Had the same thought too and the explanation given was own member ahead of alliance.

Actually I'm more interested in tiebreaker... Previously is BN, but nowadays SEC should means nothing in op-up... I always wonder if booking class matters or not... Will report later this month after I make another HKG SIN flight

Booking class probably doesn't matter. I flew HKG-SFO on subclass I last month, and was upgraded to F at the gate.

Yeah, I got an op-up on an AA-booked U ticket on BOS-HKG the weekend before Christmas as a (now lowly) partner OWE. I'd just switched onto the flight less than 2 days out--surprised I was able to bag a U seat when J and/or lower cabins ended up being overbooked!

It's no use, make many trips HKG->SIN->HKG for many months. Hardly any upgrades as DM and now GO.

I did Cathay Dragon PEN->HKG last weekend....some infant couple robbed my front row window seat.....they let the infant sleep on the floor and rejected the bassinet. No upgrade though I did see printed boarding cards at the boarding gate, ready for upgraded passengers.

I am doing SQ for the next 2 trips.

(Audio)

Had anyone encountered the same situation like me before?
I just realized all my op-up flights were booked directly from Cathay Pacific website, and for those flights I booked from OTA got zero op-up.
Oh yeah, there was one and only op-up flight booked from OTA because I travelled on my birthday.
So, if that Cathay Pacific/ Dragon only consider to op-up passenger who booked the ticket directly from their website instead of OTA? :eek:
BTW, I'm just a lowly silver.

​​​​​​
No, I got a few op-ups on tickets from my TA. However, I have been DM and now GO. Status is a very important factor.

I flew HKG-YVR a couple of months ago. Checked in at the same time with a colleague (different PNR) who is GO, whilst I am DM. Both travelling in I. She got upgraded to F, whilst I did not I. I was told informally on the flight told that sometimes they upgrade GO above DM - as they classify that the DMs are already loyal customers and they could potentially get more business by upgrading a GO.

wow

I agree, either way this was a jaw-dropping experience and causes me to question my loyalty. I have been DM for 2 years and never had an up-op but admittedly I fly heavy elite routes, or J or with an infant.

ACV trumped status - it is happening after all!

(I assume you did not order special meal, no special requests/notes on your itinerary)

Actually, I had this happen to me on my last Cathay Dragon flight from HKG to KUL.

Was chatting with the guy behind me while waiting in the MP line. We're both booked in economy. He was a GO and me a DM. He was telling me he just got upgraded to GO and has switched all of his flights from MH to CX.

He got the beep at the gate and I didn't. A bit of a WTH....

Hi, need some advice please. Am doing a MR on the 24th of this month with a return on the 25th that looks like this. JNB-HKG-CDG in PE with a R and W booking class. Will have about a 5 1/2 hour layover and then be on the return flight. The "manage my booking" page is offering upgrades with a bid, but I've enough Asia Miles to upgrade the round trip (70,000). Problem is that when I called Asia Miles they said milage upgrades are not available.

What should I do? Wait to see if milage upgrades go through, I filled out online request, or should I put in a minimum bid on the legs I would reluctantly want to pay for the upgrade?

I will have just gotten off a DFW-DOH-JNB flight the morning before leaving on the CX one. Wife says I'm nuts. LOL

You call them and ask them to put you on a waitlist. Bear in mind, if it clears sector by sector instead of in one go, or if it only clears at the airport (ie JNB HKG and HKG CDG clearing separately), then you will have to ticket them as two separate awards.

The upgrade bid is more than often very poor value, and it doesn't rebook you into the higher class anyway.

You wouldn't be in this scenario if you were CX DM. One more reason to flee AAdvantage like what I did :)

If I wasn't based In Dallas that would be very attractive to me!

You are correct. The upgrade bid is not very attractive at all. $1,100 per leg to be at the bottom of a "fair" bid. Worst case scenario was to bid on the return portion so as to get some good sleep prior to meeting up with the wife in HRE.

I'll call to ask to be waitlisted. If they clear at the airport and have to be ticketed as 2 separate awards, will that require more miles?

Thank you so much!

+1 to your wife!

Nope, no special requirements. Would be good if people can keep an eye out and see this this becomes more common. It would be a significant degradation of unpublished benefits if this is true.

Hi All,

Your advise please. I am trying to use my mid-tier GO benefit on the following flight. I am currently booked into M class.

https://cimg3.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.fly...8b2215a527.png

I just got a upgrade failure stating that there are no bookable upgrade seats available on this flight. By the look of it, there is no premium economy mean M should be upgraded to I.

