Thanks for your reply. The somewhat annoying thing is we would have been (reasonably) happy to book Y SYD-HKG and then J HKG-BOS, but were required to book a single class across both sectors. Bid to upgrade could perhaps help, but not so much now at full J when we booked PY.

I’ll report back on how we go!

Is it worth bidding for an upgrade from economy to premium economy? I don't have any status on Cathay, and got my YYZ-SIN (via HKG) tickets with some Amex points. YouTube videos suggest the upgrade to Premium Economy for a 16 hour flight is worth it...but some posts here indicate that it's really not all that.

Minimum bid is US$515. I just put in a bid of US$525, but not sure if this is even worth it...thoughts?

I agree. Honest question for other board members: Has there ever been any success story of upgrade bids? My memory from reading this board is there were very few if any success stories of upgrade bids.

Data point: AA EXP/OW Emerald. CX807, 11/23/2019. Op-up from PE to J. Expert Flyer shows availability after I boarded as:

F2 A2 Z0 J0 C0 D0 I0 U W2 R2 E2 T2Y8 B7 H6 K6 M5 L5 V5 S4 N3 Q2 O0

I find availability for flights after check-in is closed is often inaccurate. Probably doesn't matter to CX since no new booking can be accepted anyway. In your case, W cabin is indeed full.

I have two long haul sectors coming up (JNB-HKG-IAD) and was wondering as an OW Emerald booked in E (PEY) do I have a good chance at getting an operational upgrade? The first sector departs in 4.5 hours and the IAD sector departs tomorrow night. EF is showing:

JNB-HKG
J0 W1 Y3

A few hours ago it was J2 W0. When looking at the seat map PEY is 100% occupied (no seats showing as blocked).

HKG-IAD
J8 W1 Y1

There is a chance for HKG-IAD. Report back.

Quick update - no op up on JNB-HKG. PEY was booked 100% despite EF showing W4 several hours before departure and a completely full seat map the entire time (no blocked seats).

HKG-IAD is now showing J5 W0 Y0. Anyone know how far out CX starts processing Op Ups? Or is this only done at the gate?

Have seen as early as 6hours out when I am still at home up till the gate. Depends on how full it is.

Gotcha. Looks like they did bump one person in the past 15 minutes. A seat popped open in PEY and J went down from J4 to J3.

We will see. Flight is in 2.5 hours.

ETA: looks like no dice for me. Checked with the agents. They said it’s a full flight but no seat change for me.

I'm looking at a RT flight HKG-SIN and there are of course no awards despite plenty of seats open. Thinking of booking PE. Upgrading to J is only possible with R/W booking class, but the cheapest PE is in E class.

Will CX clear the upgrade if the seat is available at the gate, or does it not work like that?

You will need to book in R class. You can do an airport upgrade using Asiamiles- can be processed in the lounge. Some extra taxes to be paid as well, I think.

These days, I don't think there's any guarantee that an instant upgrade would clear. Seems logical that it should, seats available, customer willing to burn miles, etc. but logic is in short quantity lately.

That being said, you should also check in the days leading up to the flight. It's common for awards to become available in the last few days. If you don't clear, ask for instant upgrade a check-in counter. They may make you wait until check-in is closed and complete the transaction in the lounge.

Have we had any reports that Instant Upgrade did not clear and flight left with empty J seats? If so that would have a huge implications...

Thankfully most times I get my upgrade cleared prior to departure and rarely do I have to rely on Instant Upgrade.

[MENTION=328838]helvetic[/MENTION] - I concur to what synthkeys says. Very often they release upgrade inventory the last few days (up to last few hours I have seen). This is on YYZ-HKG route and I have seen quite a few times where upgrade U inventory becomes available despite I showing 0. (e.g. J3 C2 D2 I0).

I ended up booking E and deciding it wasn't worth $500 USD + 24k miles to upgrade the round trip HKG-SIN… and guess what, I got op-up'd from W to J anyways on the way there. Perfect.

Flying Thursday - no upgrade offer :(

Hey All,

Not sure if this is the right forum to post this but I hit the 1600 point mid-tier diamond benefit which is 4 bookable upgrades. Can anyone share any experience with how easy it is to get the upgrades approved/processed? I had several gold mid tier upgrade passes expire cause I was never able to get the upgrade approved before the flight...

Upgraded on the return too. Woah. Is it that common to get op-up booked in W on HKG-SIN? Seems like they oversell Y/W and there's not much competition as emerald in W for the op-up. I'm not even Marco Polo elite.

What’s the chances of op up with this situation.

J9 C9 D9 I9 U Y4 B0 H0 K0 M0 L0 V0S0 N0 Q0 O0

ticket book in B class and MPC GO

I still need to buy J to YYZ at least once or twice a year for me to maintain Gold, however what's your success rate from buying upgradeable PEY fares and using Asia Miles to upgrade?

I don't recall mine exactly, however on my most recent flight back in August, I was waitlisted for both outbound and return. My return ended up being confirmed almost a month out, whilst the outbound never cleared (didn't know about checking closer to the date trick, until just a few days ago as I was able to upgrade from J to F to LAX), I was eventually upgraded at the gate.

I have been doing this for the past 4 years at least, totalling at least 12+ roundtrips, and only once (this Jan) that I missed out on the Mileage Upgrade (both ways!).

Most of the time I clear anywhere between T-3day to T-12hours, occasionally I get lucky and they clear earlier.

