Originally Posted by Moscowflyer

In the last few days I have found that the Cathay website completely sucks. I usually book all my ex-TPE trips on the website because it's generally been pretty quick and easy.
In the last two days I've been trying to book TPE-HKG-LHR return and the website shows the correct fares available (I class outbound and D class inbound), in line with any other booking I've made. It lets you go right through the booking, picking flights, selecting seats, paying for it...and then says there is a technical error, please try again. There is of course no point in trying again because the same error reappears time and time again irrespective of the computer or browser used. I also printed out and annotated every step of the booking process to show how far a passenger can get (right to the end) before it fails and wastes your time again and again and sent that off to the MPC to see if they could help and perhaps find a way to issue the revenue ticket.
They did indeed help and got me the same fare so the issue did get resolved but only because manual intervention was available!
Similarly on an Asia Miles redemption. Yesterday there were AM seats in business available to Canada on the date I wanted and every date in a two week window around it. Today, the website says zero availability on any date (Canada must have become amazingly popular overnight). A call to the MPC got me a seat on exactly the flights I wanted there and back without any trouble so once again it's a website problem.
I know they fired a bunch of IT guys a while ago but nobody seems to care anymore at Cathay City about stuff like this and it just loses them revenue. I can't be the only person thinking "sod this, I'll give my money to another airline - in my case the backup was Finnair - and still get my points and miles on Cathay".
I think the whole thing's gone downhill rapidly this year.