Any idea why it was rejected?

Since the miles revaluation in June, it seems upgrade availability has been reduced also. I frequently try for upgrade award for EWR/JFK - HKG. Since June, I've been waitlisted without clearing far more often for PE->J upgrades. My last flight back HKG-EWR on 9/30 didn't clear the waitlist, but I was able to use instant upgrade at the airport. I was planning a flight for the weekend of 10/20 EWR or JFK - HKG. MPC could not confirm any flight out of NY for that weekend ( I think there's a major expo going on in Guangzhou), so I was able to confirm CX865 on 10/22. Definitely not my first choice, but that was the only flight from NYC area in +-5 days that they were willing to confirm.

All anecdotal, but to me it seems less availability despite the promised 20% increase in award inventory. Instant upgrade is a viable option. Last time I tried in HKG, they had me wait until 1 hour before scheduled departure to confirm the seat, but I did get it.

To follow-up on this, I called MPC and they said there is no I inventory in their system. It seems Expert Flyer is wrong?! Is this possible/ anybody else experienced this?

No I class fare filed doesn't mean that they cannot process BUG/BUD. Your agent is misinformed and you should try HUACA
BUG/BUD only states that after application, you will receive credit as having flown in the most restricted fare bucket of the higher class of service. But it has nothing to do with whether it exists in the form of cash sales at all!

(Example: There are no (or very limited afaik) ex-China A class fares filed for sale on CX to Southeast Asia. However, you can apply BUG to the SE Asia sector of a China-HK-SE Asia itinerary booked in I class, and it will still be booked into A class.)

Yes, if cleared at airport, it will be 25,000 per leg (so 50,000 in total for JNB-HKG + HKG-CDG, and another 50,000 for CDG-HKG + HKG-JNB)
Only if both JNB-HKG+HKG-CDG are confirmed at the same time then you can do the upgrade for 35,000. But if one clears (say JNB-HKG) and one does not (HKG-CDG), bear in mind they can only generally hold the confirmed JNB-HKG seat in business for 2 days maximum.

Thanks. Sorry for all of the questions. This is a different process for me. I called this morning to do the waitlist. Only the leg from HKG-CDG has been confirmed, (By the looks of expert flyer it will be the only leg that is going to clear for now) and was told to call back on the 20th at 5pm HK time to pay the tax. I'm guessing that is the next step? Is there any thing else I need to do?

This is exactly my experience on MEL-HKG recently. Fewer PE>J upgrade awards clearing ahead of time, but instant upgrade is often available an hour before departure. I guess they decided that by denying redemption upgrades when there are 5 or 6 seats left, they can sell those seats or use them for J pax changing flights, and if not then it's the same PE pax getting instant upgrades.

Last flight, I had the strange experience of failing to clear waitlist, being denied an instant upgrade an hour out, but then getting an op-up at the gate. That is truly last minute seat allocation. I can only guess that someone on a connection was delayed.

Has anyone noticed that upgrade waitlist requests now expire after a week? Previously you had until a few days before departure. Now it expires after a week, and you can go back and make another upgrade request. Why would they do this? It's annoying to have to remember to re-request an upgrade every week.

My HKG to YVR is still on waitlist... I've been on the waitlist for 2 months now and it's still in the same status.

Maybe the expiry is only for new bookings?

I did try looking though this thread first for an answer, but there are a lot of pages, so maybe I missed it.

So this is the first time I've tried looking a buying a W or R class ticket and using miles to upgrade. After 3 calls to MPC, I am dismayed at how difficult it seems. Am I missing something?

I was told that I need to call reservations, ask them to HOLD a ticket, then call back to MPC to see if an award is available. If an upgrade is available, then great. If not, then call back, cancel the hold, make another reservation, then call back to MPC. Keep repeating this process until you hit.

Does that sound right? And MPC said that they cannot tell us if an upgrade is available until we are holding the reservation.

One chap at MPC said one alternative would be to just book and hold the ticket online, but I don't see an option for that; I only see a PAY NOW option for credit cards. (EDIT: I did notice that the HOLD option seems to be available sometimes. Perhaps user error. Anyway, this no longer needs to be part of my question.)

Is there a big availability difference between the Full Redemption bucket and the Upgrade bucket? In other words, if I can see that a full redemption is available online, does that mean chances are good that an upgrade would be available?

This sounds like the hit and miss option could take HOURS. And from reading above, it sounds like there is not a lot of success since June 22 in scoring upgrades.

