Originally Posted by
anythursday
I am based in HKG but fly home to Toronto every summer. Cathay econ tickets are priced at 2600. Air Canada fluctuated between 1400-1900 CAD for econ. I could fly Air Can and bid for upgrade by as its peak season, I wonder what the chances are.
Is it it worth purchasing lifemiles to fly business?
I can tell you that you will almost certainly not find space on AC YYZ-HKG in J via Lifemiles or any other partner program. They release one seat at T-355, which is exclusive to Aeroplan members. After that you have to hope for random inventory to show up, which it generally will not.
YYZ-TPE-HKG on EVA is very doable though and I would argue a far superior onboard experience to CX or AC even if you do have to add on a few hours for the connection. I have such a booking myself for after Xmas.
Originally Posted by
pogonation
IMO if you have plenty of time to wait for a deal and you are fairly flexible with travel then it usually isn't worth it. Lifemiles is great for lastminute tickets when cash tickets are usually pretty expensive and award availability is often at its best. I would never ever suggest buying lifemiles with the intention of using them in the future
I mean, it really depends. I use Lifemiles for YYZ-SFO in J frequently and pay less just buying miles than I would buying economy tickets. That's on AC's lie-flat 787 mind you. AC's pricing for J on that route is absolutely ridiculous, but awards are not hard to come by even if not booking far out.
I also have bookings for SFO-NRT in ANA F, SIN-TPE in EVA J on the Hello Kitty jet, TPE-SFO in EVA J, and YYZ-TPE-HKG in EVA J. Booking these sufficiently far out allowed me to get flights on the exact dates I wanted. The chance of any fare discounts on these routes on these airlines is pretty low. My net cost for the first 3 of those was about $2400.
I agree that transiting through PEK can lower costs to Asia, but I would never transit through PEK with its operational reliability. Also as a Canadian citizen I feel an additional need to avoid that airport right now.
Originally Posted by
pogonation
If you planned on buying miles during promos then AS miles would be your best bet. In a 50% promo it would cost about $2000USD without tax for a HKG-YYZ return award on CX.
I get the feeling you've never tried to find CX partner award space on YYZ-HKG. It's seriously impossible. You can find posts on this forum going back six years that complain about it. They only fly one plane and they know it's generally full.