pbd456

it seems that people are demanding AS to devalue CX award from the way I read forum... I am kind of stuck with over 1M AS miles in my family. oh well. My account alone has over 700K AS miles (i am earning over 400k AS miles a year just from flying) (and over 1M AA miles). I am not crazy for F class myself unlike many here. (I am exec plat, so i have F check-in and F lounge anyways. and my habbit on a plane is to sleep which I can do easily on a J seat.)

eponymous_coward

ramosz83

I have been looking for return trips from HKG - Any US destination (prefer west coast) for next July, I have to book at the end of next month but have noticed good availability at 329 and 330 days but anything less than 329 days the availability goes down to near zero, looking for 5 J seats (they only typically have 4 per flight however). Does CX just take away anything that is available for partners after a couple days of making it available? I wouldn't think it would all get booked because I see 1F, 4J, many PE and E then it all just disappears.

Thanks.

flytoeat

It absolutely does get booked. Bloggers pump the heck out of CX redemptions through Mileage Plan, and Alaska isn't exactly shy about selling unlimited miles.

pbd456

i pay about 6c per flown miles on my paid J, and earn over 3 miles per miles flown. These deals are gone.

eponymous_coward

pbd456

I spend over 10k on airfare per year, earning over 500k miles, and meeting my travel need (peak season travel - when it is not possible to get award space and y class cost 1.8k during those times). Since this deal is time sensitive (they are mostly gone), and I will hope to use the miles when I can't fly these deals anymore.

I have no trouble in spending the money, but I have trouble using my miles just because my time.

If I were to offer 10m as miles for 50k USD, I would definitely pay for it.

skimthetrees

They are getting booked. What happens is partners like AS and AA only get access at 330 days out and once their windows open it is open season on CX awards. If you only can travel in a limited date range I would book as two one-ways. Lock in the outbound as soon as you can then when your return window opens lock in the return. There is some risk that you may have to pay change fees if you cannot get what you want but to me the bigger risk would be missing out on your trip if you wait to book. Look at the CX release patterns. Most US J awards I see far out are mid-week. I would not make future plans based on hoping to find 4J on a weekend.

IAmKab

Deltahater

I stated that we paid for business class seats and AS was unable to confirm the last seat because CX refused to open up U inventory. The F counter agent was pleasant but adamant that there is nothing she could do. Her supervisor who offered to put us all on the same flight together earlier had moved on to a different counter to help. I thanked the check in agent and tracked down the supervisor. As I was explaining to him what I needed a third CX agent shuffled over with high intensity and stated that she had a "courtesy upgrade" for my son. to be honest, I don't know what prompted that "gift".
I think part of it was that I was polite and firm at the same time, so they knew I would not give up in Round 1.

pbd456

interesting story. CX only receive PE cost for the seat and yet willing to give you J class....

ramosz83

Thanks, Ill try and book asap I guess. -Ramosz83

Happy

Did both. Multiple times.

You certainly can bring a guest into F lounge in HKG, but to be honest, we have found Pier J being our most favorite lounge over the Pier F and definitely over Wing F which the advantage is extremely close to the gate the LAX flight usually departs from - so any last min delay one can easily trots back to the lounge - this happened on my last flight when husband already flew put 4 hours earlier - the captain of my flight was no where to be found while passengers were already being let thru the 2ndary gate security check... my flight ended up had 1.5 hour delay.


DONT count on CX would let you move up the flight even the cabin is EMPTY. They will need AS to reissue a new ticket in order for you to change the flight. That happened on 2 flights ago when husband's flight had an empty F cabin (and he slept almost the whole way). GAs told me if I wanted to move up my flight, I needed to contact AS to reissue the ticket.
My husband is the oddity in the award world - he could not care for F, as long as he has a flat bed - that he would not compromised on - but all the "extras" in F do not impress him. Even when AA only charged 12.5K extra one way on F over J, he often asked, "why do we need to fly F?" I am like rolling my eyes, because the 12.5K extra is very very cheap to get all the extra's...
So 1F 1J is often our solution.

The current problem is, there is not even such option. So far CX has not returned to anywhere near the previous mode. Unless you can pick up and go in 2 weeks or less, or booked something 330 days out? (we never do that so no idea how current compares to past), finding this 1F 1J on same flight has become an Unicorn that used to be a good solution for us.

Right now we are holding a ticket in Oct JFK-HKG, then later HKG-MEL. I have seen some HKG-PER or ADL open up for earlier dates but I dont want to squander my only shot for free change so I decide to just wait till 2 to 3 weeks before departure then see if there are better options on the JFK-HKG, and if there are HKG-SYD or HKG-BNE open up.

There is no "persuading" needed as they would NOT do it - unless in a flight cancellation / delay big time situation, CX would NOT let partner ticketed passengers to change flight in ordinary circumstances.

Happy

I am not sure I understand the logic - you are willing to pay for the miles that you cannot effectively use? Miles are not like hard currency. they rot in the account, inevitably, for any program. It is not like you can use those miles to buy any things you want as in the case of cold hard cash. They can only used to redeem awards which are often involved lots of compromises - routing, time to travel, long ahead commitment, etc etc not to mention they bound to devalue, even not in the most traditional way (high number of miles needed for same trip) but also in the form of difficulty to find award seats, lost seats when schedule changes, etc etc just to name a few.

Unless I misunderstand what you say. Otherwise I find the logic very strange, because you already have the problem of using the miles, then why pay to get more, even it is at a good discount? It is not unlike people being lured into big sales by dept stores and paying real money for lots of craps they dont need.

jknc09