How does group redemption work?
 

I have booked an award ticket on 7/6/2013 on CX255 for 3 person.
Now i am checking CX website, I found out that there are 2 seats available in economy.

I totally understand that why my flight is still waitlisted, as there are no 3 seats available. However, how come the 2 seats are still "on sale"?
I thought CX should hold those 2 seats for me and wait for the final seat to be released?!

What if someone book those 2 seats in the future, and then I will have to wait for another 3 seats to be released?!

Should I call MPC to ask if they can secure the 2 seats out of 3 seats for me first?

I have no rules to point to.

But I don't think a large booking necessarily blocks a smaller booking in my experience.

Otherwise I should hardly see any one-seat award flights. Everyone waiting for 2/3/4/5/6 will be on top of me.

You should spilt the booking so at least 2 pax can get confirmed. Unless there is 3 or more inventory released you will always be WL. And if people have 1 or 2 then they will grab those seats.

Dunno if splitting flights is acceptable to OP.

It's not acceptable to my sister-in-law and my brother's two kids (my brother never flies with them), and as CX never releases >2 J seats during school holiday season on the SYD-HKG-SYD route, my brother's family flies and accumulates Virgin.

no i can't split my booking as my return trip is still under waitlist. only one of the flyers get a GO membership and have priority waitlist while others don't have:td:

Then unfortunately the chances of getting confirmed is low

If I were you, I would split the pnr, maybe into 2 or possibly even 3.

Confirm the available flights for the 2 non status pax (ask for this explicitly - the agent should understand, else just say "only 2 traveling now" and make a separate booking for the GO person later) and put the GO member on waitlist, and ask for a generous ticketing deadline "hoping the return sector opens up"

Not sure about loads to LHR in July, but you do have a fair bit of time...so no harm trying this, vs the lower possibility three-in-one-pnr track..

Yeah I thought this might work, given I read priority on the waitlist depends on where the miles are taken from, not who is travelling.

Doesn't the waitlist stay on until 4 hours before flight time?

Waitlist doesn't really mean anything, as other people can grab the seats before you. There's been many occasions where I'm on the waitlist, but I see seats open up online before CX calls me telling me that it's available.

I think they only clear the waitlists once in awhile, I suggest you just keep checking yourself to be on the safer side.

I tried to redeem an upgrade for my wife last year. She was waitlisted. I called daily a week before departure. In the end, the deadline expired about two days before departure (I forgot exactly). In her case, there was indeed a deadline.

However, she could redeem from her own account a few hours after expiration without waitlisting.

My suggestion is similar to the ones by the earlier posters:
* Break the itinerary into two. Secure the awards for the non-status passenegers first.
* The GO passenger can be on waitlist. If not cleared a few days before departure, the GO member can use seat guarantee to purchase the ticket. Note that the member must still be GO at that time to do seat guarantee, and the seat guarantee must be done at least 72 hours (I will suggest more time just in case) before departure.

Also if you ask the agent nicely they may offer the priority waitlist to the non status pax for the return segment.

I think you have to spilt to booking in order to make this work - actually spilt it to 1 pax per pnr so that it makes getting the seats on the return easier.

Also do rememeber there are ticketing deadlines as well for redemption bookings and I forgot, but is it 10 days before departure it must be cleared otherwise they have to cancel the booking?

thanks everyone :)

good news:
CX suddenly release seats for my flight!! all the 3 of us are still in one ticket and got the flight :)
now we are waiting for the return trip, wish me good luck :td:

Congrats and good luck!

As correctioncx said, you should still pay close attention to the ticketing deadline on the cleared segments.

sure and thanks :)

now i am waiting CX to release AMS/HKG routes late June :(
not even a single seat released now