Thank you all for these postings and hacks. I have a more general topic: Is it going to be worth accumulating Asia Miles now, given that Cathay essentially disabled the ability to search for flights and use partner awards (their web site says to fill out a form to request a partner award)? As most of you probably know, American Express is currently offering a transfer bonus. This isn't especially useful if you can't book with the miles.
In the past, Asia Miles have been a great value with great flexibility, for example, in getting Qatar Q Suites through Doha, JAL biz. flights through HND, Finnair through HEL, etc. What is the likelihood that this will continue, given that they haven't taken the care to keep the partner search feature active?
Originally Posted by
ricktassie
After trying multiple phone agents via:
- their HK number and US numbers,
- their WhatsApp chat/agent
- as well as a detailed email (with screenshots from the cathay website & ba website) to their memberservices @ asiamiles dot com customer service center,
and receiving nothing useful except the lame "we don't see the availability" & "the website isn't always realtime), I finally bit the bullet and booked my award via ba dot com avios (QR SYD-DOH-CDG in F). Yes that same exact award was indeed real and not phantom!!
So p1$$ed at the sheer incompetency of these folks at the moment esp since I have a bunch of miles with em and it looks like NOTHING is bookable via partners - not even non-stop awards. (yes I tried the above script)
I wonder if the DOT would have any provision to look into this issue if it may fall into false advertising or a bait and switch situation.
Just devastated at the thought of having so many miles lying unusable.