Cathay Pacific Asia Miles - Redemption seats...How?

So how do you get an upgrade seat on Cathay ? I'm new to this site and new to airline upgrades and was wondering about the basics of redemption seats.
I' enjoy flying Cathay and have been flying with them for 3 years and a silver MPC member. I recently acquired enough miles to upgrade to business from San Francisco to Bangkok . After trying on the Marco Polo website to find an available date to upgrade for an hour I've discovered that every single day for every single flight is full from today till the end of the schedule. It's not a situation where one can 'be flexible with the dates' , it's just impossible to book a redemption seat on that route, which is the only route that I am interested in. After January 1, I will be retired and available for any date anytime. I consider this to be as flexible as any person can be yet it is still impossible to find an date that is not "full".
It seems to me that if you're a freq flyer with an airline and want to book an upgrade seat using miles 11 months in advance it should be possible.


Cathay greatly advertises their Asia Miles program on websites and even on board the aircraft but actually trying to get an upgrade award seems extremely difficult in my case if not impossible. There are other destinations that have seat availability but I don't consider 'flexibility' as having to go somewhere where you don't want to go.

I've emailed the MPC expressing my displeasure and I"m awaiting a response.

I have one important question for you experts;

I've noticed after reading several posts that Cathay and most other carriers release upgrade seats very close to the departure dates. Given that it is a requirement that one must purchase an upgradeble economy class ticket that matches the itinerary of the redemption seat reservation which is what I'm told....... what happens if your upgrade award seat does not 'clear' or be confirmed ? Do you then just fly economy or does the entire reservation become void and you just leave the airport and drive home? Because if that is the common practice I would not be interested in upgrade seats again.

I've searched the first 20 pages or so and can't find anything and maybe these are oversimplified comments and a question but....I just don't know.

Much thanks in advance...

CX allows you to WL for redemption awards tix/upgrades. What u should do is ask call MPC and ask them to put you on WL. If the flgiht is not full closer to ur departure date, the changes u will get it confirmed are greater. They rarely follow the QF approach whereby flying empty seats rather than releasing it for award redemption.

You sure do have a lot of questions. Anyways, spending an hour to check availability online is such a waste of time. You should call up Asia Miles and ask them to check availability, but I am not surprised that there is no or extremely limited first/business class availability at this point. They just haven't released seats yet. You can waitlist for a maximum of three flights, so just make sure you waitlist on the flight you wanted, the earlier and later on. I found that CX is pretty good and flexibile in releasing upgrade seats at about 24 hours prior to departure, if there are seats left in the cabin of course. If the waitlist still doesn't clear at this stage, you should begin to prepare yourself for the worse. However, you can still go to the airport check in counter and request for one. LAX, I feel that is the easiest route to secure an upgrade, because of multiple flights every day with two of them using a configuration with a larger business class. Driving home from the airport when the upgrade does not clear??... how did you come with that?

You sure do have a lot of questions. Anyways, spending an hour to check availability online is such a waste of time. You should call up Asia Miles and ask them to check availability, but I am not surprised that there is no or extremely limited first/business class availability at this point. They just haven't released seats yet. You can waitlist for a maximum of three flights, so just make sure you waitlist on the flight you wanted, the earlier and later on. I found that CX is pretty good and flexibile in releasing upgrade seats at about 24 hours prior to departure, if there are seats left in the cabin of course. If the waitlist still doesn't clear at this stage, you should begin to prepare yourself for the worse. However, you can still go to the airport check in counter and request for one. LAX, I feel that is the easiest route to secure an upgrade, because of multiple flights every day with two of them using a configuration with a larger business class. Driving home from the airport when the upgrade does not clear??... how did you come with that?


Actually I really only had one question but I appreciate the response.

My "driving home" comment was a concern about the possibility of a wait listed upgrade reservation not being " cleared" up to departure time and the end result being a completely cancelled reservation and not being able to fly at all. Since one is required to purchase an economy ticket for the upgrade the original question is a worst case senario :

What happens if you are unable to get a waitlisted upgrade reservation "cleared " ??? Can you still fly on that reservation in economy??? Yes?....... or No ?

Actually I really only had one question but I appreciate the response.

My "driving home" comment was a concern about the possibility of a wait listed upgrade reservation not being " cleared" up to departure time and the end result being a completely cancelled reservation and not being able to fly at all. Since one is required to purchase an economy ticket for the upgrade the original question is a worst case senario :

What happens if you are unable to get a waitlisted upgrade reservation "cleared " ??? Can you still fly on that reservation in economy??? Yes?....... or No ?


When you book your Y Class booking, you get a CX CUPID PNR assigned. When you request an upgrade a SEPERATE CUPID PNR is allocated (even if it is HL1 (waitlist).

When the U Class upgrade clears CX will then cancel the Y Class PNR and the U Class PNR will be the oen u used to travel. If it doesn't clear the Y Class PNR will not be cancelled.

Note that is the past CX often forgets to cancel the Y Class PNR which results in 2 seperate bookings on the same flight. But they are much better now as it is all electronic (compare to the coupon system before)

When you book your Y Class booking, you get a CX CUPID PNR assigned. When you request an upgrade a SEPERATE CUPID PNR is allocated (even if it is HL1 (waitlist).

When the U Class upgrade clears CX will then cancel the Y Class PNR and the U Class PNR will be the oen u used to travel. If it doesn't clear the Y Class PNR will not be cancelled.

Note that is the past CX often forgets to cancel the Y Class PNR which results in 2 seperate bookings on the same flight. But they are much better now as it is all electronic (compare to the coupon system before)

I've always found that once the upgrade clears it is best to call MPC and get the two PNRs "merged" ASAP, otherwise you'll end up with two PNRs for the same flight, and if CX isn't proactive (by calling you), they'll just automatically cancel both of them, which is the worst outcome.

I've always found that once the upgrade clears it is best to call MPC and get the two PNRs "merged" ASAP, otherwise you'll end up with two PNRs for the same flight, and if CX isn't proactive (by calling you), they'll just automatically cancel both of them, which is the worst outcome.

From my recent experience they automatically cancel the Y class booking. However I do understand what you mean as it happened to me before and I also managed to check myself in twice online (I got 1 BP in J Class and 1 BP in Y Class) and caused some problems at the airport.

I thought in CUPID they do have a ticket number reconcilaition function before allowing the issuance of BPs?

I thought in CUPID they do have a ticket number reconcilaition function before allowing the issuance of BPs?

Yes, but you have to give them the ticket number yourself. They may or may not come after you for the info, but in my experience they never had, although a couple of times I called it had already been taken care of. Other times they were glad I called and gave them the info.