CX is becoming more expensive
 

For a trip from TPE to 2 US east coast cities in early Feb, I found CX-AA flights are about 20+% more expensive than DL flights. The travel agent said the taxes (airport, fuel...) do not differ much, most differences come out from the ticket fares, especially the CX legs.

Is that a general situation? Or more on a case-by-case basis? I really like CX, but with a fixed travel budget and so many trips to make, this is really tough.

I think CX has always been more expensive, but surprising that ex-TPE fares are 20%+ more expensive than other competitors. I was always under the impression that ex-TPE fares were cheaper than ex-HKG by quite a bit, but perhaps that is only in J.

When you look at fares such as HKG-TPE you'll see that other competitors (EVA) offers much lower fares, but I choose CX for loyalty (quality of service, MPC, etc...)

CX has always been a little more pricey than competitors flying roughly the same route, but like CX HK, I still stick with CX for loyalty and I feel safer flying with CX vs Eva air due to the route they take ( eg. HKG - YVR (CX) flys around Vancouver island vs TPE - YVR (BR) flys across the mountain range)
what it comes down to is your own personal finance, if you can afford to pay and think it is worth paying the extra 20% than fly CX but if your on a cash strap finance than find lower price airlines.

Isn't AA that much more expensive because they don't actually fly into TPE (codeshare flight on BR)?

Thanks a lot for all the feedback. In my past experience, CX was more expensive by 7%-10% for trans-pacific trip, still in the affordable range. Considering the quality of CX products, this was a great deal.

But now at +20% in this case, it is out of our budget range. If this is the norm nowadays, then we'll definitely have to switch to cheaper airlines to keep the business going.

Do you have the actual prices of the two for us to see?

Depends really on the destination.. for Tokyo, CX's fares are the cheapest among the competiton from my area.

I've been flying the LAX-HK-MNL route for 7 years now..and its definitely more expensive. I used to be able to get M-class fares at about 900usd...now, I'm lucky to get anything below 1100usd...K-class are now usually about 1300 to 1500 usd range which I usually book so I can upgrade to J.

If it wasn't for Marco Polo, I would have probably started looking for alternatives.

My itinerary
Feb 1 TPE-TYS
Feb 4 TYS-MCO
Feb 8 MCO-TPE

CX(transpacific)-AA(US domestic) costs around TWD 75,000, while
DL costs TWD 60,000.
Both are higher than usual due to the lunar new year holidays.

If I shifted the whole thing to Feb 5-Feb 12, then CX-AA costs TWD 52,000, and DL costs TWD 39,900. All include taxes.

For business class, The Feb 1 itinerary in CX-AA costs TWD 141,200, and TWD 114,200 for DL.

ex-TPE CX TKTs for the US and Canada does seem more expensive in 2012.

My impression is only J fares ex-TPE is cheaper. Y fares to anywhere from TPE are pretty much the same as ex-HK ones.

And you know what is the worst?

CX introduces Q class - non-FFP eligible revenue class.

All the low fare are now not earning miles.

i think its fair enough. some ppl dont need miles. they shouldnt need to pay for it. (even tho it means my miles earning ticket will cost more)