CX F Award release patterns
 

Obviously not an exact science but thinking about flying CX F (for the first time!) instead of SQ/UA for a leisure trip. Have about 400k BA miles that have been sitting in my acct for awhile and figured it would be good to use them before the mileage requirements go up.

Thinking about SFO-DPS via HKG but I think my vacation block is for the wrong time (a few days after CNY). Being a month out, any experience with them releasing 2 F seats from the west coast to HKG this close to the travel dates?

There seems to be some availability for F from the US to Asia in January/February. I just booked a reward ticket LAX-HKG-MNL in C and return in F via MNL-HKG-SFO as I waited to long and someone else snagged my HKG-MNL F seat. :rolleyes:

Good luck

Thanks - I've been checking the BA site as well as KVS. Seems like only business is available on some select dates. Unfortunately the dates are somewhat fixed within 5 days or so. Looking early Feb. When were you able to get the LAX-HKG confirmed?

Early Feb is bad time for anything ex-HKG as its the Chinese Lunar New Year on Feb 3. Anything between Jan 25 and Feb 9 outbound from HK will be booked solid in revenue class, so award class would be even harder to come by.

For Asiamiles/MPC members, they have the option of waitlisting their desired flights. So if a flight opens up, it goes to them first before opening up to regular partners' availability.

Which is why I was shocked there was some business availability in late Jan! But the dates didn't work out. Nonetheless, I'm starting to like the availability with some decent planning. For example, NOTHING on UA SFO-HKG in Oct/Nov but on CX, within 2 days of ideal dates, 2 F seats are available!

As a DM I have had tremendous success in getting the waitlist to clear (or rather award seats released) over the telephone when calling the MPC line - I have a three-step process:

1. Do a test booking in F on the route and dates I want
2. If there is any availability for the whole itiniary in F - then I book and pay for my J/D/I fare basis ticket on-line - if not I tweak my times a little until there is F availability for the whole route
3. Immediately call the MPC line and ask for the upgrade to F.

Usually I have to wait on the phone for a few minutes while the CSR checks with "control" but so far I'm batting 100% for J -> F upgrades on long haul, multiple-segment initiniaries (typically MNL to YYZ/JFK). I've probably done this 7 times over the past two years. I should note that the on-line upgrade/reward function on the CX website is misleading - often it will say "full" when in fact you can get the seats if you call MPC.

Reward availability to me is the number one reason I give so much of my business to CX

Yes it is quite common for award J/F seats to be released closer to the departure date.