How to find CX's business class prices
Apr 10, 2015, 1:42 am
#16
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Hillrider- you're not going to like this.
I can actually beat your price, and on the CX website at that- EUR 1824.90 vs the 1846.90 on Amex Viaggi, with the same flights (234+691 outbound dep on 11 May, 636+233 return, dep on 18 May).
The key - search on the CX website, but do not select flexible dates. Something that I got conditioned to, while booking exCMB fares (And this is not necessarily the case for all origin points!).
So- no real way of knowing, unless you know that a)fares exist, and, b) there is availability in the required fare-class ("I" in this case). I am sure that even in this day and age, a reasonable to large amount of CX traffic is travel agent originated, hence CX's absence from the sharp end of the curve on things online..
I can actually beat your price, and on the CX website at that- EUR 1824.90 vs the 1846.90 on Amex Viaggi, with the same flights (234+691 outbound dep on 11 May, 636+233 return, dep on 18 May).
The key - search on the CX website, but do not select flexible dates. Something that I got conditioned to, while booking exCMB fares (And this is not necessarily the case for all origin points!).
So- no real way of knowing, unless you know that a)fares exist, and, b) there is availability in the required fare-class ("I" in this case). I am sure that even in this day and age, a reasonable to large amount of CX traffic is travel agent originated, hence CX's absence from the sharp end of the curve on things online..
Apr 10, 2015, 9:36 am
#17
Join Date: Jun 2006
Location: NYC/SIN
Programs: CX DM, SQ KF
Posts: 2,170
Yep..CX.com behaves very differently, depending on the country of origin...infact i think that even for the same origin point, choosing flexible vs fixed dates can show different results, depending on the destination (within the same destination country..there was a point in time when CMB->LAX would show the I class fares on a flex dates search, but a CMB->SFO search would not..despite the fares/rules/conditions being essentially the same).
Apr 10, 2015, 6:38 pm
#18
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If you walk into a travel agency in Asia, the travel agents are more likely to refer to a binder on their desk with a bunch of fare sheets (or look at PDF files such as the one above) as opposed to the GDS (unless they have them programmed in as "private fares") when you want to ask them for a fare quote.
Ah, so out there CX has seen the ... present!
Hmmm... this is interesting. Any idea if these "targeted" fares include J-cabin fares, and, if so, which travel agents in San Francisco (where there's a sizeable community of people originally from the Pearl River delta area and 2 daily CX flights, soon to be 3) might have access to them?
Apr 10, 2015, 10:49 pm
#19
Join Date: Dec 2000
Location: Seat 1A
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Posts: 4,124
...
Hmmm... this is interesting. Any idea if these "targeted" fares include J-cabin fares, and, if so, which travel agents in San Francisco (where there's a sizeable community of people originally from the Pearl River delta area and 2 daily CX flights, soon to be 3) might have access to them?
Hmmm... this is interesting. Any idea if these "targeted" fares include J-cabin fares, and, if so, which travel agents in San Francisco (where there's a sizeable community of people originally from the Pearl River delta area and 2 daily CX flights, soon to be 3) might have access to them?
However they sometimes offer commission overrides of a few percent (3-5%) to the large Asian travel agents. The "discount" the travel agent may be willing to give (if they want to) is only about $50.
Apr 11, 2015, 8:45 pm
#20
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Not as interesting as the 50% lower hidden/opaque/obfuscated prices I found ex-Italy (as per my OP!)
Apr 11, 2015, 9:55 pm
#21
Join Date: Dec 2000
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Programs: Non-status paid F/J (best value for $$$)
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Sometimes when an airline's publicly published fares are artificially high, it means that there may be some more reasonable "market" fares available through other sales channels (if you know where to look).
Apr 23, 2015, 9:06 pm
#23
Join Date: Dec 2000
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Note: The fares shown on those sites seem to be the close to those on the CX website.
Trying some random dates on the CX website (7May - 14May JNB-HKG RT), I get fares of about ZAR 33,000 RT (in "I" class). This is consistent with the above mentioned travel sites.
Looking in the GDS, the only fare that CX "publishes" is their "J" fare for ZAR 78,000.
My conclusion is that ZAR 33,000 is as good as you can get.
Last edited by daniellam; Apr 23, 2015 at 9:14 pm
Apr 24, 2015, 12:59 am
#25
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Apr 24, 2015, 1:36 am
#26
Join Date: Jun 2006
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How to find CX's business class prices
You can get the detailed CX fare rules by going through a dummy booking, right upto the payment page. There's a link near where you click to agree to the T&Cs.
Apr 24, 2015, 1:51 am
#27
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Apr 24, 2015, 2:08 am
#28
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Incidentally, CX does not show all fare rules (which it should), but you can hack the URL to get the additional ones. The URL ends with &CATEGORY_1=xx&CATEGORY_2=xx, where xx is the fare rule category to be displayed. You can replace each xx with an ATPCO automated rules category code below and the interface will return its content. Note that "LI" doesn't work, but if you enter a category that does not exist for that fare, you will receive a very handy "OPTION LIST" containing the categories present for that fare.
Code:
ATPCO automated rules categories AC Accompanying travel AO Add-ons AP Advance purchase AD Agent discount BO Black out dates CD Children discounts CT Circle trip combinability CO Combinability DA Day time application DE Deposit EL Eligibility EE End on end combinability FL Flight application GP Groups HI Higher intermediate fare MX Maximum stay MN Minimum stay OJ Open jaw combinability OD Other discounts PE Penalties RU Rule application SR Sales restriction SE Seasonality SO Stopovers SU Surcharges TE Ticket endorsement TC Tour conductor discounts TO Tours TF Transfers TR Travel restrictions VI Visit another country LI List all restrictions SR Sales restriction