earn miles, more options to redeem them and a smoother experience connecting flights and hotels. For the companies involved, the platform offers richer data, stronger engagement and new revenue streams anchored in loyalty rather than just ticket sales.
As airline and hotel partnerships continue to evolve, the StayMiles launch suggests that the most compelling innovations will be those that integrate services so tightly that customers no longer think in separate categories of air, hotel and rewards. Instead, they will view their loyalty currency as a single, versatile asset that works across all stages of the journey, from booking a city-center business stay to redeeming a tropical resort vacation.
In that sense, the StayMiles collaboration between China Airlines and Agoda is both a competitive play for traveler attention today and a signal of where the next wave of loyalty innovation is heading: toward unified, global platforms that reward customers for every mile flown and every night spent away from home.