My trip reports:
First Trip (Report) of a Lifetime CX F SFO-HKG-TPE-HKG-SFO
Around the World in 100 Hours: AA F, LH F, TG F/J, SQ F, Visiting NYC and Singapore
Yet another honeymoon to the Maldives (and Australia!) AC J, SQ J, BR J, Park Hyatt Sydney, Port Douglas, and the Maldives
Introduction
SFO CX Lounge
Popping the cherry: CX F SFO-HKG Part 1
Popping the cherry: CX F SFO-HKG Part 2
Grand Hyatt Hong Kong
24 Hours in Hong Kong
View from the Wing: HKG CX Lounge The Wing
Flying Solo: CX F HKG-TPE
Taiwan
TPE CX Lounge, CX F TPE-HKG, The Wing HKG
CX F HKG-SFO
Conclusion
Introduction:
Hello all and thanks for reading. This is my very first trip report. A little about myself, I'm in my mid to late 20s, born and raised in California, currently working in the SF Bay Area. I've always been a huge avgeek growing up, wanting to be an airplane pilot my entire life, but have found myself working in a more stable industry.
I started accumulating miles and points approximately 2 years ago when I applied for the UA MP card and subsequently earned nearly 1 million miles and points. I started reading by reading blogs, namely
One Mile at a Time and
View From the Wing initially, and then this trip report forum, particularly the reports of
concorde02 and
SFO777. With all the miles I accumulated, I decide to finally pull the trigger and redeem the miles accumulated from 2 Citi AA CCs for a trip in CX F to visit family in Taiwan. I booked the trip in July, four months in advance. I've flown international C on United many times, but never in international F. I've also never flown Cathay before, and I was very excited after reading all the reports. In fact,
SFO777 took the exact same SFO-HKG flight I did one week before me. As a result, we may have a lot of the same photos.
I've never been to HKG before and thought this would be a good way to spend some time in HKG as well. As AA does not allow free stopovers outside of the North America gateway, I scheduled a 23 hour overnight layover in HKG. CX F was available for SFO-HKG, but the HKG-TPE segment was only on a 2-cabin 777. Moreover, the return TPE-HKG-SFO was only available in J. I had two free suite nights from the Chase Hyatt Visa and decided to use one night on the Grand Hyatt Hong Kong. Unfortunately, only a Club King room was available when I booked, no suites.
As my trip approached, I checked every day for suite availability at the GH HK. One day, I noticed that a Grand Executive Harbor Suite had opened up! I immediately called in to Hyatt and got my room reservation changed to it. Sweet! Soon after, I noticed that there was an equipment swap on my HKG-TPE flight, from a 2-cabin 777 to a 3-cabin 747! I called into AA and got moved up into F!
That still left the #firstworldproblem of the return TPE-HKG-SFO in J. I read that CX frequently releases F award seats as the date of departure neared, but until my departure date, I still did not see any F seats open. While in HKG, I checked again and saw that F seats opened up! I called AA via Skype from the GH HK and was moved into F for an additional 12.5K miles. My trip was complete!
Total cost out of pocket: $60 in AA taxes for roundtrip CX F and one night in a suite at the GH HK!