eponymous_coward

Even before the pandemic CX wasn’t releasing 2F... so yes. Either do 1F1J and hope to get lucky or 2J and stay together for sure.

Flying for Fun

Other than our YVR-JFK flight in early 2020, I have never seen 2F available on CX and have never flown in a full F cabin. I would book 2J as it is extremely unlikely CX will be flying 4 Cabin aircraft in the next year. If the placeholder is indicating F, you can book it but expect to be downgraded to J when the aircraft is downguaged. CX is currently down to sixty-five flights per week dropping YVR & SFO among others as Flight crew are no longer exempt from quarentine when returning to HKG.

The crew of other airlines serving HKG are subject to quarentine as well unless they depart within two hours. Those airlines are bringing a second crew with them who rest and then the crews swap for the return flight.

James

flytoeat

Book #883 and #881 with 1 F availability on each. Depart and arrive within approximately 1 hour. Good chance one flight will open a F seat within a week before departure. If not, no big deal.

YOWgary

Booking a year out, either Cathay's flight volume will be back up, or we'll have other, more pressing concerns to attend to!

Looks like the 881/883 strategy is the best bet, thanks all!

Flying for Fun

CX has pressing concerns other than Covid-19. Passenger flight volumes will have to increase by 2500% of current levels to get to 25% of pre-pandemic volume.

30,410 passengers

Cathay Pacific said Wednesday (17 February) that its January 2021 traffic figures showed the airline carried a total of 30,410 passengers last month, a decrease of 99 percent compared to January 2020

Good luck!

James

mak101

I have not used AS points to book CX flight before, I have few questions:

Is it possible to book from anywhere in USA to anywhere in India other than gateway cities?
I believe I can get HKG stop over on one way ticket, just want to confirm.
How much AS point I need to book in business class?

Thanks.

skimthetrees

1) No, not anywhere. On the US side it must be either a CX gateway or a city that Alaska Air serves that connects to a CX gateway city (without backtracking: LAX-JFK-HKG not allowed, but JFK-SEA-HKG I think is allowed). In India it must be a city served by CX from HKG.

2) Yes, you can get a stopover in HKG on a one-way CX award to or from the US/North America.

3) According to the Alaska Award chart it is 62,500 miles in Business Class - One Way (which can include a stopover in HKG).

mak101

Thanks STT for clearing all my doubts. Last question before calling AS for booking, is BA only site to check award availability?

Kremmen

While theoretically true, married segments can make the reality somewhat different. Frequently on routes I fly, when A-HKG-B is available, A-HKG and HKG-B are rarely available separately, making stopovers an extremely rare possibility.

minz56

You can use QF, AA and JL as well, although bear in mind that availability on any of these may not be the same as availability via AS (particularly before AS joins OW).

NoLaGent

From your post in the Flame-Free thread, it seems your destination is Ahmedabad (AMD). Unfortunately, CX doesn't fly there, so that's not going to work. You could go the other way and take EK, but it's going to be at a higher redemption rate.

skimthetrees

I see from your other post you are looking for MCI-AMD. Since CX is not flying to SEA right now your best bests for a US gateway city that AS will connect you to, I think, will be SFO or LAX. On the India side, CX does not fly to AMD, the closest airport they fly to currently is BOM. You want a stopover in HKG. While it is true that Qantas has a great search engine and I normally would start there for a journey without a stopover I think the results will be harder to wade through on QF with a stopover. Given your situation here is where I would start:

1) Start searching at aa.com (American Airlines) for one-way flight from SFO or LAX to HKG. You can probably do this from an advanced search but I usually start with a simple one-way search like SFO-HKG, checking the "one way" box and the "redeem miles" box. When the results come up click on the "Calendar" view, then select non-stop and Business Class only. This will give you a nice availability calendar from the US gateway city to HKG.

2) Do another one-way search at aa.com as above to find a calendar of one-way award dates available from HKG-BOM.

3) Pick the available dates you found in the calendar searches for SFO-HKG (or LAX-HKG) and HKG-BOM to create a stopover of your desired duration in HKG.

4) Search for Alaska Airlines awards from MCI-to SFO (or LAX if that is where your CX flight departs) on the date your CX flight departs. Make sure there will be plenty of time to connect to your CX flight. Here I might use QF or AA to search for MCI-SFO/LAX but looking for flights only on AS (you cannot have AA flights currently mixed with CX). If you search for these flights on AS you may find availability that is not combinable with a saver partner award unless you know what to look for which is why it may be better to look for availability for these AS awards on partner websites like QF or AA. Ideally you will find Business Class (First Class domestic on AS) availability but even if you only find Economy class availability from MCI-SFO/LAX you can add this to your CX award. Alternatively, it may be easier to use the QF search for MCI-HKG on your departure date but pick results that only use AS and CX.

5) Call Alaska Airlines to book. Start out by telling the agent you want to book an international partner award. Give them the information for the two CX flights (Business Class, Date, CX flight number) and have them confirm availability for the CX flights. Once they confirm availability for the CX flights tell them you need Alaska flights from MCI to connect to your CX flights and give the information on the AS awards you found to connect to your CX flights. Hopefully they can put it all together. If they have trouble booking it all at once then I would book only the CX flights and call back to add the AS flights.

skimthetrees

While some destinations are heavily restricted by married segment availability via HKG, it does not look like mak101 has this problem going to BOM.

When the married segment problem comes up it is usually not the the US to HKG availability that is restricted. It is usually HKG-Asia that is restricted by married segments and there are ways around that problem described in this thread.

NoLaGent

STT's advice above this is very good, but I still think you're better off saving HKG for another day and just taking EK to AMD instead of CX to Mumbai and then buying an intra-India flight.

You haven't mentioned dates that I see, but you should be aware that LAX is currently the only west coast departure point in N. America for CX. YVR and SFO have been temporarily suspended, in addition to SEA, which was already suspended thru June of 2022.

Good luck and safe travels.

skimthetrees

Looks like SFO is currently scheduled to restart in April.