Happy

You can defend AS however you want to. Did I say I knew anything? I said I am guessing that is the way AS chooses to operate to minimize their costs. I dont care to write the sensational pieces you do as retorting is never a good way to handle a discussion but that seems to be your preferred style.

As for someone found availability that wasn't found on BA, yes, there were such DPs but how much was the % versus those who could not find anything when BA/JL/QF all show availability? I would bet the ratio is less than 1 to 10.

From all we learned during the dark periods AS shut down accounts, BofA did not buy miles from AS, unlike Citi/Chase/AMEX. The AS model is unique. It worked for them when their FFP was not noticeable until the proliferation of travel hacking blogs. I used to tell friends that because there are much less AS FFP members versus AA FFP members, especially for the accounts with hefty balances, there are much less competition for AS partner awards. Of course things changed, rapidly.

Buying miles to redeem premium cabins is nothing new. The Aussies were known to do that with US miles for their flights to EU on Star Alliance partners until that did not work anymore. It is a game of Arbitrage, not unlike playing it in the stock / bond markets everyday. Of course there is risk - the risk here for those who buy miles is, their miles may very well not get what they expect to get, that is, a cheap CX premium seat to where they want to go on the date(s) they want to go. Still, there should be a little bit of trust that people can put on the airlines to honor their ends of the bargain. Else, you vote with your wallet.

azepine00

Ua never admitted starnet blocking either...
When airlines block partner it is usually well known - CX is not in that group. I am quite certain this is AS doing the blocking but ppl of course can come up with other explanations if they prefer...

percysmith

Deja vu of this discussion CX blocking award availability when it's close to departure? . BA has not admitted to blocking CX availability either.

Calculon

Doesnt change the correctness of the statement: We don't have any actual evidence to indicate who is blocking inventory, or if it is intentionally blocked at all. In the end, it's rather pointless to speculate, and even more pointless to argue about who's speculation is less speculative. We can complain to Alaska, we can complain to Cathay, but in the end we must deal with reality.

As someone who has never failed to secure the seat I wanted on CX (in the end, even if not at first), I'm not going to rock the boat.

Calculon

It is entirely possible. Taxes and rates can change, and the exchange rates between currencies are always fluctuating. I remember making multiple changes to an Air France award through Alaska, all the while the euro kept dropping against the US dollar. Every time I fiddled with it, I got a few dollars back.

azepine00

often if you change from connection to stopover additional taxes/fees are collected - can that be your case here?

eponymous_coward

"We don't actually know what's going on" is hardly a defense. Given the ongoing operations problems across the network, having partner premium award availability across multiple partners be an opaque crapshoot as well regardless of the root cause (AS blocking, CX blocking, crappy SABRE, what have you) makes the actual root cause fairly irrelevant. If cancelled flights and "I can't actually use my AS miles for things I can use my AA/JL miles for (CK/JL/EK)" sours people on the program and sends them elsewhere, who cares if it's AS or CX messing things up?

Very much agreed.

CDKing

Change from same day connection to overnight would explain it. That would trigger the Air Passenger Departure Tax (APDT) of HK$120 which is ~$15.37 as of this second using google's currency converter

percysmith

We can't prove it to the standard of beyond reasonable doubt, but we're not trying to convict AS (BA) of a crime in withholding availability. Balance of probabilities (more than less likely) is enough - in the view of the members (customers) of BAEC, this standard has been met.

percysmith

If AS truly values BIS loyalty it should not do miles sales and then restrict availability then.

lingecw

I did see there is $15.3 list as Hong Kong Air Passenger Departure Tax when I click the link to see the taxes and fees.

But my old ticket allowed me to stop in HK for 4 days, that fee should have already included last time.

The only difference with my new ticket is extending my stay in HK to 10 days before continuing to BKK.

CDKing

See if you can get a break down of all the taxes. so either it was double charged or they forgot the first time.

lingecw

I never paid attention to the fee and taxes before. Thanks for sharing your knowledge with me, greatly appreciated.

As I no longer have access to the old fee detail, so I don't know if they charged me that fee last time, but it is highly possible that they didn't.

pbd456

1) you do know how much you are paying,

2) you know how much you paid.

3) you can compute the cost of tax and fee access using ita, for example

4) phone booking fee (assuming not waive for non-elite ) is 25 and
partner booking fee is 12.5

kodawg9

I'm just trying to book an award from Melbourne to the US (So MEL-HKG-US); there's F space on the HKG to US portion, but only J on MEL-HKG (the aircraft doesn't offer F). They're telling me their system can't book mixed cabin awards and saying I have to book two separate tickets at the price of the two tickets as its own itinerary. This seems incredibly dumb. I'm tempted to just book the F portion from HKG, then try and update the itinerary. Any workaround here?