Need some advice from you with experience with Cathay Pacific and oneworld.

Planning a trip for me and my wife to Australia. We're flying:

Stockholm to London - BA Business
London to Hong kong - Cathay Business (staying in HK a couple of days)
Hong Kong to Cairns - Cathay Business
Cairns to Ayers Rock - Quantas Economy
Ayers Rock to Cairns - Quantas Economy
Hamilton Island to Sydney - Virgin Economy
Sydney to Hong Kong - Cathay Business
Hong Kong to London - Cathay Business
London to Stockholm - BA Business

So... I was thinking of trying to collect som points/miles to maybe be able to upgrade one of the last flights to First class, but I have som questions;

1. Should we join Marco Polo or Aisan miles (or maybe another OneWorld programme)?
2. As I have no idea of the amount of miles rewarded on these flights, does anyone know if it is enough to upgrade one of the last flights with Cathay to first class?
3. Can I use miles from Marco Polo to get free flights from other OneWorld companies?

MH

1. You can only use Asia Miles to upgrade on CX. (you can use other OW airlines miles for award tix, but not upgrades)
2. you can crunch the #s at www.asiamiles.com, but I seriously doubt it.
3. From Asiamiles, yes. Marco Polo doesn't earn miles, just status.

Not true, you can also use Asia Miles to upgrade on BA and AA, but only for roundtrips, not one way.

In any case, as you said, it's not likely that the OP would earn enough miles for an upgrade from J to F. For example, to upgrade the CX flight from HKG-LHR from J to F, one would need to spend 50,000 miles per passenger for one way only.

I meant that for upgrades, only Asiamiles can be used.

Sorry, misunderstanding. I should have known that you would not make such an elementary mistake

No worries. The way I wrote it wasn't clear.

Welcome to flyertalk Mhz!

FYI, any oneworld FFP can redeem award tickets on other OW carriers.

Thank you for your reply!

another Q, on our way home from HK til LHR, it looks on seatguru as if the plane is a 773, and that it dosn't have the fishbone layout of the business seats, more like a "normal" 2-3-2 seat configuration. Is this true, or are they not yet upgraded all of the planes yet.

Looks strange to me that all other long haul has the "new" kind of coffin seats, but this one doesn't?

MH

773 for HKG-LHR really means 77A, or 777-300ER in longform. This flight definitely has the new coffin seats. Follow this map here:

http://www.seatguru.com/airlines/Cat..._777-300ER.php