Is there a minimum time you have to wait after making a cash booking before you can upgrade with Asia Miles? I've just booked Economy seats on flights that have Premium Economy redemption availability, but when I rang up Cathay they said that there is only waitlist availability, but also told me that upgrades and award flights come from the same inventory. So it makes no sense that I can see availability for a new booking but only waitlist for an upgrade... Unless I have to wait?

Also, I tried the "ring up and get a booking put on hold" as suggested in the wiki on this thread, but got stuck in an endless loop being passed between the new bookings team ("we can't process the upgrade, you need to speak to the awards team") and the awards team ("you need a confirmed booking before we can process your upgrade"). What a waste of time...

Cabin class upgrades are from a different fare code bucket than straight award tix in that cabin.

All my J and PEY upgrades are cleared at gate or while I am in the lounge.

I think the only minimum time required is for the ticket to issue (which if bought on CX website is usually instant).

I agree with [MENTION=239882]tentseller[/MENTION]’s comment. Upgrade inventory and straight redemption come out of a different bucket, even though they will both ticket in the T(PEY)/U(J) fare class.

I think some of the info on the wiki above might be slightly out of date. There had been quite a few policy changes re: upgrades/redemptions/waitlists in the past few years.

I have always wondered, for airport upgrade redemption, do we require T/U class availability or is it solely governed by unsold/unfilled seats at flight closes.

The odd times I had to wait till the airport to redeem my upgrades (due to no upgrade availability beforehand), it seemed to me that the upgrade clears based on empty seats and not T/U class availability. But I always wonder whether this is the actual policy.

Thanks for the replies, interesting to know that upgrade inventory and basic award inventory are not the same - that's the opposite of what I was told by the CX call centre but I think I trust FT wisdom more!

So if I'm currently waitlisted for a miles upgrade from Economy to PEY for my flights in October, is the most likely outcome that the upgrade would clear very close to/on the day of the flight? Or is there a reasonable chance that CX might release the inventory further in advance? Apologies for the basic questions, this is the first time I've redeemed on CX.

Officially, T/U/Z class availability is required. See https://www.cathaypacific.com/cx/en_...ade-award.html

Nevertheless, my experience aligns with yours. I suppose they will just make a seat available in award class if needed at the airport.

Data points within last 10 months, all from Y/Y+ to J:
HKG-LAX: waitlist cleared around 2 months before departure
HKG-YVR: waitlist never cleared though flight was open up until day of departure. Upgrade confirmed at check-in
LAX-HKG: waitlist never cleared. Flight about 85-90% full in J. Upgrade requested at check-in desk and confirmed at gate.
HKG-HKT-HKG: waitlist cleared about 1-2 months before departure

BIrthday upgrade still available?
 

Does CX still offer birthday upgrade? If yes, does it make any difference if you are on revenue ticket or redemption ticket? For the 5-6 consecutive years pre-pandemic, I always got birthday upgrades, though they did not always offer it automatically and voluntarily. Sometimes I had to ask/remind them but if spaces were available then, they always gave me an upgrade ( I was Gold/Diamond then).

See my post 3 months ago: https://www.flyertalk.com/forum/cath...l#post35169768

New to this thread, is it possible to upgrade from PEY to J if the fare class is E? I checked CX website that it is not eligible for “bookable upgrades” but not sure if it means upgrade at counter is also not eligible.

Do you mean upgrade at counter using cash or miles? If using miles, no.

How about using cash? I haven’t done this before and I saw some youtube videos that you have to wait for the check-in counter to open and ask for an upgrade.

If you are willing to pay cash then the underlying ticket should not matter as much. CX does not have a published policy on airport cash upgrades though. Only limited anecdotal data points are occasionally reported here. Don't expect it to be cheap. It could just be calculating the difference between your original ticket and the business class fare. Airport agents may also not have enough time to process if you arrive close to check-in cut-off. You may as well try to buy a Business class ticket straightaway or change your existing ticket to a Business one. Availability may be better.

