Carfield

Due to the Omicron outbreak and the draconian measures imposed by HK government, I highly recommend anyone not booking CX award (and even paid) ticket in the near future. Due to various flight suspensions and stricter crew quarantine rules, Cathay Pacific will consolidate many cargo and passenger flights in Q1 2022. The world might have moved on, but Hong Kong has not. Hong Kong is still pursuing a zero Covid policy so I won't be surprised if there will be even less flights in 2022. If you ask if Hong Kong government plans to loosen the rules, my answer is NO. We will be lucky if hotel quarantine will reduce from 21 to 14 days after Winter Olympics. I don't see any relief till later half of 2022 and god knows how much crews CX will lose by then. Many expat pilots are already resigning because of the harsh working environment, being unable to see their significant others and children for two years, and not to mention the pay cuts. The CX schedules are unreliable now and first class is surely not coming back in 2022. CX's LAX-HKG and YYZ-HKG have just been suspended for two weeks because they had more than 4 passengers tested positive for Covid after arrival this past week. So even if they run a full schedule, you never know when your flight will be suspended.

Instead of asking about availability, just don't book Cathay Pacific in 2022 and beyond. You are just asking for troubles and god knows what the next variant is, and how Hong Kong government will react.

If you have book flights in the short term, there will be plenty of cancellations coming on soon. If you can rebook onto other airlines, I will do that now.

Carfield

eponymous_coward

Hard agree. I’ve been saying all along CX’s pandemic scheduling is fiction. Stay away unless you have a high tolerance for risk and babysitting your itinerary.

Sky Dreamer

In agreement to the post above, even if I could rebook with CX I wouldn't as the situation remains extremely uncertain. I had them scheduled for this Dec to BKK from LAX and with the schedule changes I just decide to be refunded. Flying CX wasn't worth ruining vacation plans which is already a lot to handle with Thailand's testing requirements. Any delays can mess up meeting your covid testing deadlines and force you to retest.

I ended up taking FinnAir LAX-HEL-BKK in J and JAL F award back (BKK-NRT-LAX). I would recommend booking award travel with either one of them and I haven't heard of any cancellations with them and both my flights ran like clockwork. Right now, neither HEL or NRT require COVID testing to transit unlike HKG.

Also on my flight and my friends separate flight, F was only 25 and 50% full. F award space was widdddddde open a few days before so you should be able to upgrade to F on JAL from J which is what I was able to do..

Colin

any advise on how to get an AS reservation changed after a CX schedule change from the CX auto-rebooked day-later-than-original-flight to my preferred day-prior-to-my-original-flight?

mattdk88

I agree with this, but keeping the booking in hopes of flying CX while they still exist. I have backup bookings for when CX doesn't work out.

estnet

and Cathay just banned flights from the US - don't know how long but this will surely impact some on FT!

OnWing

I previously booked CX flights for May and saw they had zero'd out their schedule via ExpertFlyer.

Would there be any advantage in waiting for them to officially cancel the flight rather than trying to find availability on a different airline and requesting a change?

pinniped

I haven't followed CX in a while. Have had a couple Asia trips planned that were canceled during the pandemic.

Is the current ban a political spat or a general "CX is about to go under" situation? Still holding out slim hope that I'll be able to redeem AS for CX for 2023 travel. Really, really slim hope I know....

kayexalate

I’m still holding on to hope for my sfo-hkg-bkk RT flight at the end of May /early June. Haven’t received any notice of cancellation from Cx yet but know that can happen. I’m only transiting through hkg. Their ban on U.S. flights ends on 3/15

jamienbaker

quite the opposite. You now have a jump on anyone else booked on the affected flights. That’s the whole point of Expertflyer is to make sure you are ahead of the huddled masses.

ukinny2000

I just saw my flights also zeroed out for early April. Any chance at all they will be reinstated? There is no availability on other OW airlines for the specific date and O/D in J (MIL is elderly and it's a bloody long flight), so am loathe to preemptively cancel if this turns out to be a nothingburger

jamienbaker

Exceedingly unlikely it would be reinstated, but if no other options exist and you don’t need the miles, no harm in waiting for it to be canceled. No redeposit fee that way, if you’re subject to those. Sorry your trip isn’t happening. Sucks.

ukinny2000

I appreciate your insight. It's so strange that they would zero-out every single SYD-HKG flight through to June 1st.. Seems like an awful long time. I feel bad for CX (not least because I still have a few 000,000AM orphaned there that I am trying to desperately use any which way lol)

eponymous_coward

AA, BA, AS, QF, JL come to mind. I offloaded some Asiamiles flying SEA-LHR on AA in J in 2021. The problem is that CX charges a not insubstantial cxl fee.

I’m hoping Australia opens for tourism and Japan for transits/tourism in spring 2023 and then I’ll liquidate what’s left flying JL and QF (possibly the OW multi carrier award if CX is actually meaningfully flying by then or I can make JL/QF work).

mlqsko

Australia opens in like 10 days.