My new business endeavours imply traveling mostly to PEK, SHA, HGH and/or SZX. SZX, or rather HKG, pretty much means AY-on-AY. But PEK and PVG often has CA codes on AY much cheaper than AY codes. In fact, in most cases, CA codes are cheaper, or if the flight is quite full, CA codes are unavailable and AY's are silly-expensive.

So preparing for the worst, does anybody have any experience with those CA codes? I reckon they earn zilch miles on any program, even PhoenixMiles, due to mismatched airline alliance. And I guess the code sharing agreement is but an historical and political burden for AY.

But what about the practicalities? Do you get the AY reference immediately, or do have to you wait for OLCI. Can you do ASR? In the latter case, is the same PNR usable for the would-be return flight? etc.