Hi All

Does Cathay Pacific do any complimentary upgrade from Oneword emerald members. Planning to book DEL - HKG - DPS and desire to get upgraded on the DEL - HKG leg. i dont have an membership with Cathey Pacific but do have AA miles and Plat-pro status. The other option is go BOM - CMB - KUL - DPS on Malaysian Airways

Thanks
Prem

No. Your only chance is op-up if the lower cabin is oversold. I believe MH will not give you any kind of complimentary upgrade, either.

I disagree. I was in the exact scenario last year whereby I had a PE ticket in a booking class which was ineligible for an upgrade.

I arrived at the check in desk well in advance and asked if I could upgrade with miles. Check-in agent said we could first pay a small fee to upgrade the fare class itself to an eligible PE fare class, and then pay the corresponding difference in Asia Miles to upgrade to Business.

She was very helpful in spending half an hour to contact back office/MPC to process this - but maybe I was just lucky that time.

Sure, of course you can pay to upgrade an E class ticket to a R class one by paying the fare difference and penalty (if applicable). Then, you can use miles to upgrade from an R class ticket if a business seat is available. In this case, you used cash and miles, not miles alone. When I said, "If using miles, no," of course I meant using miles alone, not changing the underlying revenue ticket to a different class first.

Work is sending me an economy light ticket for travel later in August. When purchased can I manage my booking online and upgrade myself to business using my credit card? The ac is a three class a350 with PE, if that makes a difference re upgrade.

Possibly, at counter, like kevinchoi1997 above

Umm, I don't think you can do that on MMB, but you can potentially call CX and ask to pay the difference to Business class, change fee, and service fee (if originally a TA ticket).

LAX-HKG Mileage Upgrades
 

Flying LAX-HKG on Sept 3rd, booked in R, waitlisted for AM upgrade.

Any recent anecdotal references on these upgrades?

I know outright mileage redemptions are scarce (to say the least), but hopefully mileage upgrades are still happening if J seats remain open. (Flight is currently J9C9D0).

What is the best strategy to try and get an upgrade with miles from PE to J? I would be very bummed out to get a PE ticket eligible for upgrade (i.e. Flex fare) only to find out that an upgrade is not possible. Would calling them upfront help? For what it's worth, it would be for a route that doesn't seem to be too popular, Delhi to HK.

QQ, I have a Essential/Flex short haul and I've requested the upgrade by miles. I checked for straight redemption and both were clear, so I punched in the upgrade straight after booking the eco ticket... and immediately learned the existence of different buckets :D.
Now I have a "Waitlist" [outbound] and "On hold --> Confirmed" [inbound, 2 seats!] booking, no miles have been taken. I know what the outbound J is wide open (my companion is the only other person, unless the two baby seats are really taken, so 21-23 seats / 24 free).

Is this a situation you'd expect to clear up? If the waitlist leg isn't confirmed, do they upgrade the semi-confirmed leg separately? The expiration is 14 Sep apparently (fligtht is Nov).

If useful info for anyone, the flight showed J4 at checkin and at the counter I was able to process a mileage upgrade from Y+ to J with no issues.

Anecdotal reference for CX548 in September 2023: placed on waitlist for Y+ to J mileage upgrade for several months. Waitlist deadline set about 4 days before departure. Waitlist cleared mere hours before the deadline. Kind of unexpected and was prepared for the waitlist to expire without clearing and having to ask at the check-in counter on the day of departure.

Hi, long time lurker. I am traveling SFO-HKG at the end of the month
Looks like Cathay hasn't been releasing any J seats even days before the flight nowadays.

So I am thinking about trying to get put on the waitlist to upgrade award Y+ to J but I guess a question would be is it even possible to upgrade given that I have Fare Class T tickets. Also don't really want to transfer points and end up not being able to upgrade so its looking like the best choice is to just go a little early and try to upgrade at check in?

If you have a T class ticket, you redeemed miles for the ticket. Upgrade awards are not applicable to mileage-redemption ticket. Your only hope is for U class to open up for whichever programme you redeemed from and then change your T class to a U class one.

