Cathay Pacific Asia Miles - Our first experience with CX

Hello everyone! We travel to Thailand once or twice a year from the US and just returned home from our first flights on CX. We usually fly TG or JL.

Overall flying CX was a great experience!

ORD-HKG. Weather was bad in Chicago and we ended up leaving 3+ hours late. I knew this was going to make for a very tight connection. The purser knew it was going to be close and moved the 3 of us to empty biz class seats to try and make it. The BKK ended up taking off the same time we were landing. We were prepared for a fiasco upon exiting the aircraft, but CX did a great job of taking care of us. They had us re booked at 830 the next morning and the boarding passes were handed to us. Along with two rooms at the Park Lane hotel, transportation and meal vouchers. Our 12 year old son was worried about where they would put us up, but the Park Lane turned out to be VERY nice!

BKK-HKG. We left a carry on bag in the overhead trying to hurry out and get to Disney for the rest of the day. We stopped at the connection desk and told them what happened, we had our bag within 10 mins!

HKG - ORD. I knew Y was oversold on this leg. I had my wife go to the desk as soon as it opened for our flight. I told her what to say, but she kind of freaked out when they tore up our BPs!!! But was relieved when they handed her back our new BP for biz!!! That made the 15 hours much more enjoyable, and also gave our son bragging rights when we went back to school :)

It's was a great first experience with CX and will definitely be back!

Hello everyone! We travel to Thailand once or twice a year from the US and just returned home from our first flights on CX. We usually fly TG or JL.

Overall flying CX was a great experience!

ORD-HKG. Weather was bad in Chicago and we ended up leaving 3+ hours late. I knew this was going to make for a very tight connection. The purser knew it was going to be close and moved the 3 of us to empty biz class seats to try and make it. The BKK ended up taking off the same time we were landing. We were prepared for a fiasco upon exiting the aircraft, but CX did a great job of taking care of us. They had us re booked at 830 the next morning and the boarding passes were handed to us. Along with two rooms at the Park Lane hotel, transportation and meal vouchers. Our 12 year old son was worried about where they would put us up, but the Park Lane turned out to be VERY nice!

BKK-HKG. We left a carry on bag in the overhead trying to hurry out and get to Disney for the rest of the day. We stopped at the connection desk and told them what happened, we had our bag within 10 mins!

HKG - ORD. I knew Y was oversold on this leg. I had my wife go to the desk as soon as it opened for our flight. I told her what to say, but she kind of freaked out when they tore up our BPs!!! But was relieved when they handed her back our new BP for biz!!! That made the 15 hours much more enjoyable, and also gave our son bragging rights when we went back to school :)

It's was a great first experience with CX and will definitely be back!

would you care to share what it is that you told your wife to say to secure the upgrade?

would you care to share what it is that you told your wife to say to secure the upgrade?

Do You Know Who I Am? ;)

would you care to share what it is that you told your wife to say to secure the upgrade?

After reading FT for years, I knew that the upgrade on CX would be very hard to secure since we are only OW Ruby. It was only after I figured out that Y was oversold that I knew there even a slight chance. I just told her to say " I know that economy is oversold and was wondering if it would be possible to get moved to business??". That was it, all she did was ask. As a AA flyer I know all about the DYKWIA!! We didn't try that :)

After reading FT for years, I knew that the upgrade on CX would be very hard to secure since we are only OW Ruby. It was only after I figured out that Y was oversold that I knew there even a slight chance. I just told her to say " I know that economy is oversold and was wondering if it would be possible to get moved to business??". That was it, all she did was ask. As a AA flyer I know all about the DYKWIA!! We didn't try that :)

I think the consensus is that this is not the thing to say, and you're lucky you got op-upped despite asking. Seems you're more DYKWIA than you care to admit.

Glad you did get the op-up, and your good experiences in general are pretty much par for the course of CX. Just don't mislead other FT readers into thinking this is a good strategy when it may not be.

I did not mean to mislead anyone with the info I shared. If it matters, we talked with 5 other pax near us and each of them got an op up with no status, and three of them did the same thing as us..the other two just got new BPs when they went to board. I was just trying to share our great eperience with CX.

on another note....my wife had made home made cookies for the flight crew of the ord hkg flight, with a note small note of thanks attached. While we were waiting for the 3 hour weather delay, the flight crew had made us a Thank You card and had all signed it. My wife usually shares something from home on the first long flight of our trip, but this is the first time we have recieived a card back.

Hi, What seats did you get in J? I am hoping for an opinion on what is best/worst for the 77D in business. I have read the sticky... :-)
Thanks!

I think the consensus is that this is not the thing to say, and you're lucky you got op-upped despite asking. Seems you're more DYKWIA than you care to admit.

