At1975

Back in October I was trying to plan a trip to SE Asia with my whole family(going to a wedding bag). I had some real challenges finding four business class awards on Cathay using Alaska Miles. Most of the info online about finding award space isn’t correct(example: use the BA site to search for availability). I ended up calling Alaska every day for over a month and ended up with four Cathay business class seats from SFO to HKG to SIN(LAX to SFO is on Alaska). My return window was small because of the date of the wedding and our child’s school year starting. I couldn’t find more than 2 Cathay seats (even when BA and other airline award searches showed 4 available seats). I therefore ended up using my stash of chase, Marriot and Citi points to transfer to Singapore Air and booked four business seats for the return. The out of pocket cost ended up being small for the flights but because I ended up using those flex points I’ll end up having to spend more on lodging(and I would never use my Alaska points for hotel stays).

Basically the lesson I learned was don’t believe anyone that says you can find Alaska Cathay Awards without calling in to talk to an Alaska agent. Calling in everyday worked for me but when I found the four SFO to HKG seats the agent I was speaking with was very surprised because finding more than 1 or 2 is so rare. FYI- Finding award space in Singapore was a breeze and there were tons of flight options with more than four business sea available.

Cat88L3

In my experience, the BA site has been very unreliable and not helpful at all. The Qantas site was so much better in finding my award seat. I did this without calling in to talk to an Alaska agent. There were times when the availability was there, but the Alaska agent said it wasn't. I had to guide them into finding the award ticket

At1975

I also checked Qantas and didn’t find it helpful or accurate for the Alaska award space. Beyond giving the Alaska rep the exact flight number etc what do you mean by “guide them into finding” the award space?

Cat88L3

Meaning that when I gave them the exact flight numbers, I was mistakenly told there was no award tickets. I posted about my experiences about two weeks ago on this thread. You can read it for yourself.

I had dealt with a couple of AS CSR that weren't very knowledgeable in searching for inventory. Overall, the experience was still great. I'm very happy to get a CX J/F class ticket from DPS to JFK for 70,000 AS miles

At1975

Ok, I’ll check out what you wrote about guiding the agents. It’s great that you got your award flight, I will say that finding a single award is much easier than 3 or more. It is one of the big challenges with points awards for families. When Alaska or other airlines only release 1 or 2 seats it basically excludes families. When my kids are older we could split flights and potentially have a parent and a child fly together and only have to get 2 awards on a flight but with younger kids it isn’t ideal.

I want to put an end to the myth that Alaska award space can be identified anywhere other than the Alaska site or by calling Alaska agents.

eponymous_coward

Alaska isn’t releasing anything. It’s Cathay’s inventory. Perhaps Cathay is not interested in having families fly in J or F for a very low percentage of cash fares by buying a brace of Alaska miles, or they prefer giving that award inventory to Asia Miles customers- as they should, Cathay likely realizes more revenue from an Asia Miles award than Alaska.

https://onemileatatime.com/cathay-pa...-class-awards/

At1975

That argument doesn’t make any sense because I found a good amount of 2 to 4 business award seats available on Cathay if you were using BA Avios(It sounds like the real issue is that you would prefer not having families with children in Business or First).

Either way, my point was that a lot of the info out there about finding Alaska awards on Cathay is incorrect. The only way to find award space is through Alaska and anyone that tells you different is lying.

MAH4546

Sorry, but no. I book awards on Cathay constantly. BA is accurate every single time as long as you are only looking at an individual leg.

At1975

You are totally wrong. BA isn’t accurate and that fact has been confirmed not only by me but also by numerous other sources(just because you’ve been lucky with your single awards doesn’t mean there’s an actual correlation between BA and Alaska Cathay award space). A broken clock is right twice a day. . .

freed0m

They are not accurate information, but good enough information to do research before calling, unless you enjoy calling every time and being told no availability.

AS only sees what AS sees. BA or QF or JL provides good information to start.

Flying for Fun

Did you confirm the inventory BA is showing is accurate? BA often shows phantom inventory so what you are seeing may very well not be bookable with Avios. Are you familiar with married segment logic? Did you know there is decent premium award availability on QF LAX-SYD if connecting onto HKG using QF miles but nothing on the LAX-SYD segment alone?

Well thank you for calling me a liar. Perhaps it is you that doesn't understand how to ultilize available tools effectively and find it easier to shift the blame elsewhere. I am sure you enjoyed your calls to AS every day, day after day, week after week, month after month.

Continue to call me a liar if you choose but I use QF exclusively to search for CX inventory and over the last 2+ years have booked at least two dozen CX J & F award seats with 100% success when feeding AS the exact flights I found on QF. I have often seen some flights with as much as 9J. If AS agents don't see a flight that departs just after midnight they most likely forgot to include a 1:00 departure in the search request.

We (2) just flew CX F YVR-JFK & CX J JFK-HKG//HKG-CPT. I also have a CX J SFO-HKG-AKL in early February and recently changed a QF award for March droppong QF and adding CX J & F PER-HKG-LAX to keep my LAX-FLL in AS F intact after a 12 day stopover. This was a result of a random QF search which showed the only available F HKG-LAX seat in the entire month of March on the exact day I was traveling. A simple, once only, call to AS secured the award in under 10 minutes? How much time did your calls to AS add up to?

I never book at T-330 days. All my CX awards are booked usually at 4 to 3 months out and I have had recent success in upgrading 2 to F within 2 weeks of departure.

Perhaps it is time to step down from your soapbox! I am not a liar by the way. I won't disrespect you and call you one. Do you know how to determine the number of available seats on a QF search? How about interpreting the month long search results to see patterns where you can often predict which airline available inventory is on? I do! You can figure that one out for yourself. But then who doesn't love a daily AS call ritual.

James

skimthetrees

I have seen a situation where AS matched JL and QF availability for a CX flight but BA did not show it available. It was available to AS because I booked it. And, yes, this was for a single segment flight. Point being that what BA shows for CX availability does not necessarily match what AS shows. JL seems to be the best indicator but JL does not show PE availability so for some it may not be an option.

I have had good correlation using JL searches. QF is usually fairly in line with JL but not always for married segment journeys. I do not feel the need to call an AS agent to check for availability. I can tell by what I see online between JL, QF, and BA, what is available.

MAH4546

You are wrong but there’s no point in arguing further. I’ve booked for multiple people, not just one. BA has never been wrong for me and I’ve booked about a dozen Cathay awards over the last four years.

eponymous_coward

It makes plenty of sense because it correlates nicely with the experiences on this forum: CX F/J is being held back preferentially for AM customers of CX’s own program, especially last minute.

I couldn’t possibly care less what you book and for whom. Information and experience gets shared here and it’s up to you what you’d like to do with it. It seems that you’re into arguing with some pretty experienced users of AS’s program based on your extensive experience, so good luck with that.

At1975

Just know that when you do “find” Alaska Cathay award space on BA one day and then you can’t book it- my warning post will be in the back of your head and you will know I am right on this.