Unfortunately, I think all the information is anecdotal, as I'm not aware of any tool that's able to scrape upgrade award inventory. What's your route and date of travel? I try do the PEY->J upgrade just about every trip, EWR/JFK-HKG. I've too have noticed that since June 22 it feels like scoring an upgrade has become more difficult. Currently, I'm sitting on the waitlist for HKG-EWR on Nov. 18. EF shows J ticket availability wide open, I9, but they won't confirm. Probably since it's part of the pre-Thankgiving rush and one would assume that flights in that period would start to fill up with revenue pax.

I haven't had to jump through too many hoops to score an upgrade, but I do use a TA to book my tickets and call MPC on my behalf to ask for upgrade award. She's pretty comfortable with the staff and can speak Canto. Sometimes she is able to find out about inventory before making an actual booking, or she makes a booking and then if she can't get a confirmation, will ask about different flights out of JFK/EWR or +-3 days. I've had to adjust my travel dates a few times to guarantee confirmation. Just last week, I did a Monday departure on CX865, JFK-YVR-HKG, just to confirm the upgrade. My normal pattern would have a weekend arrival and YVR stopover adds significant time to the flight. But many times it's easier to get confirmation on CX865, even on weekend departure, than the other flights.

Regarding waitlist, I've waitlisted 4 times with only 1 success for clearing the waitlist. Other times, I was able to use instant upgrade at the airport or received op-up. If you don't want to risk waitlist and have confirmation, then I think your only choice is to continue this process, make a dummy booking, (i.e. don't pay), call to see if you can get confirmation, cancel it then try again. Yes, it's frustrating and seems just a little more frustrating since June 22.

Agree with the above post. They *can* tell you if U space is available - at least sales can, not sure about MPC itself. Maybe find a TA with a good relationship, or create one yourself with an outport.

Upgrade availability (cash)
 

Hi. Could anyone tell me please is there a way to check availability for paid upgrades on CX? Am i right in saying that the closer to departure date, the cheaper it may get?

A quick search on this forum should reveal multiple posts that describe CX does not do cheap upgrades closer to departure as many other airlines do.

There is an Upgrade Bid thing that they have rolled out but that is of super limited success and in most cases the reasonable bid amount is actually greater than the fare difference to upfare to the higher class.

Not correct, sorry.

See etkuo's post above.

Generally speaking if you want an upgrade you pay the fare difference. There is the above-mentioned Upgrade Bid program, but it is very limited and by virtually all accounts, prices seem bizarre and uncompetitive. Most likely your flight won't be available for it, and if it is, you either won't be accepted or the recommended bid amount will be above the fare difference.

Thank you. Even if economy is looking relatively full and other classes quite empty. Expert flyer currently?

J9 C9 D9 I9 W9 R9 E9 Y9 B9 H9 K4 M0
L0 V0 S0 N0 Q0 O0

Yes. If a lower cabin is overbooked CX resort to operational upgrades based on elite status. In fact there are multiple instances reported here (the most recent one being a few posts up) when CX would not release seats for AsiaMiles upgrade all the way up till airport check-in and eventually the same person scores an operational upgrade at the gate.

But again, CX (right or wrong) does not offer cheap upgrades/upsell closer to departure.

Hello all. So to cut a long story short.

I originally booked my flight to HKG in July of this year. I called the airline a few times since then to enquire about a paid upgrade, most recently on November 1st which I did not proceed with - it was only a few days later when I checked my booking that I had in fact been upgraded! (I was able to change seats within premium economy cabin and my booking was showing as confirmed). I decided to call the airline on 14th November and it appears that the upgrade was made in error and when the call centre realised this I was downgraded. (I should have said nothing).

My question is - Do I have any argument to make with the airline? I have written to customer relations at CX but I am not holding out much hope. I am tempted to call into their office in Dublin and see where I get. Any feedback or advice would be greatly appreciated. Feeling very frustrated with the airline and myself.

Mate, to state the obvious....you definitely have no beef with CX! And the odds of you actually being allowed to fly in a class you didn't purchase is nearly zero so it's not like you calling hurt your odds of getting a freebie. These "freebies" aren't a thing.

I'm not sure how this happened technically speaking (maybe they booked you in PEY when you inquired, but of course it wasn't ticketed, and eventually self-cancelled?) , but anyway clearly you have no beef for something you didn't pay for.

Can I ask how you were planning to pay? Was it the Upgrade Bid program? Or you were just paying the fare difference?