Glad you did get the op-up, and your good experiences in general are pretty much par for the course of CX. Just don't mislead other FT readers into thinking this is a good strategy when it may not be.



anybody else annoyed by the tone in this post?

anybody else annoyed by the tone in this post?

The DYKWIA remark may be a little bit offensive.

But everything else is fine as true as it gets.

It is not a secret that CX does not treat AA elites that good. And strictly status talking, OP would have been the last group of people for an op-up.

But this is the truth - CX 806/807 is a heaven for op-up.

Also as a person who always pays to fly in C or F I object to seeing people getting upgraded asking like this so I find it more offensive reading the bit about saying I know Y is oversold.

How did you know Y was oversold?

fyi,
if you missed your non cx connection due to cx delay, prepare to battle to get it compensated. last trip delay caused us to missed our 5 hrs connection flight on diff airline. CX US ground promise to help us but hkg crew refused :(

so better stick with same carrier or add longer connection time

How did you know Y was oversold?

1. Expertflyer

2. You can see if you can ticket a full Y or not. If not, that means it is oversold.

I think the consensus is that this is not the thing to say, and you're lucky you got op-upped despite asking. Seems you're more DYKWIA than you care to admit.

Glad you did get the op-up, and your good experiences in general are pretty much par for the course of CX. Just don't mislead other FT readers into thinking this is a good strategy when it may not be.


anybody else annoyed by the tone in this post?


Yes, I.

Also as a person who always pays to fly in C or F I object to seeing people getting upgraded asking like this so I find it more offensive reading the bit about saying I know Y is oversold.

I have no objections with folks (myself included) buying Y (the deeper the discount the better) and being upgraded to C/F.

CX goes out of their way to give you a nice flight experience.
That is why I am taking my third R/T on CX in Oct.
^;)

fyi,
if you missed your non cx connection due to cx delay, prepare to battle to get it compensated. last trip delay caused us to missed our 5 hrs connection flight on diff airline. CX US ground promise to help us but hkg crew refused :(

so better stick with same carrier or add longer connection time

We were also on CX to BKK. :)

I really did not mean to open a can of worms with my op up experience. I knew we were at the absolute bottom of the barrel and that they would get to just about every other elite first.

If asking for an op-up is not the proper thing to do, what is?

If asking for an op-up is not the proper thing to do, what is?

Never hurts to ask.

It is not a secret that CX does not treat AA elites that good.

As an OW (AA) sapphire, I find that CX treats me very well on my occasional flights with them. They have twice given me Op Ups (completely unprompted), one of which occurred when I showed up early and requested to get on an earlier flight (on an inflexible ticket). I have also been personally greeted/thanked on board, consistently had checked baggage prioritised, had an adjacent seat blocked on a 99.9% full flight, etc. I don't get such good treatment on AA.

1. Expertflyer

2. You can see if you can ticket a full Y or not. If not, that means it is oversold.

Surely refusal to sell another Y ticket suggests that Y is 100% sold, rather than oversold. In any event, "oversold" cannot be determined until shortly before departure as it means that more ticket holders have shown up than there are available seats.

And actually CX and others are understood to continue selling Y space when Y is full when they believe that J space will be available for op ups, thus deliberately creating an oversold situation through further sales. If you can't buy a full Y ticket, that might indicate that J is expected to be full as well as Y.

Surely refusal to sell another Y ticket suggests that Y is 100% sold, rather than oversold. In any event, "oversold" cannot be determined until shortly before departure as it means that more ticket holders have shown up than there are available seats.

Not exactly true.

AFAIK - all airline oversell tickets to increase revenue (except SQ).

What can only determine shortly before departure is op-up and denied boarding.

anybody else annoyed by the tone in this post?

Yes, I.

If asking for an op-up is not the proper thing to do, what is?

Never hurts to ask.

Sorry if the tone of my post offended anyone. The fact is that there are conflicting reports on whether asking for an op-up makes any difference. It may hurt you. While CX has made a business decision to routinely oversell and op-up, they don't want to encourage people to think they can buy cheap tickets and then "guarantee" an op-up by asking for it. If that's so, then OP just really lucked out with an agent who didn't have time at that moment to care.

Yet I'm already turning out to be right. Now, in the same thread, we're seeing posts about how best to ask for an op-up. BostonFlyer1624, the "proper thing to do" is nothing. Granting op-ups are determined by the computer based on status (though rescinding one pre-determined by the computer may be in the agent's discretion). yoonny, we don't know if that's true. It might.

Next we'll have threads along the lines of "I knew the flight was oversold and I asked nicely, but I didn't get the op-up. Why not?"