krdvg

Haven't redeemed miles on CX for a while. I see 1 First Class seat avaialble for three different days when I search on both BA and QF, however the Alaska award desk says no availability on any of those days

Is there some restricted availability if it is only 1 seat? Should I be looking for dates with 2 open seats?

The last time I did this a couple of years ago, the BA search result was enough to find seats.

EDIT: This is for LAX-HKG

Thank you!

Kremmen

I don't see the correlation. If anything, it looks the opposite way around to me.

Anyone outside a CX-served US city will suffer. SEA residents will suffer and I'd suggest many of AS's SEA members do earn by flying AS. You'd think that the "FT arbitrageurs" you speak of would likely be in those highly populated cities not well served by AS, such as NYC and EWR and they will not be affected nearly as much as those in SEA!

Kremmen

I don't think anyone's discovered the secret formula yet. Recent data points I'm aware of:
BA/QF show 4 seats in PE PER-HKG, but AS sees only 1.
BA/QF shows 2 seats in J HKG-LAX on multiple flights and AS doesn't see any of them.
BA/QF shows 2 seats in J HKG-SFO and AS sees them both.

In my experience, HKG-LAX (and v.v.) is the most random. Last year I couldn't get HKG-LAX in J when there were seats available across multiple flights according to BA/QF, yet I was able to book on HKG-SFO, which showed fewer seats on BA/QF.

Flying for Fun

And my experience has been totally opposite. Each and every time (6 booked since last fall) I have found availability on QF for CX awards I was able to call AS and book them and they saw exactly what I saw on QF. I just booked CX CCC-SEA-LAX//LAX-HKG//HKG-BNE, 1 F and 1 J (where CCC = Canadian Airport) for next February. I have also booked JL HND-SFO 2 F, same flight in March that I was able to book online. When I saw 2 F on QF, I was able to book 2 F on AS.

James

eponymous_coward

Many of those SEA residents who actually get enough miles piled together to redeem on CX (50k-70k is a lot for someone who is an occasional flier and not dedicated to the pursuit of manufactured spend/churning/arbitrage plays, and that is just ONE one way redemption) are MVPG+ and aren't affected.

The vast majority of AS MP redemptions aren't for CX, or even for other partners- the lion's share stays inside of MP. At least it was the case in 2013 (the last time I have data provided by AS).



The most common overseas place for Americans to take vacations is Europe, BTW. SE Asia not so much.

I really don't believe this has changed a lot over the years- obvious DL/AM/KL/AF are gone but are replaced by JL/HU/DE/FI. Remember, AS's membership is mostly NA-based, and FT really is not representative of where most people fly or redeem. Bloggers or FT would have you believe everyone goes to DPS or MLE for vacation. If that was truly the case the availability would be nonexistent. I've redeemed some on CX, but I redeem on AS as well, and I know the "oh, neat, Krug and a lie flat for cheap" tricks as well as anyone.

I will grant the $125 fee for partner award changes hurts MVPs who need to/must redeem way in advance, and the occasional non-elite who somehow gets a large pile of AS miles in their account. But it is somewhat difficult to do this without flying AS very much or being a gamer/arbitrageur, since AMEX/Chase Citi aren't transfer partners, and the BofA bonus isn't big enough to get you CLOSE to a CX premium round trip without multiple cards or a ton of spend. Your options to get a big pile of AS miles at reasonably low cost in your account without much flying are:

- Diner's Club (I imagine there are six or so people out here who do this, but it is still a thing)
- churning/ms'ing BofA, which is pretty obviously trying to game the system
- SPG/Marriott (SPG sold points at reasonable prices for arbitrage regularly, don't know if Marriott will, but there are people out there doing SPG->Marriott Travel Packages->AS as an arbitrage play, and SPG->Alaska was always a potential arbitrage on flying CX cheap called out by bloggers over the year)
- Buy AS miles directly to fly CX (which is pretty much the definition of being an arbitrageur since you can spend $2000 ish for AS miles during a sale and then you have enough to fly CX J round trip in SE Asia. $3000-3500 and you have CX F anywhere they fly from North America).

Perhaps. I suspect a lot of them are in SYD/MEL/ADL/BNE/PER or in Asia based on posting in this thread.

CDKing

Sometimes i think those that complain the most are foreign members.

eponymous_coward

Ż\_(ツ)_/Ż

I don't have a ton of sympathy for arbitrageurs, even though I try to be one sometimes (I've bought US/AS/AV miles, I've acquired UA/AA/DL miles when they get very very cheap, as happens sometimes). If you're trying to "play the game", recognize airlines really don't exist for the purpose of giving you Krug and lie-flats for pennies on the dollar.

The MVPs or non-ellites who don't fly AS enough to get fee waivers are the ones who get jobbed here, but even then, it's a pretty narrow group of folks who fly some, redeem on CX, don't live in a CX hub, and have to wait and see the CX inventory get snatched out by everyone who wants CX for (relatively) cheap because they need connecting flights for > 24 hours after they book the ticket. AA's award ticket holds and more flexible rules on changes help here.

azepine00

Whats up with crusading posts against folks who do exactly what AS asks them to do - get more miles via means other than flying?
AS is more than willing to sell them fake currency (or earn it via point conversion partners etc etc) so folks are understandably upset when this currency gets devalued. Whether you are from portland or perth makes no difference..

Kremmen

I guess it depends on what you mean by "many". "Many SEA resident FTers", sure. Others? I doubt it. Most people I know in the Seattle area fly occasionally for work, but flying short hops to CA or even the Midwest just doesn't add up to status unless you do it a heap. Because AS is the local airline, it has a lot of support. Many people have the AS credit card in WA. It's really not hard to get 100k over a few years for most people. (The friend I posted about recently inherited hundreds of thousands of AS miles from her dad. He'd simply used the AS credit card in his declining years, even when he was no longer fit to fly at all.)

True, but irrelevant. This is the CX redemptions thread.

Yes, you should remember that.

Bretmd

eponymous_coward

azepine00

Tell AS marketing to use it as new punchline..
i am tired of those sign up for 30k miles and buy miles now and get 35% extra stuff they promote.. your is much better imho

eponymous_coward

-shrug-

I don't make Supreme Court rulings on frequent flier programs, or program rules, or write marketing materials. I think people should be informed consumers (you can't rely on marketing to inform you), especially on "this is too good to be true" deals. Is the whole business shady? Sure. Welcome to FlyerTalk.

tanobacha

Can someone advise which One World airlines release up to 4 J awards? Last year I saw that Qatar was releasing 4 or even 5 J awards in some US to Doha segments but don't see anything more than 2 through next year. CX used to be generous in that regard to ... but apparently no longer ...

eponymous_coward

AS isn't a member of OW nor do they have a partnership with QR, so I don't see how this is relevant to a discussion of redeeming AS miles for CX. There are times you can redeem 4 J on EK using AS miles, but EK is not a OW airline (they are an AS partner).