Cathay Pacific Asia Miles - HAPPY NEW YEAR CXFTs - and what a year will it be?!

A quick overview is in order for the new flying year.

Here are my bookings + planned trips(*) for the year, flying CX wherever possible.

January TPE-TYO-TPE
February TPE-HKG-SYD-HKG-TPE, TPE-TYO-TPE
March TPE-HKG-JFK-HKG-TPE
April TPE-HKG-LHR-HKG-TPE
May *TPE-HKG-LHR-HKG-TPE-HKG
June HKG-LHR-EDI-ZRH-VIE-LHR-HKG-TPE,
July *TPE-HKG-TPE, TPE-HKG-SHA-HKG-TPE
August *TPE-HKG-SHA-HKG-TPE
November *TPE-HKG-SHA-HKG-TPE-TYO-TPE
Dezember *TPE-HKG-LHR-VIE-LHR-HKG-TPE

So people - where are you flying in 03?

[Edited to protect the innocent]



[This message has been edited by mhtaipei (edited 01-01-2003).]

looks like you can do some RTW ex-SYD?

May I ask what kind of business you are in, I assume that is why you are flying so much !

cheers,

Jan

<font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2">Originally posted by pegasus8228:
looks like you can do some RTW ex-SYD?</font>

I have never seen the advantage of RTWs. I think they are difficult to book, don't give you that much more mileage. Just to give you an example from where I am standing - maybe I am missing something(?): 2 x J class from TPE to LHR cost &lt;USD 5000 and earn 18000*2 =36000 miles. Buying a RTW HKG-LHR-JFK-YVR-HKG leaves me with approx the same mileage/price ratio. I don't see the deal really. Maybe in places where biz tickets are more expensive than in Taiwan. (In any case, RTW is out of the question due to accounting regulations in my company, but thanks for the hint.)

what's wrong with you people? http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/smile.gif nobody flying in 2003? when you post a topic like this in other forums you reach a million miles within days. is the economy that bad? http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/smile.gif

No one dares to post their travel plan because they are nothing close to yours! http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/tongue.gif

If you are interested, poor student like me will travel:

Today: Just finished OOL-SYD
Feb: SYD-HKG-YVR-HKG-SYD, and a side trip HKG-NRT-HKG
April: SYD-HKG-SYD
then no definite plan until Dec, when I will do SYD-HKG-YVR return again.

Oh, plus 4 or 5 SYD-OOL return here and there when my assignments aren't too heavy.

So how many miles will your plan bring? I'm too lazy to calculate.

[This message has been edited by fakecd (edited 01-05-2003).]

you are probably right that it doesnt work too well for you.

well, it works better if you are based in a OW hub such as HKG.

for example,
1. hkg-syd-hkg
2. hkg-lhr-prg-lhr-hkg
3. hkg-nrt-hkg
4. hkg-syd-hkg

is equivalent to
1. hkg-syd
2. RTW syd-hkg-lhr-prg-lhr-jfk-hkg-nrt-hkg-syd
1. syd-hkg

which saves you the cost of 3+4, assuming cost of 2 are equal

-----

in your case, you can get a free trip o TPE-NRT or TPE-ICN. [if you can convince your accounting dept]
for other people who want to visit north america, and have time to do mileage run, it is useful.

an example for you is to change your
June tpe-HKG-LHR-EDI-ZRH-VIE-LHR-HKG-TPE,
November TPE-TYO-TPE
Dezember *TPE-HKG-LHR-VIE-LHR-HKG-TPE
into
RTW1 TPE-HKG-LHR-EDI-ZRH-VIE
RTW2 VIE-LHR-HKG-TPE-TYO-TPE-hkg-jfk-anywhere in US/canada-VIE
RTW1(continue) VIE-lhr-(norther america)-tpe

1. you save the ticket of tpe-nrt
2. you can do some "run" in north america or have some fun there (IF you have extar time)

--------

for me, i didnt have time to do mileage run, so i didnt get much of the benefits either. the only benefit was being able to stop by HKG when i flew BOS-europe, while saving some 10-30% for the company

[This message has been edited by pegasus8228 (edited 01-05-2003).]

thanks for the tips, pegasus8228. most creative. i gotta do some calculating.

i often read that people have problems with RTW tickets, getting certain classes, reservations, etc. You have any experience in terms of convenience of RTWs? (date changes, seat avail. etc.) Thanks a lot.

<font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2">Originally posted by fakecd:


So how many miles will your plan bring? I'm too lazy to calculate.

[This message has been edited by fakecd (edited 01-05-2003).]</font>

Well my year expires in May. I always manage to fly around 80000 every year, never enough to make Diamond, always enough to remind me how I hate CX's policy of 'wasting' miles.

Sincerely, Forever Gold. http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/smile.gif

<font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2">Originally posted by mhtaipei:
i often read that people have problems with RTW tickets, getting certain classes, reservations, etc.</font>D is hard to get, esp. for key routes, while A is wide open. This surprised me as there are far fewer A seats per plane, but it shows that companies will buy D but not A. So buy A if you have a choice, and enjoy the extra flexibility (I've never had a problem making a change in date or routing, the exact flight I wanted was always available in 2002 -- used to be much harder a couple of years ago).

the most in demand for A class is perhaps jfk-hkg or other hkg-usa flights.

the downside of RTW, vs full fare J, is that u cannot endorse/reroute into non-OW carrier.
so if your schdeule tend to change at the very last minute, and you time planning is always very tight (meeting arranged right off the plane). you should stick with your J tickets.
if your trips are all finalized, and you could shift the schedule by 1 day or so. you can use D (e.g. weekend as buffer in the very worse case of last minute change).

the other drawback is: once you started the journey, the refund value is very low (while for J ticket it is easy to calculate refund).
but if you are sure you will make the trip again a few months later, you can simply buy another ticket.
[it also depends on your company travel policy in such case]