Originally Posted by
Cameron38
If you contact Asia Miles, will they tell you if there are upgrade seats available on a specific flight/date BEFORE you actually book the seats you want to upgrade?
It is a bit of Catch 22 (if you even remember that movie) with CX because ticketing and Asia Miles are two different departments. Here's what I've found that will work:
1) Call telephone sales and tell them you want to book a revenue ticket in (as an example) Business Class, and upgrade to First using Asia Miles. (Don't make the booking online -- use CX reservations. I'm USA based, and specifically have one particular CX Reservations person in the CX Vancouver reservation bureau assist me. YMMV).
2) The Res Agent can determine if upgrade inventory is available on your date(s). They cannot process the upgrade -- that's why it gets dicey. But they can check inventory -- I don't know if they see it directly, or if they call Asia Miles on an internal link, but they can do it.
3) If you find that the upgrade inventory is available for the dates and flights you want, have Res make the booking.
4) Immediately call Asia Miles and have them pend the upgrade(s). They will tell you that you have to be ticketed: that's true, but they can hold the upgrade for a limited time.
5) Call Res back, and have the revenue ticket issued.
6) Call Asia Miles back, and have them queue the ticket to be re-issued with the upgrade confirmed (for a transpac Business-to-First, the class will change from I or D to Z). In about 36 to 48 hours, you'll get an e-mail with a new ticket, and your upgrade(s) confirmed.
Complicated, no? But it seems to be the only workaround -- unless others on this board have found something quicker?