Jun 28, 2017, 8:46 pm
Last edit by: eponymous_coward
Cathay Award Guide Using Alaska Airlines Miles
Note: Cathay flights cannot be booked using alaskaair.com. Mileage requirements in chart form available on alaskaair.com.
Routing Rules:
North American Gateway Cities:
Western
Vancouver
San Francisco
Los Angeles
Seattle (Spring 2019)
Eastern (Can not be used if traveling to west coast)
Boston
Chicago
New York (JFK & EWR)
Toronto
Washington
Award Chart Links*:
Asia
Australia
Europe
India/Middle East
North America
Anyone with 90 posts and 90 days can edit the wiki. Everyone else if you want something added to the wiki please comment in the thread.
Note: Cathay flights cannot be booked using alaskaair.com. Mileage requirements in chart form available on alaskaair.com.
Request your Partner Award reservation on Cathay Pacific by calling Alaska Airlines Reservations at 1-800-252-7522 (TTY: Dial 711 for Relay Services) 5:00 a.m. - Midnight (PT), daily.
- If it's not on the award chart, it's not allowed. For example EUROPE is To/From HKG only.
- Stopover are only allowed on any CX award for North America awards as destination or origin. For instance: intra-Asia awards do not get a stopover. It must be a North America->Somewhere or Somewhere->North America award to qualify for a stopover.
- The only awards that do not break at HKG are intra-Asia or North American ones. For instance, Australia-Europe/Middle East/Asia outside of HKG will be two awards (breaking at HKG). The AS award chart can be misleading about this and give you the impression you can fly an award like Australia/Europe-ICN, but the chart for these award types will show "Hong Kong".
- One stop-over allowed on one way award. You can build open jaw and other advanced routings by booking multiple one way awards. Please note change fee rule below.
- Allegedly stop-over only in Hong Kong, but some have posted success in other enroute cities such as YVR or SEA.
- As of 5 June 2018 changes/cancellations made to a booking will incur a $125 fee which is waived for MVPG/MVPG75K. Bookings made prior to 5 June will be allowed one complimentary change or cancellation for up to 60 days prior to date of travel.
- Awards can be booked 330 days in advance.
- Cathay and Alaska (or an Alaska flight operated by SkyWest/Horizon on behalf of Alaska) are the only airlines allowed on a Cathay award. No other partner airlines may be used on a single award (e.g. American, JAL, Emirates).
North American Gateway Cities:
Western
Vancouver
San Francisco
Los Angeles
Seattle (Spring 2019)
Eastern (Can not be used if traveling to west coast)
Boston
Chicago
New York (JFK & EWR)
Toronto
Washington
Award Chart Links*:
Asia
Australia
Europe
India/Middle East
North America
Anyone with 90 posts and 90 days can edit the wiki. Everyone else if you want something added to the wiki please comment in the thread.
Cathay Pacific (CX) Award Redemption, Booking and Availability – 2017 and Later
Feb 16, 2018, 4:06 pm
#1726
Join Date: Aug 2011
Programs: many
Posts: 1,437
I just booked a J ticket for my parent, but there is a 8 hours lay over at SFO. They landed around 8:55pm at night and the next flight don't board until 5am in the morning. Is there any lounge they can use during those hours? or any hotel in the airport? I don't want them to leave the airport because I affair they will get lost. They do not speak a lot of English, any advice? thank you!
I have no affiliation of personal experience with them. There's also royal airport consierge.
Do a web search for meet and greet services and find what works for your needs.
Feb 16, 2018, 6:38 pm
#1727
Join Date: Feb 2013
Posts: 58
Anyone had experience with Cathay flights simply dropping off of BA/Qantas systems? The flight I have booked for me and my wife (and hoping to upgrade one to F) from JFK-HKG hasn't shown up on either site in weeks (months?).
Is this simply the most obvious reason as zero seats being available in any class? Or is there some other issue I am not aware of?
Is this simply the most obvious reason as zero seats being available in any class? Or is there some other issue I am not aware of?
Feb 16, 2018, 6:42 pm
#1728
Join Date: Aug 2013
Programs: Alaska MVP Gold
Posts: 917
Anyone had experience with Cathay flights simply dropping off of BA/Qantas systems? The flight I have booked for me and my wife (and hoping to upgrade one to F) from JFK-HKG hasn't shown up on either site in weeks (months?).
Is this simply the most obvious reason as zero seats being available in any class? Or is there some other issue I am not aware of?
Is this simply the most obvious reason as zero seats being available in any class? Or is there some other issue I am not aware of?
Feb 16, 2018, 11:23 pm
#1729
Join Date: Feb 2018
Posts: 13
Looking to book F class, can I backtrack and use a repositioning flight from LAX to JFK and then onward to HKG? Planning to use HKG stopover for my final destination: ICN.
Feb 17, 2018, 9:15 am
#1730
FlyerTalk Evangelist
Join Date: Dec 2007
Location: BOS/ORH
Programs: AS 75K
Posts: 18,323
No its not a valid routing due to backtracking. Maybe you will get lucky with partner desk booking it in error. someone recently tried adding on leg to ORD but when it ticketed the CX award space fell off the reservation and poster lost the space.
Feb 17, 2018, 9:16 am
#1731
Suspended
Join Date: Jun 2003
Location: SEA, FLL, Martha’s Vineyard
Programs: AS MVPGold75K, Hilton Gold, IHG Platinum, Pan Am million-miler
Posts: 2,019
If you have any status it certainly helps. Also if it is the o my F available the agent may let you do it.
