long story short... flight went all ok at last.

fact 1 - bot the ticket for some future random dates (all confirmed D) and tried to move it fwd to 30th departure. This is why HKG-SYD was confirmed but TPE-HKG wasn't. Always done this, and never had issue.

fact 2 - can't do a Y-gurantee even if you hold D/I fares. They just didn't allow me to have stop-loss Y-segment confirmed/guranteed.

fact 3 - maybe it was start of easter, but there was absolutely zero availability for TPE for immediate confirmation. Some agent however said to me, "flights are wide open, you will be 99% fine" and using my common sense, yes TEP-HKG? come on.... waitlisted for a while but all cleared by afternoon. Thx CX for that.

fact 4 - telephone wait time has improved... compared to Feb. Would have missed my flight if the fiasco was on-going

fact 5 - I didn't want to upgrade outbound to C just because this is exactly what CX wants us to do to drop extra penny.