This isn't an upgrade. It is "Y" class in CX eyes and anyone who can select priority seats can snag those.

Low risk except for aircraft swap.

Long time lurker, first time poster. Hoping for some guidance on the possibility of upgrading using Asia Miles on an upcoming trip.

A few months ago partner and I bought V and S class tickets from HK to Australia in December. We're now wondering if we could waitlist J by calling the Marco Polo hotline (we're both super lowly greens). Do we have to pay for the booking class difference before waitlisting?

Any advice would be appreciated!

welcome to the forum.

unfortunately, you have two problems.

1.) I don't think MPC will permit you to waitlist for the award upgrade without holding the proper subclass first.
2.) I'm not sure about V, but definitely S class will have restrictions / penalties that probably make it impossible to upfare without serious haggling (and even then, I'm not sure if possible). The general response they will give you is you must pay whatever refund penalty and rebook in the new class.

Thanks for your reply, QRC3288! Had no idea that rebooking would be required in order to upgrade from S class. Guess we're staying in economy then.

Actually, there is more just to be clear as to why this isn't possible.

You cannot upgrade any Y sub-fare class to J on a route with PEY, which is basically every medium and long-haul route. So the best you could do is Y->PEY.

But even if you could, only Y, B, H, K and M are eligible for upgrade using Asia Miles.

S is a heavily discounted ticket. As part of the "deal" for selling you this type of ticket, they're *usually* nonrefundable. This means even upgrading it to a higher sub-fare class is not possible.

Thanks for explaining things in detail. Question about only being able to upgrade Y->PEY: a search on Asia Miles website indicates a one-way upgrade from economy to business for HKG to SYD is 28k miles. So that is not do-able in practice? (sorry would've included a screen cap but couldn't since I'm a new member).

just to make clear:

Only 1 class upgrades are allowed. PEY exists on all flights to Australia, without exception.

It's black and white. Zero chance, sorry.

(and unfortunately, it's also not possible for the other reasons above).

All clear now, thank you so much QRC3288 and SLGO!

My mother was booked into PEY - but was reissued a new boarding pass for a seat in business (she was apparently offered the seat because the recline for her own was broken). Any idea if she would be allowed into the lounges (at HKG if that matters) with her new boarding pass?

Technically she's not allowed in. Op-ups do not get lounge privileges.

Practically, it may very well work.

​​​​​​She's most likely to be tripped up when they scan her BP and they realize she's op up. Because she won't be issued a lounge invite so that's how she'll have to gain entry, via scan as is the case with anyone lacking an invite (with the lounge invite, you just hand to them in lieu of a scan). Worth a shot though if she doesn't have any qualms about being rejected.

Yes, that was my guess as well.

I figure it might be worth a shot and since my grandmother who is traveling with her (booked into Business) was going to head there anyways, it would be worth it for her to try to scan her boarding pass.

Not sure if that's only my personal experience, but when I went to the Bridge, I'd say 30% of the time they didn't scan my BP especially when there were many people waiting to be admitted. (Maybe due to status so they don't need to scan the bp to confirm invitation.)

At other lounges they scan my BP every single time.