Cathay Pacific Asia Miles - Redemption availability LHR-HKG-LHR

I'm trying to redeem a First Class award (not upgrade from J) LHR-HKG-LHR, departing LHR-HKG last week of July, and return HKG-LHR around early September.

Right now everything is showing as full. Will some availability be released closer to the date? Or should I waitlist now and try my luck? Or am I basically SOL at this stage?

Another choice would be to try redemption on BA. How does BA F compare to CX?

BA F is dramatically inferior to CX F, particularly CX 747 F. BA's cabin is very, very crowded compared to CX's (14 vs 9). BA's screen is a fraction of the size of CX's. BA doesn't have a caviar service. But otherwise there's not much between them.

Consider QF also - like BA but better food & wines.

My only recent experience was using AAdvantage miles on that route. I was unable to secure CX awards (even many months out) but had no problem getting 2 BA F seats on quite a selection of flights.

The period you want to book is also school holidays so might be difficult to get availability.

Hmm, if BA/QF's F is "dramatically inferior" to CX, then I see no point in spending so many miles on it.

My choices are basically F award or paid Y travel. I've travelled in both the new J and Y before, but never in F and since I have the miles to burn, I wanted to try it out (as I'm not going to be able to afford F for a few decades more).

I think I'll most likely waitlist myself for an F award.

One more question, for my return HKG-LHR sector, I may need to travel early. If I show up at the HKG airport without a confirmed booking, if they have seats open are they likely to release the seat to me if I'm standing there at the checkin desk?

One more question, for my return HKG-LHR sector, I may need to travel early. If I show up at the HKG airport without a confirmed booking, if they have seats open are they likely to release the seat to me if I'm standing there at the checkin desk?

Standing there at the check-in desk may not necessarily help, depending on whether the seats that are freed up are already taken before you stand there.;)

Standing there at the check-in desk may not necessarily help, depending on whether the seats that are freed up are already taken before you stand there.;)

What I mean is that the F cabin to LHR has 9 seats. If there are some which are empty and no passenger flying and I show up at the airport without a confirmed booking and ask for an empty seat would they always let me take a seat under that circumstance or would they say quota for award booking is full and fly the seat empty.

Of course I don't expect to bump off a revenue pax travelling on an award seat.

OK - but make sure you are waitlisted for 747 flights. A34C (if there are still any in July) is old F and worse than BA/QF. New 77A would be somewhere in between.

To whatever extent anecdotal evidence is useful, I got an F award seat one-way LHR-HKG-BKK on a walk-up basis at CX LHR airport ticket office at the beginning of April for travel the same day. F was 9/9 on that flight-- I got the last seat. Was not available the previous week when I tried.