I recently checked in at NRT for a CX flight to HKG as part of a 16 segment AONE4 trip. I was informed that there had been a same day change of equipment from a 3 class 747 to a 2 class 777 and that I would have to travel in business class. Naturally I was a little disappointed but I figured that there wasn't much that I could do about it as I needed to get to Hong Kong that day and there were no later flights with a first class cabin. The CX ground staff were extremely apologetic (this was Japan after all) and said that they could offer me a refund for the difference between first and business class. Interesting, I thought, how are they going to do that with an AONE4 ticket? As I thought about it seemed that this would be quite a complicated calculation and that it might reveal some interesting insights into how revenue is aportioned to the airlines on these tickets. I was also aware that if I had chosen a 2 class flight for this segment, it would have had no effect on the price of the ticket.

What they did next was a complete surprise - because I was handed an envelope containing 140,000 Yen (about 1,500 USD)! They explained that this was the difference between the point-to-point F class and J class fares from NRT to HKG plus some compensation for my inconvenience (about 200 USD). 1,500 USD is about one sixth of the amount that I paid for the entire AONE4 ticket (9,000 USD). As it is about 1,800 miles from NRT to HKG and my complete itinerary covered about 56,000 miles, I figured that this particular segment would account for a mere 1/30 of the cost of the ticket - or about 300 USD. But CX were handing me five times that amount of money and were still flying me, relatively comfortably to Hong Kong without delay!

My main conclusion from this experience is that CX were very nice to me! In fact, they were remarkably generous. There is no published procedure, as far as I am aware, for calculating a fare difference on an AONE4 ticket for an involuntary downgrade from A class to D class. Indeed, if I had chosen to travel on a 2 class flight with my AONE4 ticket then I wouldn't have received any refund whatsoever. It seems that it all came down to who decided which class of service I would be using. But I have absolutely no complaints about the speedy, efficient and courteous way that CX dealt with the situation. What do other FF'ers think? Have any of you had similar experiences with CX or other ONEWORLD carriers?