Cathay Pacific Asia Miles - Is it really this hard to change a reservation on CX?

Greetings all. New to this board, but not new to FT or the airline game.

Shocked at the difficulty I've had in getting an answer on an internet-booked J class itin (LAX-HKG-SIN) I'm currently in the middle of. Can't even get anyone to tell me whether it's possible to make a routing change. (Return KUL-HKG-LAX instead.)

Call SIN Res office, they say they have to contact US Res since I purchased the ticket there. They'll "call me."

Call US Res office when they open, they say I have to contact the internet service center.

Call internet center, get put on hold for 30 minutes.

Call HKG office after doing searches here and learning that they're friendlier. Told they're still waiting for an answer from the US office. They'll "call me."

Throw phone against wall.

Is it really this impossible to potentially give them more $$$? Do they really want to drive people towards travel agents instead of direct booking? Do I have to wait a day to find out whether or not I can even change a ticket?

Any help or insight or sympathy appreciated.

If you bought your ticket online there is no point calling any of the reservation offices, they can't do anything about tickets sold by the online team (aka e-service centre). Issues relating to your ticket must be dealt with by the e-service people.

I find the e-service centre people very knowledgeable and efficient. Give them a try again, they are open 24hrs. Instead of holding, ask them to go away, get an answer and call you back on your local number in Singapore.

Good luck.

Ditto to what KO2546 said, call the e-service center

Thanks to both. FINALLY got through to the e-service center. (My third try, with hold time to an agent ~20 minutes. Gave up after 30 minutes the prior two times.)

Not surprising; the change is prohibitively expensive due to restricted ticket. The e-service rep was very helpful.

Just boggled that if I DID want to give CX the up-fare $$, they make it that difficult.

But, now I know. Appreciate the FT help as usual.

Greetings all. New to this board, but not new to FT or the airline game.

Shocked at the difficulty I've had in getting an answer on an internet-booked J class itin (LAX-HKG-SIN) I'm currently in the middle of. Can't even get anyone to tell me whether it's possible to make a routing change. (Return KUL-HKG-LAX instead.)

Call SIN Res office, they say they have to contact US Res since I purchased the ticket there. They'll "call me."

Call US Res office when they open, they say I have to contact the internet service center.

Call internet center, get put on hold for 30 minutes.

Call HKG office after doing searches here and learning that they're friendlier. Told they're still waiting for an answer from the US office. They'll "call me."

Throw phone against wall.

Is it really this impossible to potentially give them more $$$? Do they really want to drive people towards travel agents instead of direct booking? Do I have to wait a day to find out whether or not I can even change a ticket?

Any help or insight or sympathy appreciated.

US gave you the right answer. You need to deal with Internet Center since you bought it on-line.

All my calls to the e-service center from the US have had incredibly long hold times. When I called the e-service center from Japan (using the local number) I had to call within a fairly limited window of business hours, and the line was often busy, but when I got through the wait was short.

I was in a similar situation to the OP, where I just wanted to change an existing reservation (and go from Y to J -- more $$ for CX). I was willing to pay the change fee, but the CX reps were helpless. In the end, all they could do was cancel my original ticket, which I got refunded less the cancel fee. I had to book the new J ticket online.

Air tickets are extremely complex products. I suspect the people who designed them did so to protect their own jobs! The e-service agents are powerless when it comes to the "non-reroute" and "non-upgradeable" clauses that are often found on discounted CX tickets.

It may be the system, but it's a dumb system that needs changing.

intuitively, I still have this one question I don't quite understand...why it seems it's always so much harder reaching CX reps vs. other airlines ? why CX's phones seem so much busier ? (I'm DM myself so in general I'm ok, but just from what I've been reading here)

is CX's investment in customer service really substantially lower than other airlines / among the lowest in the industry ? do they have the smallest customer phone service centers compared to other airlines of similar size ? or it's just that their reps are less good and take longer to do the same job ?

but, of course, that's the key reason I'm keeping DM...just to make sure I can talk to someone very easily and to redeem my miles very easily...maybe that's the way they create service differentiation, to make the service really bad for non-DM... ;)

I think the main problem is that CX is not encouraging online booking (apart from the double miles from using CX AMEX). I have once called SQ in HKG and have been told that they only sell full fare tickets over the phone. For most discounted fares they encourage you to book online. BA also imposes an offline booking fee of HKD200 per person. It's even worse if you call either of these airlines' offices in London - they charge you even for calling them (by using 0845 and 0870 numbers, which costs about HKD1 per minute)!

FWIW, access to MPC hotline has been much better. I often have ~ 1 min wait for the last month i've been harrasing them. I'm now green so have next to no priority.

FWIW, access to MPC hotline has been much better. I often have ~ 1 min wait for the last month i've been harrasing them. I'm now green so have next to no priority.

Yes, with the economic downturn, suddenly the MPC hotline is much more responsive. No more crazy wait times, no matter what time of day you call.

FWIW, access to MPC hotline has been much better. I often have ~ 1 min wait for the last month i've been harrasing them. I'm now green so have next to no priority.

I have to agree. Last week I had to call the CX Ticketing line, which I was not looking forward to after reading about the long on-hold times from flyertalk. I have booked all my flights online, apart from one earlier this year where I needed to get on a full-booked flight.

I was pleasantly surprised to have my call answered in about a minute. I had a very helpful CSR that worked through my four flights, looking for the best price, giving me options and suggestions (HKG-LHR-BCN-LHR-HKG).

I called back later that day to confirm and pay for the booking. Again, less than a minute wait and another helpful CSR that went through my booking, confirming the details and selecting my preferred seats.

All up, I was very happy with their service. Who has two thumbs up and likes CX Ticketing? This guy ^ :D ^

I was in a similar situation to the OP, where I just wanted to change an existing reservation (and go from Y to J -- more $$ for CX). I was willing to pay the change fee, but the CX reps were helpless. In the end, all they could do was cancel my original ticket, which I got refunded less the cancel fee. I had to book the new J ticket online.

It might sound simple to you to change a Y ticket to a J ticket, but they are completely different tickets. There is no change fee for changing a Y ticket to a J ticket - change fees are for changing dates/times. So it is correct that the only thing you can do is to cancel your original ticket, and get a new ticket.

Remember that tickets are not cash vouchers - you can't just apply one ticket against another product. You will find this problem with any airline, except those that have promotional upgrades eg BA will sometimes allow you to pay a discount fee to upgrade to J class if they can see loads are bad.

The reality is that when you call CX to do this, they will try to help you through the process as much as possible. When you call other airlines, you'll get barked at "YOU CANNOT CHANGE THIS TICKET TO ANOTHER CLASS - I CAN ONLY HELP YOU REFUND YOUR TICKET". At least CX is usually nice about it.

sxc, your experience does not match mine. In fact, many/most airlines make it easy to change the booking class of a ticket with a refare and reissue. They do not require you to "cancel your ticket and get a new ticket" as you indicate. And while in some cases that may be what is happening on the back end, typically agents refer to it as "changing" a ticket. Not sure what airlines you have called who bark at you. But I've done it tens of times and never been barked at--just given the new fare, new fare class, and the change/upfare cost.