Need urgent advice, My renewal date is 28/Feb, currently SL with 59,084 miles

I'm flying 26th Feb JNB to HKG in D which should earn me 8,288 miles and get me to GO but miles from the last flight won't count to the new year. I lost my GO in 2014/2015 because I was about the same amount short and just in case next years travel plans work out the same way, I don't want to be left without GO because of these 8k miles!

Is there any way to call CX to upgrade me to GO early (i.e. before my flight) so I can get the miles from the JNB-HKG for the next qualifying year.

I thought of another solution which is to do JNB-CPT-JNB on BA (but operated by Kulula) on the 26th morning before the CX flight for about US$500 but I'm not sure if BA flights operated by Kulala earn miles

Any suggestions would be very appreciated!

If you missed by such a small amount for two consecutive years, they may just upgrade you if you call. It won't hurt to call. (If that doesn't work, then you can ask them to extend qualification for a few days so your new miles can be credited.)

I don't think JNB-CPT-JNB gets you any Club Miles. Even if it does, it may still take a few more days to credit.

thanks cxfan but what makes you think i won't get the miles for JNB-CPT-JNB.. I'm trying to find clarification online, but as far as I can see it's not an issue?

Noted the miles may take a few days to post, but I can probably call CX after this to take me to gold once they realize my travel date.

Usually it takes 2 days to update the club miles after the flight taken. As cxfan1960 said, no harm to call cx to ask. If the itinerary already shown on you member's page, it should not be any problem

Yeah I encountered a similar issue a couple of years ago. They seemed happy to give me an extra couple of weeks to get the remaining miles I needed especially as they could see I had the flight already booked.

Kulula is neither a member nor a participating affiliate of the OW alliance.

Even if the Kulula flights are counted, your CX flight may be posted before your Kulula flights. A call to MPC may save you the trouble of guessing.

If time is feasible, I would suggest OP to book a HKG-TPE roundtrip / turn the JNB-HKG into JNB-HKG-TPE (depending on the rebooking fee and stopover rule) and remove the marcopolo number from JNB-HKG segment such that only the HKG-TPE RT segment will get credited within this membership year. Claim the JNB-HKG segment back later.

BA FLTs between JNB and CPT are operated by Comair, a oneworld affiliate and BA franchise. Comair then owns Kulala, which is outside of oneworld. BA FLTs between JNB and CPT are OW FLTs (and CX code-shares on some of them, too).

On BA/Kulula- Just be careful of which flights you book. Some booking systems & Kayak (wrongly) show 'BA operated by Kulula', when those are 'BA operated by Comair' flights. BA64xx flights should be fine for MPC accrual, and Domestic RSA biz fares are quite reasonable (follow BA's accrual rules- so watch out for the fareclasses in coach). However, as the others have mentioned, I doubt if the miles will post in time.

These Comair flights are just like regular BA flights.

http://www.oneworld.com/web/10180/34

https://www.asiamiles.com/am/en/earn/airlines/detail?refID=aabecbae27dea110VgnVCM1000000ad21c39R CRD

MPC cares for the date that the flights post to your account, not the date that you took the flight on.

The advice above is sound- you should ask for an extension of the membership year so that the flights post before status expiry, perhaps mentioning the flights /PNRs that you have already booked, and are likely to post within a few days. I wouldn't be surprised if they just upgraded your tier based on that.

+1 though some MPC agents need to be pushed to realize this- took a bit of time to get them to add these BA flights on a oneworld award recently.

There are other posts on this forum where people had some difficulty with the MPC in getting retro-credit for Comair flights, but got worked out eventually, I think.

Also, I've seen OTA sites showing Kulula flights (MNxxx flight numbers) as 'operated by Comair', which along with some BA flights showing up as 'operated by Kulula' confuses things up a bit.

OP: if you're going down this route, just ensure that you book a BA flight number, and in a fareclass that is eligible for MPC accrual, and you'll be fine (subject to posting dates/extensions that is).

Call CX and they will certainly extend the expiry date a month or two for you, or they might simple let you Gold (pun intended) if only a small point gap (such as yours). I did that two years ago when I was caught between Gold and Diamond.