beckoa

Yes.

Lots of everything, extra caviar. For breakfast, caviar with eggs.

I can recommend this ^

rustykettel

skimthetrees

Not sure but from what little I have read about other FF programs it is usually the latter. There is a cash value assigned to the award redemptions and periodically whichever side has a balance has to pay up and airlines do not want to run up large imbalances so they try to tailor the program to keep the balance between them and their partner low. If one side consistently a has large cash balance owed for reward redemptions on a partner (after balancing with redemptions from the partner) you can bet a devalution is on the way.

Since AS sells miles all the time their strategy might be a little different. If they can gain more profit from selling miles than they pay out in award redemptions they may be OK with running a negative balance with a partner so long as they still turn a profit with the sold miles used to redeem.

CDKing

I have never had the cabin to myself on BOS-HKG. at least one op-up

eponymous_coward

I agree. US Airways (prior to them taking oververmerging with AA) and Avianca from what I can tell have spent a good long time being *A premium class inventory consolidators by selling miles. It's possible AS is doing the same thing for their partners (and note that AA and UA are much more aggressive now in selling miles, both have executives who used to work at US). I don't think AS has to be making a LOT of money on the deal; the miles they sell to banks, etc. far outweigh the ones sold to consumers (go look at the financial details of the BofA deal in some AS investor reports). That could fund some CX F redemptions.

VegasGambler

I agree with that. I don't believe for a second that if I buy miles and then immediately redeem them, AS is taking a loss on that transaction.

Whether actual money changes hands on each transaction (unlikely) or a number is added to the balance sheet is largely irrelevant. Most businesses do not actually have cash on hand for all their "revenue". It still counts.

Nazdoom

Yes - ORD - HKG over the summer last year. I had my assigned seat for lounging about, another for my bed, and I ate a meal at a third. My understanding is CX is required to have 2 FAs servicing the F cabin if even one seat is occupied for safety reasons; you will get very attentive service if you seek it, as well as your own lavatory Those are mostly moot points though since CX F is usually quite good -- even when full. You can probably also get an extra pair of pajamas if you are nice.

If it's your first time flying CX F, note the FAs tend to stay out of the cabin unless called or doing meal service. If you think waiting patiently until they come through to ask for water, you will be waiting hours. They will happily come when you use the call button. This is (supposedly) to maximize privacy and reduce cabin noise.

Near landing they did bring a young girl up to F - I think she was unaccompanied minor or related to an FA and they wanted her to deplane before other pax. Otherwise I had the whole cabin all to myself.

The flight back, HKG - BOS, was completely full. Nonetheless, they encouraged me to dine on demand (napped immediately because I was in a food coma from the Pier then woke up for first meal service 5 hours later) and even insisted on giving me a second entree because they felt the first was too small. Even had time to chat with the FA about blogging and different airline F products!

ft543

That sounds about right, someone on the CX forums said that reimbursement are sometimes quite similar to what staff pay on ID fares, so ~$300 for a TPAC J ticket, more for F obviously.

Nazdoom

Interestingly, but not directly related, on the phone an Alaska employee once mentioned that on a partner F award mixing AS and CX, CX gets almost all of the value of the 70k AS miles used (whatever their agreed upon $ currency equivalent comes out to) and Alaska (regardless of backtracking West-East Coast) only get around $60. (In that specific example, CX was ~7500 miles of the journey and AS was ~2500 miles.)

I would be surprised if Alaska pays more than $600. And with that said, in exchange for such a discount, Alaska is mostly stuck with few and far between flights and lack of client-facing search functionality for CX AS award space.

Mauibaby2008

VegasGambler

Which BKK-HKG flight has F? The one I'm booked into only has J but if one of them has F I'll try to switch flights...

Mauibaby2008

VegasGambler

I'm not flying in that direction

I still have F for HKG - SFO though.... was hoping I could make some changes and get both.

Flying for Fun

None that I am aware of. CX flies 3 Class A350 & B777 within Asia and between Asia & South Africa/Middle East/Australia. I believe they only deploy their B777 4 Class aircraft on TPAC & Europe. My recent awards were J to HKG (MEL & JNB) & F TPAC. One with a 2 month stopover as well.

James

jphripjah

Does BA.com still show CX premium award availability? I'm seeing nothing at all for the rest of the month. I know it's the busy season but usually there is something, wasn't sure if it's a BA.com issue. I thought they only blocked showing the CX seats at T minus four days from departure.