Just spoke to a Cathay agent via their Chat function and they mentioned that my chances of a redemption upgrade (PEY to J) are low given there are not many J class seats available and they are all for the highest price at the moment. My waitlist redemption expires 5.00pm on September 16...should I even bother trying again from Sept 16 onwards?

Flight is CX888
Sept 20 00:45
HKG to YVR

Hey, bumping my own question for any advice you have. Thanks a bunch in advance!

Unfortunately not much you can do if waitlist doesn't clear before expiring even if you keep calling to check for availability. From that point on your hopes are pinned on the check-in staff being able to release an upgrade for you at check-in counter subject to on the spot availability.

So my waiting expiration was marked in the email as "22:00, 14 Sep 2023". But it has not yet expired in the system.... the confirmed return leg still has two seats and nothing is altered as far as I can see. Is something amiss? Should I chase them up?

So all my requests for upgrade were denied prior to the flight. I took my MNL-HKG flight (Cx902) and went to the service desk near gate 4/5 to speak to the CX agent. They said redemption upgrade seats were available and they processed it right then and there.


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Recent SIN-HKG data point. Y to J waitlist never cleared. Flight full on the day and remained in Y.

Is there a way to contact the miles/upgrade team over phone directly? By means of the regular CX service line, the wait time seems to be very long (30+ mins) and after the wait the line even dropped once. Thanks.

I find using the chat bot and requesting to talk to an agent the quickest way to reach a human at CX nowadays.

Thanks, will try

Am I just missing something with upgrade awards...? I have spent now 3 hours trying to accept a confirmed upgrade.

First, decided to open an online chat - and they had no clue what I was talking about. The rep eventually just said, "we apologize for any misunderstanding about your award upgrade, but it is currently waitlisted". Tried to HUCA with chat... then got someone who asked how they could help, and then just didn't respond ever again. Finally, a third time, got another rep who eventually transferred me to some sort of higher-up/other department, and they processed my upgrade, saying I'll receive a new ticket confirmation within 1-2 hours.

We're now about 12 hours later, and still nothing received. Upgrade tickets are showing as not issued still in the account. Called in again, and the agent was also absolutely clueless. Eventually, we got to "processing the upgrade" (again), and she said I would have to pay taxes, but wasn't sure how much. Eventually settled on me receiving some sort of e-mail within 24 hours for everything to process.

Really not sure why this is so damn difficult. Should I just wait the 24 hours and see what happens?

What does a confirmation of a successful upgrade through miles look like? I received the following in my mailbox but "Manage Booking" still shows a waitlist status for my upgrade request. Thanks.

It pops up like this under Manage Booking:
https://cimg3.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.fly...3f75e4657b.png

Update: resulting from this mail, I had a chat with the service team over WhatsApp yesterday. They indicated the upgrade request was successful and that they processed everything on their side yesterday. Still shows as "waitlist" under Manage Booking, though.

Issuing tickets for upgrades have not been entirely hassle free post COVID. For my most recent mileage upgrade, I had to go through below procedures to issue the ticket.
Day 1: Called agent to check availability upon purchasing revenue ticket. Agent advised upgrade available and helped me reserve the seat in the upgraded class, ticket will be issued in due course. Perfect! I thought.
Day 2: The old ticket in the underlying class is still appearing under Manage My Booking along with the new ticket in the upgraded class. I called CX to ask what's going on. After digging into the history of my ticket, they told me I still had to pay $70HKD of taxes to issue the ticket for the upgrade. The whole call took 20 mins including a wait time of around 3 minutes.
Day 2 continued: Couple of hours later, there was still no payment link in my email so I called again to ask. They told me payment link will be sent within 24 hours
Day 3: Still no payment link yet and we are hours away from the 24 hour mark.

My previous mileage upgrade experiences have not been entirely different to the experience detailed above. I am surprised at how much hassle it takes to do something as simple as confirming a mileage upgrade. Hopefully one day we would be able to get this done entirely online under Manage My Booking and not have to involve calling or chatting with agents upon receiving the "your waitlist has been confirmed" notification.