Feb 17, 2018, 9:43 am
#1732
Join Date: Jun 2002
Location: Left Coast
Posts: 225
I had an award flight going from HKG-JNB booked by AS on CX. CX changed schedules and the agent said they flight only goes Sunday and Tuesday. Sunday has no J space and they said they had to message CX to open it up and that can take 5 days. Does anyone have any experience with this? Thanks
Feb 17, 2018, 9:48 am
#1733
Community Director Emerita
Join Date: Oct 2000
Location: Anywhere warm
Posts: 33,752
https://www.cathaypacific.com/cx/en_...timetable.html
Feb 17, 2018, 10:16 am
#1734
Join Date: Jun 2002
Location: Left Coast
Posts: 225
This perplexes me. I just checked the CX website. It shows the flight operating 7 days per week.
https://www.cathaypacific.com/cx/en_...timetable.html
https://www.cathaypacific.com/cx/en_...timetable.html
Feb 21, 2018, 2:39 am
#1735
Join Date: Jul 2012
Location: Portland
Programs: AS MVP Gold, Marriott Gold, Hilton Gold, IHG Platinum, Starbucks Gold
Posts: 391
I've been sitting on a J redemption for this week for almost a year and I called earlier today, about 70 hours before the flight, when I saw the flight was still F6A6 and the QF site showed 2 F seats available.
Agent put me on hold for three or four minutes—perhaps to verify that the 72 hour rule wasn't a thing?—and came back and told me that she could confirm the space, no problem. A few extra miles per person and just like that, we're sitting in F instead of J on HKG-SFO in a couple days.
The whole process was so much easier than I was expecting that now I'm almost worried something will go wrong when we show up at HKG.
Agent put me on hold for three or four minutes—perhaps to verify that the 72 hour rule wasn't a thing?—and came back and told me that she could confirm the space, no problem. A few extra miles per person and just like that, we're sitting in F instead of J on HKG-SFO in a couple days.
The whole process was so much easier than I was expecting that now I'm almost worried something will go wrong when we show up at HKG.
Feb 23, 2018, 3:01 am
#1736
Join Date: Nov 2013
Posts: 88
I had an award flight going from HKG-JNB booked by AS on CX. CX changed schedules and the agent said they flight only goes Sunday and Tuesday. Sunday has no J space and they said they had to message CX to open it up and that can take 5 days. Does anyone have any experience with this? Thanks
I actually came here to ask if anyone knows when partner award seats for this new route may open up; i.e. if someone has a data point from before when CX launched Dublin (or maybe even the upcoming Washington Dulles), that would be helpful.
Feb 23, 2018, 3:49 am
#1737
Join Date: Jul 2012
Programs: Delta Gold, Alaska Gold 75K, LATAM Black
Posts: 3,393
Weird. That almost sounds like the outbound flight schedule for Cape Town, could your agent possibly have confused the two together?
I actually came here to ask if anyone knows when partner award seats for this new route may open up; i.e. if someone has a data point from before when CX launched Dublin (or maybe even the upcoming Washington Dulles), that would be helpful.
I actually came here to ask if anyone knows when partner award seats for this new route may open up; i.e. if someone has a data point from before when CX launched Dublin (or maybe even the upcoming Washington Dulles), that would be helpful.
no, they definitely changed the JNB dates. Me + significant other had ours switched, my seat says Business - J his says Economy - J. Called AS and they “insist” that it’s a typo and it’s acthally business class.
Feb 23, 2018, 5:57 am
#1738
Original Member
Join Date: May 1998
Location: NYC
Programs: AA 2MM, Bonvoy LTT, Hilton Diamond
Posts: 14,639
Go to CX Manage my booking to verify which cabin passenger is booked in.
Feb 23, 2018, 9:31 am
#1739
Join Date: Jun 2002
Location: Left Coast
Posts: 225
The moved us to the Tuesday departure and we will miss our charters into Kruger. I asked to be put on the Sunday departure instead and they stuck us in prem economy and said to keep calling back to see if business space opens. Not very happy.
Feb 23, 2018, 1:17 pm
#1740
FlyerTalk Evangelist
Join Date: Jul 2003
Location: Florida
Posts: 29,763
Reading on the above posts, one sees the perils of booking way ahead when schedule changes are inevitable. It is ok on routes that have more than one flight per day, but it can be a nightmare when it is a daily flight, the change often negatively interrupted subsequent itinerary which may also be booked long ago.
Hope busy can get back to their originally booked cabin.
For those wondering about new routes when would be available for booking. It wont happen until the route is already in operation and CX sees how the revenue booking scenario is. I had watched the route of HKG-ZRH from when it was announced to when it operated, on how the award seats become bookable with AA miles - it was not until after the first month of operation when seats opened up.
With a 3 times a week flights to the ever popular CPT? and the JNB flight is almost always full to the gill, I would say Dont count on it to be bookable by AS miles until well into 2019.
Hope busy can get back to their originally booked cabin.
For those wondering about new routes when would be available for booking. It wont happen until the route is already in operation and CX sees how the revenue booking scenario is. I had watched the route of HKG-ZRH from when it was announced to when it operated, on how the award seats become bookable with AA miles - it was not until after the first month of operation when seats opened up.
With a 3 times a week flights to the ever popular CPT? and the JNB flight is almost always full to the gill, I would say Dont count on it to be bookable by AS miles until well into 2019.