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.

Quick note, am slightly displeased with CX for pulling a fast one. My waitlist was supposed to expire on 14 Sep (according to the email) but stay alived anyway - fine I thought. A short haul intra-Asia to Cebu, J was all but empty so I was sort of expecting it to get done eventually. However, it just so got approved.... on 1 Oct; which means I got the new mileage upgrade cost deducted. The original ticket was booked on 31st August, and the return leg on the 321neo was confirmed upgrade award straight away.

How convienient for them to charge me a bit more!

Having the same issue for a recently approved upgrade a few days ago. This is mind-numbingly frustrating. I've been back/forth with agents about 4-5 times now, with no progress in sight. My upgrade is still sitting as "ticket not issued", despite being "confirmed", and my previous ticket is still showing as well.

Please update if you are successful. I will likely call them if there's no progress in the next couple of days.

Same here. As the status is confirmed, I am not worrying too much. The service guy (who was actually very friendly) told me that an email will follow about the deduction of miles and until that time I can sit back and relax.

No payment link yet after 4 days. I was also told by agent to sit back and relax until the link comes. Let's see how it goes.

Only concern would be the following:



Despite being confirmed, the status showing as "Ticket Not Issued" is what is raising an eyebrow for me. Based on their e-mail, it seems the upgrade may expire if the ticket is not physically issued by a certain date. This is the first time as being part of this process, so cannot confirm if that's actually true or not.

Just to add another DP: the same as some of the posters above me, my upgrade status says award upgrade confirmed but ticket not issued. Previous tickets along with upgrade tickets also still showing in manage booking online. If it matters for DP, I purchased RT cash fare for tickets in Y and called in to upgrade with miles after confirming PE award availability. Here’s how my calls went:

1. first call agent said they’d process the upgrade and to have miles in my account for the upgrade. They said in 72hrs I’d get an email updating me on the confirmation of my upgrade. At this point manage tickets already showed upgrade tickets confirmed but ticket not issued. I transferred miles into account immediately after hanging up.

2. second call 72hrs later, agent said upgrade was already confirmed and miles will be deducted from account and ticket issued, no estimated timeline on events. Miles still sitting in account.

3. 1 week later, agent said there was an issue on the “ticketing office” side of things but not to worry, the upgrade is already confirmed and miles will be deducted at time of ticket issuing. However when asked for timeline, they said exact timing unknown but likely a couple weeks before check in date (which for me is Feb 2024)

Update from my side: contacted an agent, he told me I had to confirm the recent upgrade changes (i.e. 19.5k miles rather than 17k in my case). I told him that was fine, and in return he said that the ticket issuing team will provide the ticket later. Again, told me not to worry. I do wonder however, why they didn't proactively ask me about the mileage change.

Hello..
Could i ask if availability of redemption class (U for example) is shared across full redemptions and upgrades?

I was looking at a KULSYD on CX and redemption in U is available, but the call centre agent said the upgrade from R to U on HKGSYD is not available (waitlisted). KULHKG is open.

Update for my ticket. Upgrade was “confirmed”, ticket not issued on Sep 30. Was issued a new e-ticket today in the upgraded cabin.

Been trying to read through all the replies on wait-listing. Have a early Jan flight from SFO back to HKG currently booked in Economy. We have been wait-listed for PE for 3/4 months now. From all the answers I see two categories:

1. It clears around this time 1-2 months before departure
2. It clears just before departure

And there is not much point in calling Cathay to try to push the waitlist to clear? As last option quite often at the check-in counter one can request upgrade successfully.

Is all this correctly understood? Currently there are more than 9 PE seats available for purchase on my flight, seems likely there will be available seats then, as its not really business travel season just after NYE..