Cathay Pacific Asia Miles - Questions on upgrading Y to J by paying fare difference on CX (KA)

I have a feeling this has been asked before but am not finding the exact information I am needing by search.

I am traveling HKG - PVG. My ticket is full Y fare. The actual flight is on KA as a CX codeshare. It was booked through my TA. I see it with my AA itinerary (pvg-ord) but it is actually a "split- ticket" from that.


I am considering buying up from Y to J as the fare difference looks to be around $130 or so (per a comparison on EF and my ticket invoice). This is one way only.

So my questions are:

1. How would I do this buy-up? It would be at HKG. Can they do this at the check-in gate or is there another counter I would go to? I should note - as this ticket was purchased through a TA it was billed directly to my company - not to me. So I would need to use a different method of payment.


2. Are there change fees from full Y to full J on CX? I wouldn't think so but... ?

3. Y is looking WIDE open - mostly empty - but I think this is due to lack of pre assigned seating - not a reflection on how full the flight is. Can someone confirm this? If Y actually is wide open then it may be a no brainer just to stay put. (I do like J though.. :) )

Again - apologies if my search skills are *off* today. TIA!

F70

I think if it's full-Y it should be quite straightforward - the only part I wasn't sure is the CX codeshare part. let me offer my experience using full-Y KA ticket on KA metal.

you can either go to the check-in counter, or the ticketing counter (located at the end close to airport express, before the check-in counters) - but I think the check-in counter people sometimes/often would need to go back to the ticketing people, so I think it's probably easier if you go to the ticketing counter directly first to change the ticket. yes, you just pay the fare difference, no change fee etc (again, it's from my experience buying pure KA ticket HKG-PVG-HKG roundtrip, not codeshare, no continuation from other long-haul flights).

you can even call to reserve your J seat first (in fact, you should do it if you are sure you would do the upgrade at the airport, because HKG-PVG J is quite often full, usually much more so than Y).

and if you're in fact doing roundtrip, remember the one-way fare difference is more than half the roundtrip difference - so if you are thinking about doing it for the return too, you might as well do it now at the same time since doing it twice separately would be more expensive (but at least 10% or so if I remember right).

I actually have a question related to this.
I now have a TPEHKGJFKHKGTPE ticket booked in K/L cls with F/B YX2R.
The actual fare I paid was around 35000TWD+tax, but the published fare shown on the tkt is 88086TWD+tax.
If I want to upgrade to J, the cheapest F/B I found is DR with a price 118379TWD+tax.
Does it mean I only have to pay 118379-88086=30293TWD at airport to upgrade to J?
Do I have to do it at the airport or can I do it with CX Reservation?
Also, if that were the case why would ppl buy the I cls fare which is about 100000TWD?

Please let me know...thanks!

No - you would pay 118379-35000.

Moreover, the only upgrade fare you can guarantee to be able to buy at the airport (subject to seat availability) is full J.

Thanks Tedhl for the ticket counter info. I stopped by an info desk to find out exactly where it was located - Isle A in Terminal 1.

Took the CX agent about 10 minutes to recalculate the fare - apparently it got translated into CNY as well as USD - not sure how that happened.

After that it was about a 15 minute wait to reissue the ticket and I was on my way with a theoretically assigned seat.

Since this is my return flight I obviously didn't do the RT change.. but good information for the next trip!

I think if it's full-Y it should be quite straightforward - the only part I wasn't sure is the CX codeshare part. let me offer my experience using full-Y KA ticket on KA metal.

you can either go to the check-in counter, or the ticketing counter (located at the end close to airport express, before the check-in counters) - but I think the check-in counter people sometimes/often would need to go back to the ticketing people, so I think it's probably easier if you go to the ticketing counter directly first to change the ticket. yes, you just pay the fare difference, no change fee etc (again, it's from my experience buying pure KA ticket HKG-PVG-HKG roundtrip, not codeshare, no continuation from other long-haul flights).

you can even call to reserve your J seat first (in fact, you should do it if you are sure you would do the upgrade at the airport, because HKG-PVG J is quite often full, usually much more so than Y).

and if you're in fact doing roundtrip, remember the one-way fare difference is more than half the roundtrip difference - so if you are thinking about doing it for the return too, you might as well do it now at the same time since doing it twice separately would be more expensive (but at least 10% or so if I remember right).