1.) best way is just talk to the passengers on board.

2.) the ISM technically can find out the payment method, but in practice they have no idea who is miles vs. cash (which are both a form of revenue tickets). To them, basically all revenue tickets are the same. However, all FAs know who is revenue (miles/cash) vs. op-up. FAs also know who are on ID tickets (industry/crew discount tickets).

3.) You can look at the baggage tag. Bags will show a parenthesis "(Z)" when booked under CX's Asia Miles program, whereas they'll show "(F)" if cash. Business class awards are similar, displaying "(U)" on the tag.

I am not sure for #3 how partner awards show up on the baggage tags, aka if you book with your American Airlines miles a CX F award ticket. I assume it displays "(Z)", but I can't confirm for sure.

I usually just ask folks onboard during friendly conversation.

CX Secrets suggests GR priority queue and SL lounge are likely to be axed https://www.facebook.com/cxsecret/posts/813242105420698

I looked at my baggage tags for mileage tickets. Having looked at at least 10 tags, they don't have F, Z or U (I travelled in F and B), they go 0160 CX and some more digits but no alphabets. Why?

Yep, just talked to my wife's friend, internally they are already training their ground staff that in the future GR will no longer have priority boarding and check-in. Also, SL will have limited lounge access (not axed), and the number being floated internally is 4 per year.

How ridiculous was boarding today: EVERYONE WAS IN THE PRIORITY QUEUE.

The whole landscape of FFP is changing globally. Not to mention devaluation of fiat currency like points, sooner or later FFP will become revenue based... as marginal consumers move to best price basis on career selection. Gone will be days where loopholes allow student Y flyers get gold status due to their ultra cheapo hkg jfk runs, and the scheme os revamped to reward those real premium flyers that add to bottomline.

Lets face is, those flying J or F would welcome this change as peasants are no longer welcomed to the exclusive club, which is the way it should be.... Those making noise is the marginal flyers (yes you who grump, keep flying ur seat 45C and stop moaning)

Or be like me.... Moved all my flights to other career... I realized i was captive of false promises under marcopolo... I am free now

As expected really. All FFPs are cutting benefits to the lower end customers, and there must be a lot of CX Silvers out there flying an economy long haul or two per year and getting lounge access.

If they introduce some kind of escalator for status holders / increase the escalators for premium cabins i will switch from BA, as 90% of my flights are on CX anyway.

There are two ways to do this: keep the benefits but make it harder to obtain or more worthwhile for CX to give it, or, kill the benefits and make MPO a lame program like everyone else. Looks like CX is choosing option 2.

How could of CX make this better? For one, get rid of GR tier, just make everyone start as AM, and make it known this is just introductory allowing you to make and burn points, nothing more. Yes, GR getting priority queue and boarding is ridiculous.

How, in my opinion, could CX keep SL benefits but just make it harder to attain? Make mileage accrual harder. Only L fare or above gets 100% miles, V fare gets only 50%, etc. When you have massive amount of people willing to pay $100 USD more per trip to use your lounge, isn't that a win-win? CX seems to love those OW airlines FFP using their lounges because they bring in extra-revenue, isn't this a way to bring in extra revenue and differentiate those loyal CX fliers that are willing to pay the extra bucks to enjoy your extra benefits? Or, when you have someone that is willing to only fly CX exclusively for 4 round trips per year at V fare (ex-NA ports), isn't that worthy to reward them lounge access? That someone chose not to shop for the cheapest fares but opt only to fly with CX?

The biggest losers to this policy change are borderline gold / silvers like me who usually flies 50-60k regularly but can't always make gold.

With more and more middle eastern airlines like EK and TK offering direct flights to TPE, it's time to move on, since with my travel patterns I can definitely make *A gold with either TK or BR. I ll let my MPC membership drop to GR once this new policy hits.

I agree in part. Making mileage accrual harder on economy fares, and easier on premium fares would be the ideal way to go.

There are a number of less painful (for both CX and their SL members) options. Keep the accrual the same, but limit SL lounge access to PEY (or higher) boarding passes. Or limit SL access to HKG lounges only. OTOH with my recent access as a SL, I haven't noticed the lounges being all that full. Remember the SL's aren't going to be causing the overflows in the First lounges.

While the benefits of the QF program are generally not very user friendly, if lounge access is the main goal, obtaining QF Gold for the purposes of lounge access isn't really all that difficult (or expensive) if you can fly intra-Asia J fares and still get the 4 QF group flights per year.

Happy wandering

Fred

As a Z/U class flyer, I do not welcome this change.

At Skyview in SIN I have noticed more people using PP to get in than CX SL in particular.

They have already done this by using S fare.
Also, the lounges will still be crowded under this system as I can access may of the lounges at outports using PP (hint: SIN/YYZ/BOM)

Sadly that won't do much about the crowds in the F lounges .

The priority boarding lines are comical. There's always a few people who cannot / refuse to believe they the left side is actually the F / J line. It doesn't add much time to boarding usually (maybe 2-3 minutes additional at most). It mainly just looks bad.