Hello! I am a Cathay Gold member who lives in the US, and who often flies American for domestic travel. Until recently, my OneWorld Sapphire status allowed me to select American Main Cabin Extra seats for free when flying AA economy. However, for a flight this weekend, I was unable to do this--not at the time of booking, not 72 hours before departure, and not even less than 24 hours before. When I asked the American agent for the policy, she sent me an AA webpage which shows that SOME OneWorld Sapphire members (BA, JAL, Qatar, Alaska) are still allowed to select these seats on AA flights at time of booking--but Cathay was notably absent from the list. Moreover, the policy states that Ruby members with those same select partners get complimentary access to the seats within 24 hours of departure--but neither Cathay Rubys nor even Cathay Sapphires get access. In short: American has evidently downgraded all Cathay Sapphires to a status *below* that granted to the Rubys of other OneWorld partner airlines.


Does anybody know what is going on with this? And is there any chance that Cathay will compel AA to resume treating Cathay as an equal partner?