Cathay Pacific Asia Miles - Finding Aa Award For Cx Travel

Hi all,

I've been having a really hard time trying to put together a business class reward for two to HKG from SFO in April using AAdvantage miles. Instead of always calling AA's reservation center is their an online tool that would show availability?

Thanks in advance for any help.

If you are an Asiamiles or MPC member you could probably check on the Asia Miles website to see if there is any Business Class availability on those days. But, I don't see how that would help much, because the website has been known to be wrong or behind at times. Also, since you're booking an AAdvantage AAward, I don't see CX being of much help since your transaction will be with AA. I feel your pain though; even using Asia Miles it's nearly impossible to get a J reward on popular US routes, like JFK-HKG.

If you are an Asiamiles or MPC member you could probably check on the Asia Miles website to see if there is any Business Class availability on those days. But, I don't see how that would help much, because the website has been known to be wrong or behind at times. Also, since you're booking an AAdvantage AAward, I don't see CX being of much help since your transaction will be with AA. I feel your pain though; even using Asia Miles it's nearly impossible to get a J reward on popular US routes, like JFK-HKG.

HKG-JFK is about as hard as it gets, but HKG-SFO or SFO-HKG has pretty good availability IF you are using Asia Miles to do it. AAdvantage will be at a severe DisAAdvantage as Asia Miles can also use reward upgrades and wait-list, and it's pretty close out in April. CX takes care of their MPC members and unfortunately, even if you were (are?) OW Emerald it's still hard. I know they release more J and F award availability to awards tix closer to departure (say 1-2 weeks), but I don't know if this also applies to AAdvantage members or just Asia Miles people. If there is a wait-list obviously Asia Miles members will get it first when availability pops up as I don't think you can waitlist. Other posters here will undoubtedly know the release procedures.

Does it need to be the non-stop? If not, you could connect through NRT on either JL or AA's J product, then J on CX NRT-HKG.

You also may have slightly better CX J availability from LAX since there are 3 flights to choose from.

It's possible that CX could be releasing just one J seat at a time for award inventory. Folks here have suggested a couple of strategies, if you're willing to be flexible:
1. Book separate PNR's to clear 1 award seat at a time, calling compulsively the weeks before the flight to clear another award seat.
2. Book separate PNR's on consecutive flight times, landing an award seat in each, then call later on to change one of the flights when another seat has opened up.

Whether you would want to chance it is a different story.

Thanks for everyone's input.

I was able to reserve SFO-YVR-HKG in business on CX with Alaska connection on 4/18, but only economy for HKG to SFO on 4/26. I'd feel ok with this but since it's a "voluntary down grade," I feel like I'm not making the most out of my miles. I wish they were like Northwest were you could split the trip into outbound as J and return as Y and the mileage would be deducted accordingly.

I'll keep calling AA to see if anything opens up, but the agents/ res system is so slow. Is there any other tool out there that can check for class availability? I think I am looking for U class.

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I'll keep calling AA to see if anything opens up, but the agents/ res system is so slow. Is there any other tool out there that can check for class availability? I think I am looking for U class.

Unfortunately no.

I booked a HKG-SFO in J as part of a OW award I'm doing late March. Apparently CX releases award seats one-by-one (EXP agent said there was only one seat left that day).
Also of interest: there is a non-perfect and circuitous way to check availability: log into BA's website with your BA EC account and choose 'spend miles'. You can search for partner flights as well, which includes CX. It's a good tool for anything but transatlantic.

The problem is that CX's availability on their own site is not too accurate. It is difficult to expect other sites to do a better job. They can provide a good reference though.

At 11 months in advance, we have to go through YVR to get 2 biz seats to Hong Kong then on to Phuket using AA award. Our return is on JAL as I couldn't get CX seats. I plan to keep calling AA between now and November about once a week to see if anything opens up from LAX or SFO. My problem is we are starting in Kansas City and I have to get to the west coast on AA. Right now our routing has us MCI-DFW-YVR where we have to sit for 5 1/2 hours waiting for the CX flight. But at least I got 2 biz seats!

We managed to get F seats out of YVR booking 8 mos out. Availability for F was better than J. No availability out of LAX or SFO. But couldn't get the return transpac on CX, so flying to NRT then AA. Have also found that different agents will take vastly different approaches to your request, some searching only the day and route you ask for, some searching high and low on every possible routing to get you there.

susiesan and reubencahn, which YVR flights did you get you award seats on? 836/5 or 888/9?

susiesan and reubencahn, which YVR flights did you get you award seats on? 836/5 or 888/9?

835/6

For our HKG trip next month using AA miles, I booked both legs 330 days in advance. I was able to get 2 J seats out of LAX going, but coming home, the only seats available were on JL which we are fine with. It just gives us a good excuse to use JLs F lounge. :p

We are on CX835 YVR-HKG, Dragonair 212 HKG-Phuket
Return is JAL 718 BKK-NRT, JAL 10 NRT-ORD

I initially had LAX-HKG seats but when I changed the day to fly had to go through Vancouver. I will keep trying for LAX or SFO seats over the next 10 months.

I managed to snag 5 J-class awards on CX 835/836 a couple weeks ago for travel at end of June-July.

I'll keep calling AA to see if anything opens up, but the agents/ res system is so slow. Is there any other tool out there that can check for class availability? I think I am looking for U class.
If you have a BA Executive Club account, you can do searches there (tell it you want a Club award SFO-HKG, then click Include Partners when they tell you they don't fly that route), and they're close to (but not exactly like) what AA will see for CX inventory. (On the CX business flights LAX-HKG-LAX I booked, AA saw the 1 outbound that BA saw, and 1 of 2 inbounds that BA saw.)

However, BA itself is a bit slow, as it only shows you 7 days at a time, and it can a minute to move another 7 days, and you have to do it separately for outbound and inbound. So it takes a while each time you want to search a city pair over a few months...

I just did a RT IAH-BKK ( via DFW-YVR on AA ), then CX YVR HKG BKK on FC, the return is BKK HKG in J ( 2 class flight), CX F HKG SFO, then AA home to IAH.
I finalized the whole trip basically getting 3 out 4 CX flights in FC, by working dilligently, calling the AA EXP desk whenver I saw FC award seats available on the CX website. Sometimes, AA told me "NO SEATS", sometimes they said they see only 1 seat in inventory when I saw 2 seats on CX.com. Keep at it, and with little luck and flexibility, you'll be able to get the class of service and days of travel you want. Re-issue are free on AA for C and F awards reservations. Upgrade from C to F for award reservation are free of charge also.
I have 2 seats booked in C already for Nov2008. And will try to upgrade our return XHKG via Asia Miles.

Re-issue are free on AA for C and F awards reservations. Upgrade from C to F for award reservation are free of charge also.
I have 2 seats booked in C already for Nov2008. And will try to upgrade our return XHKG via Asia Miles.

Are you sure about that?? Re-issues on J?F awards on AAdv are not free - you still pay the $100 cancellation fee and then issue a new ticket.

Are you sure about that?? Re-issues on J?F awards on AAdv are not free - you still pay the $100 cancellation fee and then issue a new ticket.
It's free for us, the AA EXPs...sorry, I did not make myself clear. :D