If they follow the competition (eg QF), then there will be different mileage costs for upgrade Y->J vs Y+ ->J

CX already has copays - you must buy a K class or above ticket to do mileage upgrade.

Well, it's not possible for Y to J with BA miles, if there is a Y+ cabin. Not sure how QF works.

You're right - I should have said "higher copays"

Y+ is one Y product. It is advanced Y product but it is still Y product. So what is going to happen is: You can still upgrade Y to J, but you will have an option of upgrading Y+ to J. Neverthless, you will have an option upgrading Y to Y+ using much less points.

Let us see what QF is doing after their Y+ product coming out:

Flight upgrades are available on:

Discount Economy^ (excluding E, N, O or Q class) to Premium Economy*
Full Economy to Premium Economy*
Discount Economy^ (excluding E, N, O or Q class) to Business,
Full Economy to Business
Premium Economy+ to Business
Business to First.

For example, upgrade from Hong Kong to London (did not put in discounted Y class as it would not be relevant for CX):

Y to Y+: 14000
Y to J: 35000
Y+ to J: 35000
J to F: 35000

You can see for QF they treat full Y as Y+ in terms of points needed for upgrade to J class. We should not worry about if you can use points to upgarde to from Y to J. I can assure you that you will be allowed to use points to upgrade from Y to J. The only questioon remain is which approach CX would take? They have an option of using same mileage upgrade for Y and Y+ or charge 10%-20% premium on Y upgrade to J. Again let us wait and see. We should not worry about this issue too much.

Not necessarily true. It all depends on how CX position the Y+ product.

JL really treats Y+ (PY in JL's language) as part of Y. If you buy a normal Y fare, you can assign seats at the Y+ cabin if there are seats available. But there's no such thing as an upgrade award from Y to Y+ on JL. And discounted Y+ tickets (E class) are not even upgradable while cheaper discounted Y tickets (e.g. K) are upgradable. Y->J and Y+->J both require the same amount of miles.

Y to J upgrade still possible after Y+?
 

My suspicion is no matter how the product is positioned, CX will take the option which maximises revenues. The management of CX are pretty hard headed business people, and good at systematically reducing good deals for passengers as those are invariably bad deals for CX.

We all know that 70,000 miles for a HKG/LHR Y to J upgrade is a great deal, so they'll probably close that off going BA-style - upgrades to J only from Y+. By doing this, they get nearly double the revenue for each J upgrade compared with now (assuming they price Y+ like BA).

Must be a lot of DMs and GOs ahead of me and in Y since I've never gotten one on this leg, as a GO. There's still plenty of finance travel between the two cities and will continue to be since both are global hubs. Being in finance (not a banker though) I know enough people that fly J regularly on this route.

That's a good point. Y+ is not just about more comfort and other benefits. A smart airline will use Y+ as an "upgrade tool."
Y+ is also useful when an overbooking situation means you have to downgrade passengers. Imagine telling a business class passenger about to check-in for a 13-hour HKG-LHR flight that he or she will have to travel Y class tonight. Any downgrade is to be avoided but a downgrade from J to Y+ is more palatable.

I think there are two kind of "Premium Economy" out there.
The first two airlines to introduce Y+ are EVA Air and Virgin Atlantic.
BR's Y+ concept is providing more space for long-haul travelers who usually travel in Y, and are willing to pay $300~$600 more over Y. VS's Y+ concept is more of a J-, which is aimed at business travelers who are not willing to pay big bucks for J.
Now more airlines have premium economy, they are positioned into 2 categories, Y+ and J-.

Y+ are BR, BA, UA, NH, JL (30%~70% on top of Y)
J- are VS, QF, NZ, AF(70%~120% on top of Y)

and where does CX Y+ fall into?

But looking at SIN-LHR, BA and QF price their fares the same, and BA has definitely a worse Y+ product.

And on the HKG-SYD route, VS is cheaper than QF.

BA/QF operate a JSA (joint services agreement) on routes between LHR and Australia via BKK and SIN. The JSA also covers flights between LHR, BKK and SIN. That means they code-share, divide the revenue between themslves and charge the same fares in all classes.

That is why BA/QF price indentically between SIN and LHR.

Between HKG and SIN you will find that VS will be cheaper because it does not have the market identity of either QF or CX. It has what is termed "5th freedom" traffic rights and 5th freedom carriers invariably undercut the main carriers (ie QF and CX).

There is only one Premium Economy class but, rather like in the early days of business class (ie in the 1980s), there are now differences in the product type.

There is no real set fare in any market because airlines charge Premium Economy (PE) fares according to what the market will bear. The picture is further confused by regular "seat sales" for PE.

All the above-mentioned carriers offer a proper PE with the exception of UA and, now, KLM. These two carriers offer a sort of quasi-product, eg the seating is identical to that in economy class but there is more legroom.

CX's product is likely to fall into the same category as that of QF. Although CX may go further and opt for the sort of superior product (ie a new version of ANA's existing PE) which ANA has begun fitting to its planes.

There are some ANA product details here:

http://www.businesstraveller.com/new...iness,-premium

I don't think 70k miles to upgrade HKG-LHR is a good deal at all. I for one have not issued any upgrades with CX on this route since they changed the award chart in Oct 07. To upgrade on BA from WT+ to CW would only cost 30k miles. In the old days when one could have a T class return for HK$11k, it seemed to be the best deal ever. However, as BA has decided to raise its fares and send one less plane every day, this has become increasingly difficult... :(

Agree with you.

Y+ is Y+, a superior Y product. Where UA and KL has is Extra-Large Y seats.

ANA's seats look very nice. But I doubt if CX will give up the extra 4 inches..That would be 10% extra cost per Y+ Passenger...:D

Well, we can always dream. Can't we.

BTW, business traveller has the article written on 11th Jan 09:

http://www.businesstraveller.com/new...remium-economy

I will not copy anything from the article for the copy right issue...

I would like to repeat myself a bit: The worst part of flying economy is the inability to sleep with the tight pitch and lacking recline. If those can be addressed and seat width plus pillow and duvet quality improved, that's about all needed, IMHO.

Lounge access, priority boarding and the like can be acquired through status. What I would not like to see is a biz class light with biz class pricing.

I think you should fly with KLM. Their biz class is half the price of CX in some route.