FlyerBeek

And CX certainly continues to release award inventory in such a way to maximize revenue sales, as they see fit. None of the latest changes (either the BA website or AA deval) has changed that. Let's not forget that CX still makes money off of these award bookings - on seats that almost certainly would have otherwise gone unoccupied.

-FlyerBeek

LDVFlyer

I doubt AA pays cash for the award seats.

For this to make sense to AA and CX, the cost of the AA miles CX doles out to codeshare/oneworld passengers must completely or nearly offset the cost of the award seats AA flyers redeem.

As long as that remains the case, I dare say that the availability will remain the same. AA, however, has already done one thing to upset the balance, start a second daily flight to Hong Kong.

77W_12A

That's why I won't book on ctrip. Those RMB 15,000 fares on AA in J. They'll get you a seat, but that seat might not earn miles.

It's a shame with Avios. Can't do anymore last minute trips to BKK. I can still redeem on RJ and UL, but the problem with them is they don't have the frequency.

percysmith

Respectfully disagree. How many flights are there for AM members to redeem AA on ex-HKG?

CX is looking for AA reimbursement payments. Previously it wanted to keep F frequency high without selling the revenue seats too cheaply, so it kept revenue F high and allowed redemption F close-in (segregate demand for F seats and price-differentiate them).

But now I think revenue F side is looking worse than before. I won't be surprised if F goes for all but a very few destinations.

ijgordon

No, but lots of folks still flying on tickets issued before the devaluation. After the one-year anniversary (March IIRC), all redemption passengers will necessarily be on the higher priced award tix. Anecdotally it looks like (single) F awards are fairly easy to find after this period.

no1cub17

Got it - I didn't make the connection that people with pre-deval F awards are looking for space up through March at the old rates. Man, makes me wish we'd gotten in on CX F one more time.

Happy

Or worse, that ticket may not let you fly!

stephem

I am trying to figure out the upthread discussion about Avios, is it that since BA is now blocking near term Avios redemptions on CX that one cannot use the BA award search anymore for finding space on CX and making last minute changes to existing AAwards?

BTW- for anyone looking, there is some great availability popping up for the ride from west coast over to HKG in business class during the holidays. I have seen 4-5 seats pop up, just saw 4x LAX-HKG on 22 Dec 8:25am departure, what is staggering is that we already redeemed 5x seats for that flight same day (so they are allowing upwards of 9 business redemptions). There are seats the day before as well... Also seeing 3x business YVR-HKG on Dec 25, coveted route for this time of year. The problem is getting business class for the return, many HKG-US flights are zero'd out in all classes New Years and a few days thereafter.

ijgordon

It sees as if there are two effects. The first is, as you state, no searching on BA.com for CX partner award space. I think Qantas will still work, although folks seem to prefer using BA (I've never tried Qantas). The AsiaMiles site might also be somewhat useful, at least if you don't see any availability there you know not to bother calling AA.

The second effect is that in theory there will be less competition for those close-in rewards since Avios redemptions are blocked.

stephem

Thanks, yup Qantas does still work, although for intra-asia the Qantas site doesnt actually allow selection of a date prior to Dec 9 and it is only Dec 6 now, so there is something going on there. But for US-NAmerica, you can search even today.

spygame

where do you see the availability for 4 seats? I am looking for around dec 22 but cant find them

spygame

Do you use JAL or Qantas to check for availability? I saw 3 seats and called AA but they dont see it anymore. First saw 3, then none and now 1
Either the seats are moving very quick or they are doing some inventory load where it is going up and down

Paiteaw

So I cancelled a ticketed reservation on Cathay in F from hkg -ord yesterday for a flight next year. When I checked to see if had gone back into available inventory, there were 4 seats available on the BA website. Don't know if this was a website error or an actual release of award inventory by CX.

NYC2MNL

Was able to find J seats open on Jan 7th! My spouse and baby will be on an earlier MNL to HKG flight but we're all on the same HKG to JFK flight (which is the most critical part).

The interesting thing was that I found the availability on BA's site and had to call in to do the change. The problem was the it wasn't showing up in their system. Wound up having to cancel the existing award, getting instantly credited the miles back, and then rebooking the new dates from my end (could not be done thru phone rep since it wasn't showing up for him)

In the end it worked out though. Thanks!

ijgordon

How did you rebook a CX award *not* through the phone rep? What does "my end" mean??