Not YYZ<->HKG, but for JFK/EWR<->HKG, I'm 100% for the last 3 years, avg. about 7 trips per year. I pick flights and dates that I'm confident I can get an upgrade or waitlist confirmed. I'm only DM this past year, and getting confirmed is easier and I can roll the dice a bit and choose more popular flights and times. Before that as GO, I was waitlisted more often and maybe 25% of the time I didn't get confirmed at booking or clear waitlist but managed to get instant upgrade or confirmed 2-3 days before the flight.

My co-workers won't pay the up-charge for R fares if they can't get confirmed at booking but I'm willing to take the risk. If you plan wisely and watch the loads it can be an effective strategy. But you need to choose less popular times where loads are a bit lighter. I usually arrive HKG on Saturday mornings and depart on Sunday afternoons and I'm willing to take a midweek flight if I think its necessary. Whereas my co-workers are less flexible and want to arrive HKG on Monday mornings and depart on Friday afternoons which are popular arrival and departure days and thus harder to get an upgrade.

Also it helps working with my travel agent, she has access to more information than I can get on EF and is willing to call MPC several times on my behalf (and speaks Canto) to see if the flights I choose can get confirmed immediately plus her fares a better than what CX publishes online.

Has cheap AM upgrade replaced op-up?
 

My family (Both OWR) came back from HND on CX549 a few days ago. They faced an interesting situation and I'm not sure if I heard it before. Since I didn't travel with them so I may miss some details.
Background: Y class is overbooked, PEY and J are not full.
What happened is: Most (or all) PEY passengers were op-uped to J. All Y class passengers during my fam's check-in (They had to deal with overweight luggage so it took them a lot of time) were offered a cheap AM upgrade (1k or 2k miles, not sure) to PEY, and most passengers took the offer. They are definitely not OW/MPC silver or above because they are in the Y/PEY check-in counter. However, my family (BA/OWR, but travelled on CX metal mostly) on revenue ticket were not offered anything including an op-up or cheap upgrade. I understand avios cannot be used for upgrade, but should they be offered an op-up or something ahead of cheap AM upgrade for non status members? Also, I don't think I've heard of a cheap upgrade in the past, so is this a new policy? Thanks!

News to me

i wonder were AM Y redemptions also offered a further opportunity to opup? Or was it revenue pax only?

Unfortunately I have no idea. Maybe someone else faced a similar situation can share here? But a side note I guess CX549 won't have many Y class redemptions due to the popularity of the route?

My thoughts exactly...and you got it as with Avios as well!

Ahhh! It was not a redemption but a paid ticket. I meant avios cannot be used for upgrade on other oneworld airlines include CX, so perhaps that is the reason why they were not offered a cheap upgrade at that time? But still I don't think I've heard CX giving out cheap AM upgrades instead of op-ups.

Oneworld Ruby is pretty much bottom of the barrel. Not sure why you'd expect them to get an op-up. Surely in 200+ Y seats there'll be someone with higher status than that that'll get the upgrade first.

Perhaps you misunderstood my point. I was not expecting an op-up. I just wonder if instant cheap asiamiles upgrade has replaced op-up in some cases.
Also lining up in Y queue means the person has no status/MPC Green. So I wonder if op-up is given to MPC/Silver or above, then an option to upgrade using AM for non-status members. If this is the case, perhaps even OWE has no op-up?

I understand the Avios angle now. I thought it was currency (already) paid for the ticket but you meant it as an ability to pay.

I think I'm with helvetic here - it's not discrimination by ability to pay.
Rather, OWR is really pretty low on the status pecking order that CX's algorithms may well have determined that a non-status AM member with high CIV and a small co-pay should be treated better than a partner OWR (doesn't CX Green and Premium Economy have their own desk in HND?)
A partner OWS may still be opuped.

This actually makes me think I should cash in my miles back to MPC instead of BAEC. As I mentioned, my flights are mostly on CX, including long haul J and some short haul flights. The reason I choose BA is that I can qualify as OWR easily on BA, but only MPC/Green with the same flights, so I actually get some perks on my other OW flights.

Also, given the same amount of spending on CX, does status matter on CIV score (i.e. MPC Green vs BA OWR)?

Anyways back to this scenario: is it new to offer cheap AM upgrades to almost everyone instead of op-ups?

I don't know how "cumulative" CIV is, but my parents, both GO for a few years in the past but now AM only, got a surprised op-up (both of them) on TPE-KIX earlier this year, from Y to W. Y class has been full for a long time on that flight.

It's still relatively novel. We need more data points on this. Otherwise OWR > Green.

Flying to LHR during CNY time (Late Jan) Noticed my PEY (upgrade from Y) waitlist booking that I made 3 months ago was removed from the Asia miles portal without my knowledge. Had to put myself back on the waitlist for PEY again. Has this happened to anyone? Is this normal?

Waitlist expired? Were you set a deadline when the upgrade waitlist was created?

Ah youre absolutely right
"You can check for your latest flight status through "Your Flights". Please note that your waitlist booking will expire if the flights are not confirmed by 22:00, 23 Dec 2019."
Thanks

My experience: I'm flying CX for the first time today and got an upgrade from the cheapest economy class (N) to business on CX746 BAH-DXB-HKG. Very generous! :-) The flight is overbooked and I'm OWE (IB Platino).

I flew HKG-DXB-HKG twice only and they were a couple years back so I can't say it's a lot of data points. Flights were all full in Y and got op-up to J on all segments. I was "just" CX Silver at that time. The same thing happened to a co-worker on his trips (separate). Sounds like it's fairly common to have an overbooked Y with not many elites on this route and op-up chance is good for anyone with CX/OW status.

I flew BAH-DXB once in business just for #2s and giggles… fun times. I love flying random 5th freedom routes!

HKG DBX corridor is a high Y demand route due to connecting pax from SE Asia working in DBX.